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Transcript

"The Verse Everybody Knows... And What It Really Means" by Neal Pollard · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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Good morning. I hope
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at 6 o'clock tonight that you will make it your business to be back here.
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We are blessed with a robust and growing group of
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those that we call the crew, those who are in the college age group attending
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college or perhaps already out into the workforce, but in that same stage of life.
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We do this on many of our 5th Sundays as we have
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either our high schoolers or those who have already graduated
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and are in that crew group who lead our worship. And we have 3
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of our young men who are going to be preaching lessons from
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the general theme of Jesus the Master Teacher. And so
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I know you will want to encourage them and you will be encouraged as
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a result of your having been here.
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You know, it's very difficult for you to read online, maybe news
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media or news articles, without seeing this come up.
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This verse is used all the time with
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regard to some potential controversy or something where it seems that
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people have made up their minds without having all the facts,
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or at least that would be what was presented.
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Judge not. That you be not judged.
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I noticed that there were several articles that either had this in the title or
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in the byline just in recent times on
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subjects as diverse as Olympic skiing or
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with regard to the history of transgenderism or Justin
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Timberlake's DWI arrest or
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the Alaskan Bush People in some burglary charge.
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Or someone who is a star on the show Impractical
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Jokers. It comes back around.
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We see it all the time. Judge not that
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you be not judged. I think one of the challenges that
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I face in preaching a lesson like this is that the words are too familiar.
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And what does Jesus really mean when he says it?
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What we want to do is to set it into its context. This is
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something that Jesus is saying as part of the greatest sermon that was
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ever preached. And Jesus is reaching toward the conclusion of
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that sermon. And if you really want to know what Jesus is trying to
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say as the thesis of his sermon, I really believe that
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you've got to go to Matthew chapter 5 and verse 20 where Jesus is speaking
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to those who would follow him and he would say, unless your righteousness
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exceeds that of the Pharisees, you will in no wise enter into
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the kingdom of heaven. And so Jesus is talking about how
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do you have true righteousness? And we want to be right in
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God's eyes. And so Jesus goes about to
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fulfill that objective. Now, there are several things
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that we see as we walk through that sermon. And one of the things is,
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is that Jesus in this sermon uses the phrase
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do not repeatedly. If my math is
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right, 22 times in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is
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going to say that. He'll say, do not let your left hand know what
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your right hand is doing. He will say,
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do not use vain trumpet repetitions. Do not sound a
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trumpet before you. He'll say, do not lay up for yourselves treasures
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on earth. He'll say, do not worry.
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And then he'll say the words that we read in our text, do not
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judge so that you will not be judged.
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For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged. And with what standard of
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measurement you use, it shall be used against you.
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If you see a brother and you say, see the speck
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in your own— in your eye, and you do not behold the beam that is
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in your own eye, you hypocrite! First take the beam that
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is in your eye out so that you can see the speck that is
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in your brother's eye. Do not give what is holy to the dogs,
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and do not cast your pearls before swine, else they
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will trample them under their feet, and they will turn and they will tear you.
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Matthew chapter 7, verse 1 through 6. He uses
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that phrase, 3 times here, but it's that first verse
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that we know best. Judge not that
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you be not judged. Now, that word judge that we see there is
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a word that means to think. It means to consider, or it
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means to come to a conclusion. And when we see
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this word in the New Testament, we have to understand that it falls into at
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least 2 categories, that sometimes there is a judgment
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that we are forbidden to do. As we see in this verse.
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There is a judgment that we'll talk about this morning in this lesson,
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and the Lord doesn't want us doing this. He's going to say it again through
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James. And James is often reflecting back, it seems, on the Sermon on the Mount.
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And in James 4:10-11, he says,
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there is one lawgiver and one judge. Who are you to judge your
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brother? And so Jesus will say, there's some judging I don't want you participating
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in. And then there is a judgment that
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we are encouraged to do. While we might look at
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a passage like John 7:24, look, there's 2 kinds here.
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He says, do not judge according to appearances,
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but judge righteous judgment. John 7:24.
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He says, will you not judge rightly? Luke 12:57.
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And with regard to the church's obligation to honor the
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Lord's will and to purge out the leaven that doesn't belong. He says,
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you're to judge those who sin among the church, 1 Corinthians 5:12.
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Now let's think about the contrast that exists that
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sets the background of our lesson. On the one hand, we'll find ourselves
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in a situation where the world will say, if you
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say that anything, literally anything that I do is
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wrong, then Jesus is condemning you in this
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passage. But don't miss the fact that on the other side of this,
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that Jesus would say to those, even those who would be His
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followers, you can unfairly and
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unrighteously judge.
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And so, with all the controversy that exists, at least in
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our day, it pays for us to go back into this text that
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we've already seen together. And I hope you'll open your Bibles to Matthew 7:1-5.
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We'll do our very best to stay right here for the majority of this lesson.
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And I want us to unpack that and see what Jesus teaches us
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and see if we can't strike that biblical ground that
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God wants us to with regard to this. For that purpose,
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I want us just to notice 3 things. The first thing I
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want us to notice is the process of unrighteous judgment.
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I think you'll find as we walk through the text that Jesus shows
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us that this is something that progresses. It starts in
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one place and then it winds up somewhere else.
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And I don't think it's the case that anybody ever wakes up in the morning
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and says, I think I'm going to go out and unfairly and
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unrighteously judge somebody. I don't think it works that way.
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And yet, as we go through Scripture, we see that sin
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is always progressive.
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Progressive, not in the sense that it makes progress, but that it grows and it
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metastasizes and it moves from where it begins.
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James lines that out for us. You remember in James chapter 1 and
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verse 13 when he says, let no man say when he is tempted, I am
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tempted of God, for God does not tempt man of evil, neither is he himself
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tempted, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of
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his own lust and is enticed. And lust, when it has
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conceived, brings forth sin, and sin, when it is finished,
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brings forth death. James 1:13-15. Now take
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that idea and walk through scripture for just a moment and see
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if that's not the case. Here's Eve in the Garden of Eden
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before sin has even entered into the world, and she entertains the serpent
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and she listens to him and she sees the
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fruit and she touches the fruit and she takes the
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fruit and eats it and she gives it to her husband. She shifts the
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blame. And then she is punished. But as we continue to march through the Bible,
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the next perhaps clear example of this we see is Lot.
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Lot and Abraham are standing out over the plains and Abraham
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gives Lot the first choice and Lot makes a selfish choice.
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And the Scripture tells us that they go literally and figuratively down
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into Sodom and Lot loses his family. And after he
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loses his family, he gets drunk, he commits incest.
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And out of this, he helps to start 2 wicked nations.
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There's Joseph's brothers. They hate him.
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They envy him. They mistreat him and they sell
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him into slavery. Or there's Achan. Achan, in his own words, who says,
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I saw, I coveted, I took, and I hid.
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There's David. And when David does what he does, he breaks
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the 8th, the 7th, the 6th, and then the 5th commandment.
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There's Herod. Herod enters into an adulterous marriage.
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He lusts after his stepdaughter, and then he makes a rash
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vow, and then he commits murder. And that's not to say anything about Judas
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and about the prodigal son and about Ananias and Sapphira,
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and on and on it goes. It starts here and it winds
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up here. And all of us need to recognize that
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this can happen in our own lives, that we can allow sin to grow.
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Maybe it's one sin and maybe we think we have it under control, and before
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you know it, progresses beyond our ability to get our arms around it.
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Now we think about that perhaps with some red-letter sins that we might say
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these are big deals. These are the who's who like we've just
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seen in some of the instances we saw, murder, adultery. But apply
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this to what Jesus says in Matthew 7:1-5,
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the process of unrighteous judgment. Now what I want to do is
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I want to, if you will allow me respectfully and reverently, to put
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some words in Jesus's mouth. He is saying this.
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Let's put it in the first person. That someone who might be
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in the process of becoming an unjust judge will have to,
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at least in principle, say these things. The first
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thing that he says in his mind is, I think,
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verse 1 and 2. Jesus doesn't use those words
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in this particular text, but notice what happens here.
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The person judges and the person applies
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a standard, a measurement, on someone.
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And so where unrighteous judgment begins is in the heart and in
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the mind. And what we may not be able to recognize
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sometimes is that when we are forming that judgment in our
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mind, we are doing so from a place of ill will. And maybe
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we're looking for that which will confirm the very unjust thing
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that is forming in our mind. And so Jesus says, you want to
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know where it begins? It's in your thoughts. And of course, the Bible tells us
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how important it is for us to keep our thoughts under control.
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I think Now notice what Jesus shows next. I see.
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There is a great emphasis in this text on seeing.
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You'll notice that Jesus talks about seeing and taking notice.
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Now the word there that is used, see, is a word that Jesus is going
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to be using repeatedly in the course of this sermon. It means to
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take very close notice of, to look to such a degree
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that one can analyze. Now notice how Jesus uses
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that elsewhere. It's the word Jesus uses to talk about
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if someone looks upon a woman to lust after her, to look
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closely enough that unrighteous thoughts begin to form, Matthew 5:28.
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It's the same word that Jesus is going to use to
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speak of the Father as He's analyzing why we do what we do.
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He says, your Father sees in secret. He uses it that
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way in Matthew 6:4, 6, and 18.
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And so Jesus says, here is the person who sees a
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speck that's in his brother's eye. That's what he's doing. He's looking down
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so closely. Jesus uses another word.
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He says, take notice. It's parallel to see clearly.
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Now this is to look so carefully that it engages our
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heart and that it should matter to us and begin to shape us and
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to move and And if change is needed, that it makes that
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happen. But do you notice who Jesus wants to be taking notice
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and of what and seeing clearly?
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Jesus wants the one who may be struggling with this progress or process
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of unrighteous judgment to take that kind of close notice in
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themselves, to see clearly in themselves and
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to do the yeoman's work that's needed to get to a better place
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to judge. Someone else. But the unjust judge
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gets this backwards. They analyze with emotion
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the one who is the object of their judgment,
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and they look at themselves in a much less critical way.
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They look at themselves like James speaks in James 1:23-24.
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They look at themselves in a mirror and then go their way, and they
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immediately forget what manner of person that they are. Jesus says, don't do that.
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And we'll say more about that later in the lesson. And so I think,
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and out of my thinking, I see, and I'm seeing with the thoughts that I've
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already been forming. And then what do I do? Naturally, I'm going to say something.
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I'm going to feel the need to express to
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you what I've been thinking and what I've been seeing.
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Notice that what's in the heart, we speak out of that which fills the
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heart, Matthew 12:34. And then this process
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is not done because we can say at least in principle that the person is
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saying, I do. It strikes
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me that the unjust judge that Jesus is painting the picture of through
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this illustration does not go up and humbly ask, hey,
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may I help you with the speck that's in your eye? There's other problems,
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but he doesn't even do that. He says, let me do it. I'm going to
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do it because I have been thinking about your problem.
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I have been seeing your problem, which confirms what I've been thinking. And boy,
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I got to say something about it. It and I'm going to make sure I
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intervene until I take care of it. That's how
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sin progresses in our lives.
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It was Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher who said,
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watch your thoughts, they become your words.
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Watch your words, they become your actions. Watch your actions,
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they become your habits. Watch your habits, they become your character and watch
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your character because it becomes your destiny.
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Jesus wants us to get down to root causes. And with
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regard to unrighteous judgment, there is a process that is
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always at play that we've got to recognize.
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Now, having said that, I want us to second acknowledge that there are some problems
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with unrighteous judgment. As Jesus
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lays this out, I'm sure I'm not being exhaustive, but I want us
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to think about at least 3 of the problems. The first
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problem that comes in trying to judge others when it's un— and as
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we're trying to determine, is this righteous or not, is that we
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all suffer from biases.
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Jesus says as much. I look at what you're dealing with and
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I know it's a speck and I have a beam,
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but I'm looking more carefully at your speck, your little fleck,
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than I am at this huge log that's coming out of my eye.
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What would cause us to do that? If not
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bias? You know, it seems to me that in bias we
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are going to be much more apt to excuse
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our loved ones or ourselves than
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we are the same thing in others. I know
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this is outdated and very simplistic, but I read an illustration
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about a woman whose daughter and whose son got married within a month's time
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of one another. And somebody asked her how that was all going.
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And she talked first about her daughter's marriage.
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And she said, oh, what a wonderful husband that he is. He lets her sleep
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in every day. And he insists that she goes to the
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salon, the beauty shop at least once a month. And she— he
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won't let her cook. And he'll take her out to eat every night.
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But my son doesn't have it so well. His wife
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sleeps in, lazy girl that she is, till late.
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And you know what? She insists that she go to the salon to have her
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hair done, and she won't cook, and she makes him take her
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out to eat all the time. Now, I ask you, what's the difference between the
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two? One is how the in-law is treating
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the one that she loves or the one that she thinks is getting abused.
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You know, when it comes to biases, we all suffer. There are tests
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that say that we act differently when we're looking at someone based
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on their body type. Are they heavy or are they thin?
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Are they black or are they white? Are they male or are they female?
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But even the bias tests so often are skewed.
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But Jesus is revealing that we have an unbiased judge
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who sees all things perfectly. But one of the
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problems with unjust judgment is we have a natural bias that
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we've got to watch. But another problem with unrighteous
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judgment is that we struggle with hypocrisy. This we
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don't have to guess because Jesus comes right out and he says it in verse
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5. He says, you hypocrites. And I want you to think
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about how hypocrisy impacts unrighteous judgment as we see it in scripture.
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First of all, hypocrisy may show itself by deflecting attention from
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ourselves to others. Can you
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think of a Bible example of that? Seems to be in John chapter 12.
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There's Mary who has made this expensive sacrifice
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and she takes this ointment and she anoints Jesus who's about to go
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and be crucified. And it's Judas that speaks out in criticism and
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he says, why was this not sold for 300 denarii
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and given to the poor? This he said not because he was concerned for the
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poor, but because he was a thief. And as he had controlled the money
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box, he would often pilfer the things that were put into it.
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Sometimes what we'll do is, is if we can put the focus on
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the faults of others, maybe they won't look quite so closely
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at what's going on with us. You see how hypocrisy leads to
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unrighteous judgment? Maybe we are deflecting, or maybe what we're doing
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is we're justifying our own sins or soothing our
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own conscience. In Romans 2:1,
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Paul asked the Jews and he says, you who condemn
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others, do you not do those things yourself?
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Ever found yourself there? That you found yourself critical of
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someone else and yet that very fault existed in you.
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Isn't it helpful to try to find apathetic people if you
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yourself are wrestling with apathy or unfriendly folks
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if you yourself are not practicing friendliness the way the Bible does in that the
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hypocrisy of this. But there's also the idea of building ourselves up
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by tearing other people down.
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That can be so much a part of the hypocrisy of unrighteous judgment.
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However it comes into our lives, we've got to
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guard against it because it is such a problem.
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But another problem that comes with unrighteous judgment is
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that we struggle with a distorted view. We see this in
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verse 5 because there's a look at the brother and there's the look at ourselves.
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When I preached in Denver, occasionally we would have professional athletes
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that were members of the church and that were— attend the congregation.
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Seemed like we had more baseball players than others. And one was Jeff Baker.
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He was a utility infielder. He played with the Rockies
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and was later traded to the Cubs. And I kept up with him. And when
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he was a Cub— now he suffered from ocular migraines. I don't know if any
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of you have ever had that before. But ocular migraine doesn't necessarily
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come with a headache where you have to go into a dark room, but it
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can be for somebody like Jeff even more dangerous. He was playing third
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base in a game against the Dodgers, and a batter named Russell
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Martin came to the plate, and he hit a screaming line drive right at
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Jeff, but he was suffering from an ocular migraine. He lost vision in
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one eye. Thankfully, he heard it, and he didn't move.
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Just a few feet from his head, that ball whizzed by.
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If he had moved or reacted in some way, it might have done serious
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injury or even killed him. Because there was a problem,
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it gave him a distorted view.
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And at the heart of what Jesus is saying here is unrighteous
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judgment is going to distort our view of things for
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at least a few reasons. First of all, because we never fully know the facts
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of the situation. We don't know the circumstances.
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That are involved. Yes, maybe we hear that baby
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that's crying or that, that toddler's tantrum. We ask
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ourselves, do we know if those parents even were given any kind
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of training or any kind of background with regard to knowing how to care for
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children? Does that child have a medical condition? Are those parents
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overwhelmed? Are they looking and needing some help? There may be
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a dozen facts involved in a situation that we don't know. We never
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have all the facts. Very rarely, if we ever do.
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I was reading about in May in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that there was a
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girl who contacted her dad and said that she had been the victim of a
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sexual assault. And the dad was so outraged that he left home with his
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loaded firearm. And when he got there and he assessed
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things, he saw a man there. He shot the man he thought was the attacker,
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but this was a Good Samaritan who had stepped in and had intervened
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and was trying to protect the girl. You know, snap judgments
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very rarely make sound judgments. And so Jesus would
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say, in the spiritual realm, let's be careful because we don't always have
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all the facts in the situation. But another thing
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that should help us with regard to this distorted view is that all we see
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is the outward person. We don't know what's going on inside. We don't know their
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intentions. We don't know their motives. We don't know their hidden battles. We don't
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know their desires.
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Jesus says, make sure that you exercise righteous judgment,
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but let's make sure that we are.
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Eliab is a great example of this. Do you remember in 1 Samuel chapter 17,
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Israel's fretting about Goliath and nobody is ready to take
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up arms, but here comes David with his passion and his love for God.
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And as he comes down into the battle, he wants to know, hey, what'll happen
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to the guy who takes him on? And Eliab, the older brother who's known
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David all of his life, he says, hey, who have you left those few sheep
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with in the wilderness? I know the insolence and the wickedness of
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your heart. You have only come down here to see the battle.
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Hey, was Eliab right? Not according to God.
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God had just looked down into his heart just before this in
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1 Samuel 13:14 and says, here is a man after
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my own heart. Oh, that's the problem with unrighteous
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judgment is we don't know what's going on inside of others.
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The problem with unrighteous judgment is that it blinds us to
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our own faults. And when that happens,
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it makes it harder for us to repent and to confess. 1 John
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1:8 and verse 10. It also blinds
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us to the good that's in others and it keeps
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us from being happy. How happy can you be if you're feeding yourself
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a steady diet of negativity? And so as Jesus is helping
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us to distinguish in judgment, he says,
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you've got to see what the problems are. But finally,
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and of course, as Jesus always would do, he'd never just leave us hanging like
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that. Aren't you thankful that both in this text and in the context that
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Jesus gives us a prescription for unrighteous judgment?
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It's a sickness. It's a problem. And so what can
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we do? Preventatively to keep it from happening or
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proactively if it's happened and we've got to do something about it.
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Look at what Jesus shows us. First of all, what you got to do is
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practice self-examination.
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Jesus drives the judge back into himself or
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herself and says, I want you to look clearly
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at yourself. You know, there's a word used in the New Testament that
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23 times it's a word that means to test or to prove
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or to analyze or to examine. It's the word to describe what we just
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did in the Lord's Supper a few moments ago. 1 Corinthians 11:28,
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sometimes we read it, so let a man examine himself.
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In Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 10, we are to understand
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what the will of God is. Or in 1 Peter chapter
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1 and verse 7, that the testing of your faith may
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be found to be praise and glory to God. Now sometimes that
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word is used for us to use on others. Test the spirits
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whether they be of God. 1 John 4:1. But with
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the personal pronoun and the imperative, it's to be used on us.
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Examine yourself. 2 Corinthians 13:5.
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Prove your own work. Galatians 6:4.
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And so the first thing that will help us is to actively do
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a close, deep dive on what's going on inside of
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us. Examine yourself. Number 2,
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practice brotherly love. Does it— is
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it remarkable to you that in these 5 verses Jesus twice uses the word brother?
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And really, it doesn't matter if it's a brother in Christ or a brother
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in Adam. The principle is the same because there we
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see this principle that we have— we're in the same family. Acts chapter
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17 and verse 26. Or if we're in Christ, Ephesians chapter 1
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and verse 3, we have the same Father and that ought to soften our view
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of our brother. And then we can practice the golden rule.
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In verse 12, Jesus says, treat other people the way
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you want to be treated, for this is the law and the prophets. What if
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you took the word treat out and put in the word judge? Judge others.
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Wouldn't that change the way that we look? If we
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Actively thought, I am going to think about— I'm going to
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treat them the way if they were in my position, I would
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want them empathetically to look at me.
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Then number 4, ask God to help you when you're struggling
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with this sin. Matthew 7:7, Jesus will say,
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ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and you shall find. I don't
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think it's just confined to what we're looking at here, but it's the next
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verse. Is that a coincidence? You're not stuck
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in unrighteous judgment. Maybe you have a problem with negativity.
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Maybe you find yourself very often looking for those specks
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through those bean-colored glasses, but you don't have to stay there.
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You can ask God and he will help and then look
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for the good in others. If you can be speck detectors,
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you can be sparkle detectors. Here is Paul who says,
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I was before violent, an aggressor, a persecutor. 1 Timothy chapter 1
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and verse 13. But what changed that? He said, the grace of our God God
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was more abundant. We can do that.
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We can find the good in others. We can look for it. You know,
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there's an old myth out there that says that it takes 43 muscles to frown
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and only 17 muscles to smile. That's not right.
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Best science says that the number of muscles is about equal, about 17
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for both, 13 to 17. But that tells you that you could just as easily
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do the one as you can do the other. You can spend as much time
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or more focusing on the good in others than you can
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on the bad in them. And who tells us that better than one that we
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studied in this quarter, Barnabas? Barnabas saw
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good in Paul, Saul as he was, when no one
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else did. Acts chapter 9 and verse 26. He saw good in
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the church at Antioch of Syria. Acts chapter 11 and verse 26. He saw good
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in John Mark when Saul, Paul, couldn't, Acts 15:36.
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His first name is not how we know him, but by his nickname,
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the son of encouragement.
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And if we can get ahold of that, it will take care of this problem.
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Now, having said all that, as we close, I want us to recognize
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that there is some judging that God does not condemn.
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This goes back to what we saw in the very beginning when the world would
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get up in arms about any kind of a moral judgment that's made.
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That's a different sermon, a sermon that needs to be preached, but we'll make it
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a PS on this sermon. God tells us, each and every one of us,
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that we have got to use the discernment to be able to see what
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is sin and who a sinner is. Now, that begins within,
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but God also tells us that we've got to do that with regard— there's a
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standard that must be upheld. It's God's, not ours.
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And he has given us the ability, the insight to see what sin is
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and who a sinner is. But we can
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do even that in love, Ephesians 4:15.
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Preachers are— in fact, if you want to look at it this way, I've made
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a judgment this morning that there is judgment that is righteous and there's
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judgment that's not righteous. God is counting on the preacher to
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say to all of those to whom he proclaims the Word of God that this
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is what sin is, this is what righteousness is,
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there's wrong, there's right.
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But we can do even that with a spirit of gentleness.
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2 Timothy 2:24-26.
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You know, one of the most overlooked commands
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of the Bible is that judgment that we have to do with regard to those
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who are walking disorderly. 2 Thessalonians 3:6.
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But even that, to be done right, must be done in love.
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Hebrews 12:6. You know, there have
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been a lot of people who have had this nickname in time, but I don't
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believe anybody exceeds Isaac C. Parker.
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Isaac C. Parker was a district judge in Missouri.
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Later, he would serve briefly in the cabinet of Ulysses S.
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Grant. And in his 20 years on the bench,
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he sentenced 160 men to die.
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And so he got the reputation far and wide. You know what he was called?
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The hanging judge. That is not a reputation
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we want, not with God and not
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with one another. We're not hanging judges.
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We're humble disciples. And James chapter 2,
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verse 11 and verse 12 says that we're to conduct ourselves as those
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who are going to be judged by the perfect law of liberty,
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for judgment will be without mercy on those who show no
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mercy. And mercy triumphs over judgment.
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And so not only will we be judged in the way that we judge others,
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but we will stand before a judge who will judge us according to
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our works perfectly without any flaw or any shortsightedness
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or farsightedness. But aren't you thankful
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that he will judge mercifully? He helps
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us because all of us have flaws and problems and sins.
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And the judge is the one who first extended grace.
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What we're about to do is we're going to sing a song of invitation.
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David has picked it out. He's going to lead us in that. It's an expediency.
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It's a custom. I think a very good one rooted
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in biblical wisdom. And that is, as we consider
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God's Word, maybe as we've been considering it through the week, maybe as
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someone has been studying the gospel with us, We come to a realization
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that Jesus died to save us from the sin that we all have, but we
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must be obedient to his will. That means that we must respond by faith,
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a faith that obeys God's will, that causes us to repent of
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sins and to be baptized to have those sins washed away.
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But our judge is anxious to
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forgive. He doesn't want any to perish. 2 Peter 3. In verse
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9. Hey, and those of us who are already in Christ and maybe we're struggling
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with this or some other sin, he's a merciful judge
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who wants us to make things right. He illustrates it through
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the prodigal son as of an anxious father who will run to the penitent
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who come back home to him. Maybe that's a need you have this morning as
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a child of God. This is an invitation to which you need to respond.
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Won't you do so right now as we stand and sing?