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Matthew 7:1-6 · Arrow Heights Students

• 0:00
  Lest you be judged.
• 0:02
  Who has heard this before?
• 0:07
  Okay, five people. Very good.
• 0:10
  Did you guys know that this common phrase that you'll hear people say is actually a Bible verse?
• 0:19
  Did you know that? It's in Matthew 7. So please turn with me to Matthew 7. We'll be in verses one through six.
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  It starts, Judge not that you be not judged.
• 0:35
  This saying that comes from Jesus is familiar to the ears of all of us, or five of us, apparently.
• 0:44
  But a lot of people know this and they say this.
• 0:49
  And a lot of people who say this aren't even believers.
• 0:55
  It comes from the Bible, but a lot of people who say it don't even like the Bible.
• 1:03
  This phrase that is so common to us is often misused.
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  And so before we talk about what it does mean and what Jesus does mean in this passage, I want to just quickly address what it doesn't mean, the common misuse of this verse. I'm going to summarize how I've heard this verse used.
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  Judge not, lest you be judged. People will use this verse to say that we should never judge. We should never point at anything and say that that is wrong.
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  People who don't want to listen to the rest of the word of God say to people who are preaching the word of God, hey, don't judge me.
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  Don't tell me how I can or can't live my life.
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  That is certainly not what Jesus means.
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  Jesus loves his own word. He loves the law. He loves what is good, and he hates what is evil.
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  So today we are not going to be focusing on whether or not we should judge, because there is certainly a time in which we should point at something and say that is wrong.
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  But rather, we're going to focus on how we should judge what is our job whenever we see something that is wrong.
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  So if you would read with me Matthew 7, verses 1 through 6.
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  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.
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  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?
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  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?
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  You hypocrite.
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  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.
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  Do not give to dogs what is holy. Do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.
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  Pray really quick.
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  Lord Jesus, we thank you for your word.
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  We thank you for this passage and for your loving commands for us and your warning to us for how we should judge.
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  So, Lord, show us from your word how we should be whenever we see something that's wrong.
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  God, show us how we should live.
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  Give us wisdom, give us humility as we listen to your word. Now we pray these things in your name.
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  Amen.
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  Story time.
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  So about 20 years ago, the year was probably 2006, maybe 2007.
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  I was playing with my cousin Becca.
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  She's about my age. And I forget what we were doing. I forget if I was judging or what I was doing. But she told me something her dad, my Uncle Sam, had said.
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  Her dad said that when you point at someone and judge them, you're actually pointing three fingers back at yourself.
• 4:47
  And again, I don't remember the context and I don't remember why exactly, but I remember hearing that and just thinking, that's kind of stupid. I don't like that.
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  And I was like, I was a technically kid. Do you guys know what a technically kid is? It's like when someone says something and they're like, well, technically, this is me.
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  So I was like, well, technically, my fingers are, like, kind of curled up, so I'm not pointing at myself. I'm just kind of, you know, like, I can point wherever I want. Don't tell me not to judge. Don't judge me.
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  This was the stupid heart posture. And we'll get back to this in a second.
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  But our main thing we're going to be addressing today is how we should judge.
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  And the main point, I think, is not whether we should judge, but how we do it.
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  What is the process?
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  Whenever we see something that doesn't align with God's word, what do we do?
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  And this process I have not alliterated, but rather I have outlined kind of like a Big Mac. Have you guys ever had a Big Mac before?
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  Okay, so bear with me. You got the bread on top, the bread on bottom, the meat, the cheese, all this stuff. And then you got this slice of bread in the middle.
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  So you got these three pieces of bread.
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  And my outline follows this pattern of repetition where we're going to look to Jesus three different times, and then in between those two times, we're going to look at ourselves and we're going to look at others, but we're going to look at Jesus three times, because I think he is really the key to understanding how to judge rightly. Yes. Is this because Jesus is the bread of life? Yeah, yeah, we'll say that.
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  So our outline today is this. We're going to first look to Jesus, our Savior, and then we're going to look at ourselves.
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  Then we are going to look at Jesus again.
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  Then we will look at others.
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  Then we look at Jesus again. Every step of the way, we are looking to Jesus because I believe that is the key to judging humbly and rightly.
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  So I want to first look at Jesus as the judge.
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  Remember who owns this book. It is his word, it is his spirit, it is his law, it is his sword that pierces our hearts and leaves us each naked and accountable before Him. As it says in Hebrews 4, remember who the judge is.
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  And so when we're judging wrongly, when we're being Pharisees and pointing and saying, hey, you are worse than me, so often it can be because we feel like we have to, and it's our job to say this is wrong, or no one else is going to say that we think that we have to judge someone or they're going to get away with it.
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  Well, when we know that Jesus is the judge and that he judges perfectly, it removes that prideful burden from us that thinks that we have to do something about it.
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  So the first step is to remember that Jesus is the judge.
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  I Googled yesterday how many murders there were in America in 2025. It said something like 14,000. I don't know how accurate that is.
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  There's probably even a lot more.
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  But what there was not was a single murder that someone got away with.
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  Now, there may have been murders that we don't know about or that they went to trial and they had this really good attorney and they got through it clean even though they are guilty.
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  They might have fooled man, but not a single murderer, not a single criminal fooled Jesus in 2025 or ever.
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  Jesus is the perfect judge, and we must remember this as we listen to his words.
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  We must not try to take the job, and that is only Jesus.
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  When we do this, we bring judgment on ourselves.
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  He is God.
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  We are not.
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  So before we look at any other steps, we look at Jesus and we remember whose job it is to judge. Ultimately, when we die, we will not stand before one another. We will stand before a holy God.
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  And not a single one of us will get away with a single one of our sins unless they are paid for by another, which we'll get to in the middle of the Big Mac.
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  The next step is to check ourselves.
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  If you look in verse five.
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  Jesus says, you hypocrite.
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  First.
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  This is the first thing we do after looking to Jesus.
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  We first take the log out of our own eye.
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  This is the first step. We look at ourselves before we look at other.
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  No matter what we say is technically happening when we're pointing.
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  The point my uncle was making is very similar to what Jesus was making.
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  He's saying, no, look at yourself. There are three fingers pointing at you. Before you point at anyone else, look at yourself.
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  Take the log out of your own eye.
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  Whenever you point at someone, remember that there is wrong, there is sin in your own life. So we as sinners are never pointing down at other sinners.
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  We might, in terms of heart posture, we might be doing that wrongly, but we are all level. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
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  And so before we can point out the sin in other people's lives, we have to look at the sin in our own life.
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  And we do this remembering who the judge is and and how perfectly he judges.
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  We remember that not a single criminal is getting away with a crime in eternity and that we are all criminals and that we will not get away with one wrong thing we have done in this life before God, we are all guilty.
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  And so before we warn another and say, hey, there's sin, watch out, this is dangerous, we need to look at ourself and realize that there are sinful areas of our lives that need to be removed.
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  There are areas where we have to go to Jesus and ask for his forgiveness because we have sinned so greatly against Him.
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  Remember whenever you are pointing at someone else that you are pointing three fingers back at yourself and take an honest look and see the danger of the sin that is in your own life.
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  And then look to Jesus again.
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  In Romans 3, God tells us that Jesus is both the just and the justifier.
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  God is just meaning that he does not let anyone just get away with sins. No criminal has gotten away with a single sin ever eternally before God.
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  God is just, but he is also our justifier.
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  He forgives sinners, he forgives criminals. How does this happen?
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  The cross.
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  Jesus laid down his life so that he would be both just and justifier.
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  He didn't change his mind and say, okay, these sins are now okay.
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  He placed these sins on his own son that they would be paid for.
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  No sin has ever been gotten away with.
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  But the sins of those who placed their faith in Christ were paid for by another on the cross.
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  So whenever you check yourself and you see this horrifying image in the mirror of how sinful and how guilty you are, you remember that our God, who is just, is also our justifier. And our Savior.
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  He died for our sins.
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  He took the criminal's punishment that we deserve.
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  This is the middle and the center of everything. Learn the gospel.
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  We can't think clearly through trying to warn people about sins, trying to deal with our own sins without understanding justification by faith.
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  We have to understand what Jesus did on the cross and why he had to do it. And when we do this, we have hope and we have humility.
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  This prepares us to where when we see another sinner, we see the kind of stuff that Jesus had to die for.
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  And we see the kind of stuff that we did that Jesus died for in our place. And before we point and talk about the guilt or the wrongdoing in anyone else's life, we remember what Jesus has done for us.
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  And we walk into that humbly.
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  He is the just and the justifier.
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  Finally, next step is checking others.
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  Look again at V5. This time I'll keep reading into it.
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  He says, 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.
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  So once you have addressed the sin in your life, once you have gone on your knees and repented and received forgiveness, then you can look and you can see clearly other sinners just like you who need the same forgiveness.
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  Key words, just like you.
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  The sin that Jesus is speaking against so seriously here is not the looking at other people's sin. It is the raising up yourself and saying, like, hey, I'm better than you. Look at you. Look at what you're doing.
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  What we are called to do is look at sinners who are just like us and warn them of their sin.
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  Ephesians 4:15. Speaking the truth in love.
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  We warn one another of our sins. Why?
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  Because we love each other.
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  Not because we think we're better than each other. We know that we're not. We have already looked at ourselves and we have already looked to the cross. We have already seen what Christ has had to pay for on our behalf.
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  And now we have clear eyes to see another person just like us, who needs Jesus, just like us.
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  So it would not be loving to listen to the way that the world uses this verse and to say, hey, don't ever point out wrong. Don't ever call wrong what is wrong. That would not be loving because sin is dangerous. Sin brings death. Sin brings eternal judgment. And when we see someone who is living in sin who doesn't know Jesus. It would not be loving to say nothing.
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  We have to say something.
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  Whether this is a. A brother or sister in Christ in the church who is living in a sin. We point out that danger and we say, look, this is dangerous. And yes, we are pointing, but it's after we have already looked at ourselves and we understand that we aren't better than them. We are like them and we both need Jesus.
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  This is the loving nature of checking others.
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  It would not be loving if we saw a danger in someone's life and we know that there's a solution. We know that there's a Savior, and yet we say nothing. And I'm speaking from experience, this happens.
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  So after we have checked ourselves, we look to others and we warn them that there is danger in sin and that there is hope and safety and nowhere else. But in the gospel of Jesus, which brings me to our last thing, and I've already kind of touched on it. As we look at Jesus together, we stand there on level ground before the cross and we recognize what Jesus has done.
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  So whenever we point out wrong in someone's life, we don't just say, hey, that's wrong. We don't stop right there because there's no hope there. There's no help there.
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  We look to Jesus, we show them that yes, there is sin, but there is also a Savior.
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  There is a Savior that died for sinners.
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  We approach them humbly in love, knowing what Christ has done for us and telling them what Christ has done for them.
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  We show them the Savior.
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  Finally, verse six.
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  You might be reading this and thinking, how does this fit in?
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  Jesus says, 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.
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  What does this mean?
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  Now, I'm not making this a sixth point of like a sixth step of not giving to dogs what is holy. I think. I think the key here is this, is that whenever people inevitably hear the gospel and don't listen, whenever you have tried time and time again to share the gospel with somebody and they are not listening, you recognize that there is nothing else you can do for them.
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  There is no other fix.
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  And you recognize that our time in this world is limited and that there are other people who need Jesus.
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  Now, this doesn't mean that we give up easy.
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  This doesn't mean that if you have a friend, as soon as you tell them the gospel, you stop. No, we persist.
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  But we recognize with wisdom and with guidance from God, that there comes a time when whenever we move on, there comes a time whenever we stop giving to dogs what is holy and throwing our pearls before pigs.
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  And we move on. And we restart this cycle of looking to Jesus, looking at ourselves, looking at others, and we keep going for the sake of the gospel. And then maybe that same person later on will come back around and you have another conversation. Praise God.
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  But I think the heart of verse six is a trust in our Savior and His work to save his people.
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  That we recognize that we can't save anybody and we move on. We keep walking, we keep trusting the Lord.
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  So in conclusion, Jesus is not teaching us to never judge, to never point at something and say that this is wrong. We must do that to be loving.
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  But he is showing us how we can do so faithfully and humbly, looking to him who is telling us these words, recognizing what he has done for us, being humbled, being hope filled.
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  And then at that point only we are ready to go to others and to point out the danger of unrepentant sin in their lives, be humble, look to the Savior, know the gospel, and then speak the truth in love. Let's pray.