Do Not Judge
Matthew 7 (NIV)
Judging Others
7:1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
6 “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged." Sounds good to me, let's go home. Right? If only it was that easy.

In his article "Never Read a Bible Verse" Greg Koukl says, "A reflection on a Bible passage from a sermon or a devotional may be edifying, encouraging, and uplifting. If it is not the message of the text, though, it lacks biblical authority even when the quote comes right out of the Word of God. If you will do this one thing if you will read carefully in the context applying the paraphrase principle you will begin to understand the Bible as God intended. Without the bigger picture you'll be lost. Only when you are properly informed by God's Word the way it is written in its context can you be transformed by it. Every piece becomes powerful when it's working together with the whole."

What does that mean? If you remember Pastor Rob mentioned last week that verses and chapters were not originally in the writings of the Bible. They were added later for us, so we could easily find things in the Bible. We are grateful for that, but at the same time we use those numbers and breaks to break up content that was meant to be together.

How many of you have heard this verse before, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged"? Most of us. It's easy to quote and it's easy to throw out at someone when we don't want them to judge us.
The Bible says we aren't supposed to judge. So you can't judge me.
But there's so much more to this verse, to this section of Scripture and this entire message from Jesus.

So, what does it mean?
Let me quote Pastor Rob since he isn't here, "I'm so glad you asked."

This passage of scripture does not teach that judgments should never be made.
What it is teaching is that judgment should start with us.

L. A. Barbieri says it this way “Though judgment is sometimes needed, those making the distinctions…must first be certain of their own lives. ” (those doing the judging)

7:1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Let's deal with just these two verses for a minute. Consider the first verse in the present imperative to fully understand what Jesus meant by this phrase, instead of saying do not judge read it instead as
“Don’t make a practice of judging.”
because that's the problem Jesus is addressing. Don't practice judging and remember that "the measure you give will be the measure you get". The standard you use when passing judgment on others is the same standard that will be used to judge you.

Why shouldn't we make a practice of judging others without judging ourselves? Warren Wiersbe gives us 3 reason and I will give you two of them now and one later.

We shall be judged (v. 1). The tense of the verb judged signifies a once-for-all final judgment. If we first judge ourselves, then we are preparing for that final judgment when we face God. The Pharisees “played God” as they condemned other people; but they never considered that God would one day judge them.
We are being judged (v. 2). The parallel passage in Luke 6:37–38 is helpful here. Not only will God judge us at the end, but people are also judging us right now; and we receive from people exactly what we give. The kind of judgment, and the measure of judgment, comes right back to us. We reap what we have sown.
We must see clearly to help others (vv. 3–5). The purpose of self-judgment is to prepare us to serve others. Christians are obligated to help each other grow in grace. When we do not judge ourselves, we not only hurt ourselves, but we also hurt those to whom we could minister. The Pharisees judged and criticized others to make themselves look good (Luke 18:9–14). But Christians should judge themselves so that they can help others look good. There is a difference!

Like many things in the gospel, what we see Jesus doing is reminding people that what they do/say is 100% connected to what's going on inside. The problem isn't that believers hold other believers accountable, the problem is the attitude and intentions behind those judgments. A word that continually comes up in studies of this portion of scripture is the word censoriousness.

Censorious means severely critical; faultfinding

A censorious critic is someone who is a fault finder. someone who actively seeks out someone else's failings. The are negative and destructive toward others. They believe that they have the authority to sit in judgment over the lives of others.

Man is not God. No human being is qualified to be the judge of his fellow humans, for we cannot read each other’s hearts or assess each other’s motives. To be censorious is to presume arrogantly… in fact to try to play God.

If we pose as judges, we cannot plead ignorance of the law we claim to be able to administer.

We are not God. We cannot judge people as though we are God. We cannot judge people and then be offended/ angry/ etc. when we are judged in the same way.

So, we should never pass judgment right? Because we are all a mess and will never get it all right?

No.

I recently heard someone address this issue, of the attitude in which we judge others, in this way.
When we do something wrong or make a bad choice we are quick to blame our circumstances, but when we see someone else do something wrong or make a bad choice we blame it on their character.

Jesus is about to draw attention to a characteristic of human beings. We have a profound ignorance of ourselves and our own faults, but we are profoundly arrogant with our assumptions about other people, especially their faults.

Let's look again at our scripture, the next 3 verses, Matthew 7:3-5.

3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Here we see our 3rd reason, from Warren Wiersbe, for why we shouldn't judge others without judging ourselves first.

We must see clearly to help others (vv. 3–5). The purpose of self-judgment is to prepare us to serve others. Christians are obligated to help each other grow in grace. When we do not judge ourselves, we not only hurt ourselves, but we also hurt those to whom we could minister. The Pharisees judged and criticized others to make themselves look good (Luke 18:9–14). But Christians should judge themselves so that they can help others look good. There is a difference!

When I was a child and I read this passage of scripture I imagined someone with a piece of dust in their eye while the other person had a 2x4 sticking out of their eye. Anyone else?

Jesus purposely makes this seem like a ridiculous scene. How could anyone in their right mind be concerned about someone else having a piece of dust in their eye when that person has a board sticking out of their eye?

That's an excellent question.

Jesus was asking this same question. How can we judge others when we are deserving of judgment?

That doesn't mean that we are never to question other people or hold them accountable to the word of God, the issue lies with our intentions, our motives, and the condition of our own hearts.

I cannot help someone avoid sin in their life if I am living in sin. And neither can you.

How many of you have ever flown in an airplane before?
When the flight attendant is giving directions before the flight begins, they tell you that if the oxygen masks deploy that you are supposed to put on your mask first before you try to help anyone else with theirs. WHY?? Because you will be no help to anyone if you don't have enough oxygen to breathe.

You will not be any help to anyone who is struggling with sin if you don't deal with the sin in your life first.

Something we must pay attention to here as well is that Jesus isn't saying that the other persons sin isn't important. Even though it's just a speck, it still has to be removed. Even though it's just a speck, it still matters.

Jesus isn't saying one person's sin is worse than another person's sin.
He's questioning why we think we can sit as judge and jury in the life of another person when we won't even face the truth of the sin in our own lives.

That's why he uses such an incredible illustration here. That's why he compares a speck to a plank, not because your sin is worse than mine but because I have all the information I need about myself. I know all of my sin. I know all of my struggles. I know the attitude of my heart. And instead of choosing to deal with my own sins and struggles and attitudes I choose to point out the sin I see in others without the insider information of what's going on in the heart and mind of that person.
Because it’s easier to point out the flaws in another person than it is to deal with that fact that we are also a mess.

In verse 5 we see Jesus use a word he's used often in this sermon, the word hypocrite. Jesus said if you are quick to harshly judge other people without looking at your own life first you are a hypocrite.
Can I be real with you here though for a minute, if you've been sitting here this whole time thinking about someone who you think should be here listening to this message I'm gonna go as far as to say that you are most likely guilty of this behavior as well.
Any time you believe that someone other than you needs to hear a message, not to better that person but to prove a point to them, you're not looking out for that person and wanting to better their life, you're wanting them to feel bad about the person they are, you're judging them.

It should hurt us as much to correct that person as it does for them to be corrected.

I’m going to read you a pretty lengthy quote from John Stott that I think very nicely summarizes this entire passage so far.

Some people suppose that in the parable of the foreign bodies Jesus was…telling us…to mind our own business. This is not so. The fact that censoriousness and hypocrisy are forbidden does not relieve us of brotherly responsibility towards one another. On the contrary, Jesus was later to teach that if our brother sins against us, our first duty is to go and tell him his fault between us and him alone. The same obligation is laid upon us here. To be sure, in certain circumstances we are forbidden to interfere, namely when there is an even bigger foreign body in our own eye which we have not removed. But in other circumstances Jesus actually commands us to reprove and correct our brother. Once we have dealt with our own eye trouble, then we shall see clearly to deal with his. A bit of dirt in his eye, after all, is rightly called a foreign body. It doesn’t belong there. It is always alien, usually painful and sometimes dangerous. To leave it there, and make no attempt to remove it, would hardly be consistent with brotherly love.

Our Christian duty…is…first to take the log out of our own eye, so that then with the resulting clarity of vision we shall be able to take the speck out of our brother’s eye.… Jesus is not condemning criticism as such, but rather the criticism of others when we exercise no comparable self-criticism; nor correction as such, but rather the correction of others when we have not first corrected ourselves.

In all our attitudes and behaviors toward others we are to play neither the judge (becoming harsh, censoriousness and condemning), nor the hypocrite (blaming others while excusing ourselves), but the brother, caring for others so much that we first blame and correct ourselves and then seek to be constructive in the help we give them.

Caring so much for others that we take care of ourselves first so that we can constructively help those who need help.

Let’s look at our last verse for today.

6 “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

What?
We were just talking about specks and planks and now we’re talking about dogs, pigs, and pearls. What’s happening here Jesus? What are you trying to tell us?

He’s telling us that even though he is speaking truth and giving us commands about the best way for us to live that people will still choose to ignore Him and His teaching.

When Jesus mentions things that are sacred and pearls he means his teachings, the teachings even of the Old Testament and the Law. The things that are sacred, the pearls of wisdom and understanding that these people should have been taking to heart and applying to their lives were going to be completely disregarded by many because they couldn’t accept Jesus for who He was and the wisdom He presented to them.

Another version of the Bible gives us this verse in this way, (cf. GNB: “Do not give what is holy to dogs—they will only turn and attack you. Do not throw your pearls in front of pigs—they will only trample them underfoot”).

My mom grew up on a dairy farm. The farm was fully operational until recently and when I was growing up was run by my Pap and his brother. We spent a lot of time there in the summer. The big barn and basically all of the farm was down the road a bit from my grandparents’ house, but right across the driveway from the house was a small barn and inside that barn were pigs. As a kid I had seen “The Wizard of Oz” and remembered that when Dorothy was walking along the top of a fence and fell off she was quickly greeted with a herd of pigs. And that was what went through my mind every time my grandma gave me a bucket and told me to go feed the pigs. I would quietly walk into the barn and the pigs were always just laying there. Sleeping or just hanging out. Motionless and silent. I would climb up onto the side of the fence and pick the bucket up and as soon as the contents of the bucket hit the trough those pigs went crazy. They stepped on each other and trampled everything in their way to get to the food.
Things of value and beauty will not only not be appreciated by pigs but will be abused. What is precious is not to be given to people who have no appreciation of it. It is possible that the pigs also turn on those who give them the pearls and tear them to pieces, for a large and unrestrained pig can do considerable damage.
The biggest problem with this verse is the fact that Jesus wasn’t saying that people who were ungodly or ignorant of God would be the ones to have no appreciation of what he was saying, it was those around him who portrayed themselves as godly. The Pharisees and teachers of the law. His fellow Jews who chose to disregard him and his teachings, especially when they were convicted by those teachings.
We often do the same. If a sermon hits home because the Holy Spirit speaks directly to us, convicting us for our attitude or behavior or sin, we quickly disregard it because it’s easier than removing the plank in our own eye.

What does all of this mean for us today? I want you to consider these questions:
Are you judgmental? Do you make a habit of regularly making harsh judgments of other people without having all the facts?
Is there a plank in your eye? Is there sin in your life that you are choosing to ignore or not fully surrender to God?
Are you demonstrating brotherly love if/when you try to help someone deal with the sin in their lives? What is your “why”? What are your intentions for addressing the sin in someone else’s life?
How will you choose to respond to these truths from Jesus? Will you trample them under your feet and choose to ignore them, or will you take the to heart and allow God to change your heart, so He can use you fully?