Gospel of Matthew
Chapter 7, Verses 1-6
We are going to talk about judging others today. So, we will read the text and I think what we are going to do is we are actually going to start in six, which is kind of- in some ways it’s not a stand-alone text actually, but we are going to actually start there and then we are going to go back to the other one.
It says, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
And verse six says, “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.”
And one of the ways that we recognize, as we go back- and actually through the first five verses we are going to- you guys will understand why this is, but number six actually is a judgment. Jesus tells us not to judge, and then Jesus makes a judgment. That will be explained as we go on. So Jesus, of course- Jesus is Jesus; and He has the ability to see things we don’t see. But the point of it is, Jesus is not necessarily telling His disciples, even in the context of the thing, not to decide between good and evil. He is just saying not to have an attitude of self-righteousness, which we are going to get into.
But verse six is almost like a stand-alone text. It is found in the scripture and there is no other place it’s found. Matthew has a handful of passages that appear in none of the other gospels and this is one of them. In this text: “Do not give what is holy to dogs, do not throw your pearls before swine or they will trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces,” I want to give you three – it’s actually maybe more like two and a half – but three ideas about what this could possibly mean. Because it doesn’t seem like it actually is a very strong statement about how we are supposed to give the things that we have. Of course, I can’t imagine the idea about throwing your pearls (or the things holy) as anything other than the gospel message of Jesus Christ. But He is saying, ‘We don’t want to do that in a willy-nilly kind of way.’
N.T. Wright, in one of his- I’m not sure if it’s in this study or something he broached in another book, but he thinks that the possibility exists that Jesus is simply saying to the disciples not to give to the Gentiles the Gospel, yet. Remember in the early church the Gospel went out to the Jews first; then it went out to the Gentiles, ultimately, when the apostle Paul came along. Peter, of course, had some encounters with some Gentiles, and so it began to spread; and then Paul became the one that actually took the Gospel in full force to the Gentiles. And he thinks that it’s possible that Jesus was simply telling them, ‘Do not give these things that I’m telling you to the Gentiles.’ Not that they never should get it, because we know that we did receive it, but that it wasn’t the time for them to receive it, because they weren’t ready for it.
And one of the reasons, of course, they wouldn’t be ready, was the moving of the Spirit and the time that Jesus literally spoke this. And likewise, then we would have to say that Jesus, basically, in the book of Acts, said, ‘I want you to take this gospel to the Jews, then I want you to take it to Dispersia, then I want you to take it…’ and He basically kept having them expand it out. And if you go through the book of Acts, you actually see them do each one of those things. So, they start with the Jews in Jerusalem – I guess that’s the first one He talks about – and then He goes outside of Jerusalem to Jews and then finally they go outside of that to Gentiles and finally they actually extended themselves all around the known world.
So, part of the reason he says this is that he thinks that the idea of dogs and swine- those two words being used would immediately, for the Jewish people- their minds would immediately go to Gentiles. Because in the Old Testament, that is how they are spoken of. So when He says, ‘do not give what is holy to dogs and do not throw your pearls before swine’, in the mind of Christ – I guess we could say – they’re going to immediately think, ‘Oh yeah, he means the Gentiles,’ because that’s who these people are to them.
And so that’s one possibility. The second possibility is that He may be saying that we need to be deliberate and cautious of who we share the gospel with. Some people think that the biding response of non-Christians to the gospel message is the equivalent of suffering for Christ. So they will actually go out of their way to be annoying to non-Christians, believing that they are suffering for Christ. Scot McKnight, in his commentary, says when he was in high school he would carry his Bible where everybody could see it, into the locker rooms. He said he would suffer the consequences of that and he said that he always thought he was suffering for Christ; then finally he realized actually that is just being stupid. That is being unwise because there’s no reason to provoke. Some people think that provoking is the way to move the gospel message, and that is another way we could possibly think about it in terms of: when you know you are going to encounter someone who is a non-believer, for you to blatantly move in such a way that you know you are going to provoke them to anger, that is not good. Because what they do then is- your reason, actually, for giving them the gospel is to provoke them, and so absolutely they will trample it underfoot and throw it away, because even your heart is not right in that giving of the message.
And the third thing, which is similar in some respects, is that we need to keep in mind that there are just evil people in the world. No matter how we try to make that sound like everybody is okay – everybody is not okay. There are people that are looking for fights with Christians. People that are what the scripture would call “destined for hell.” And I get it – I get it – we can’t always know who those people are. We can’t say that ‘this person will never come to Christ.’ There’s numerous stories of people like this who have come to know Jesus Christ, so I want to be cautious not to throw people under the bus like that and we become very cautious, but the bottom line is that we have the Spirit of God dwelling inside of us. We need to actually use the discernment to be able to know who and when we are supposed to actually share the gospel with.
The Gospel is not meant to be used like a shotgun; it’s meant to be used like a bullet or an arrow. It’s supposed to pierce. It pierces when it meets someone who is already moving or being drawn by Christ.
This is a very difficult thing to prove, per se- but I know Billy Graham was approached with this and it broke his heart because of all the people he evangelized in the world and around the world- all over the world in his life- (and I have a lot of respect for Billy Graham), but somebody did some studies and they deduced that only ten percent of the people that actually came up front at a Billy Graham thing are continuing to walk with the Lord. And part of it is that shotgun mentality; that emotional response, that idea about being manipulated by your friends, and all the things that come up when you are in a group setting. Many people had a momentary move and then – boom – they’re gone, and we never see them again. And maybe we can blame that on the church not being willing to engage with those people and to try to move them back to the Gospel, or whatever the case may be. But, nonetheless, again, the Gospel is meant to be pointed. When we encounter people we should always have our ears open to whether this person is somebody that I really want to share Jesus to. And I get it, we can always share the good things of Christ to anybody at any time, but the effectiveness of it will have to do, not with the sharing, but with the reception. The sharing part is the part that we do, but if they don’t receive it, it has no value. And so, what we want to do is be pointed and discerning. And in my opinion, that is what, probably, this is talking about more than anything else. It’s telling me, ‘Rob, don’t be willy-nilly. Don’t just- everyone you meet, that you tell them Jesus loves them; or tell them “if you don’t come to Jesus, you’re going to go to Hell,” ’ or however you evangelize people. I want to be pointed, so that when I’m walking down the aisle at Wal-Mart and there’s ten people in my aisle, I can look down that aisle and I can feel drawn by Christ to that person, and I can say, ‘Oh! Okay. Jesus wants me to engage with this person.’
And I believe that is actually what this is talking about more than anything else.
But anyway, back now to the part about judging.
The word judge is the word krino and it means “to decide or to determine.” The thing that we need to establish first of all is that this type of judging is specific to these five verses.
Jesus is in no way telling us not to judge. In John 7:24, He actually tells us tojudge. 1 Corinthians 5:12, 1 Corinthians 6:2, 1 Corinthians 10:15; all of them are verses in which Jesus and Paul says, ‘you need to judge one another, you need to judge the people.’ And so we understand that when Jesus says, “Do not judge” this is not a law, this is not a blanket statement about ‘I’m not supposed to determine or decide for other people, anything.’ That’s not true at all. It means actually, to tell you the truth, the context of it reveals the nature of it. In the end he says, “You hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye.” So, Jesus is making sure His disciples understand that they will be hypocritical if they don’t judge in such a way- if they don’t come in humility, if they don’t come in love, if they don’t come in a righteous attitude, that they will actually cause grief.
John Wesley says the judging that Jesus condemns here is “thinking about another person in a way that is contrary to love.” And another man says in the context of the verse it should be, ‘do not condemn’ instead of ‘do not judge.’ Even though the word is judge, the context is saying ‘do not condemn.’ And we need to be cautious; Jesus says that is not your place.
You know, the world throws this phrase around often about ‘do not judge.’ We see it regularly; when Christians say something against a- for instance if we would say something opposed to homosexuality, its like people would just immediately: “You shouldn’t judge.” “You’re not the judge of that.” And if you mean that I am not the one who condemns, absolutely. But, you cannot say that in terms of how I am supposed to respond to right and wrong. I absolutely have an obligation to respond to right and wrong. As a matter of fact, a lot of Christians nowadays will say, “I’m not the judge.” If somebody comes and says, “Hey, I’m having trouble with this…”, “Well, I’m not the judge.” Mostly we say, ‘I don’t want to get involved.’
But in reality, we cannot follow Jesus Christ and not recognize and call out sinful behavior in other believers for sure, and oftentimes even in the world, because the message of the Gospel actually calls us to do that. I believe one passage actually commands us to call out our brothers when they are in sin. So, we have to understand, when we are talking about judging, this is not some blanket rule that is set over everything. It’s talking about judging in such a way that you are going to present Jesus Christ as a destroyer rather than a giver.
When we recognize that, it changes the way we consider the idea of judging.
Everyone – every human being in the world – has a moral compass that has a judgment point. It’s an impossibility to escape. First of all, every human being in the world, with the exception of people who are mentally incapable of it, have a conscience. It is not for Christians only – everybody has a conscience. Everybody has allowed their conscience to be formed by the things around them and everybody, at some point, makes judgments. Just in a political sense, one of the things that we have noticed is the judgmental attitude of people opposed to Donald Trump. Not that Donald Trump is a good guy or anything like that, but the attitudes that people have for him- there is a rage and a judgment. They are making a judgment on who he is. They don’t know him. They only know the bits and pieces he says and things that he does and they are making a judgment upon him. Republicans did the same thing with Obama in the eight years he was in office. We make judgments, not based upon what we really know; we are making them based upon how we feel. And everybody has that. And it is sad when Christians allow that to overtake their ability to reasonably and consciously think about something in a very more serious, or more constructive way.
I read this little story today. I was going to read this later but we are kind of talking about this right now. Michael Cheshire tells a story of encountering a man with a notoriously public sin, and it taught him about being judgmental and extending grace. He says, “I did not plan - ”this is Michael Cheshire talking, “I did not plan to care about Ted Haggard.”
Ted Haggard was a big pastor in Colorado Springs that got caught in a homosexual relationship with a young man, years ago.
“After all,”he says, “I have access to Google and a Bible. I heard about what he did and knew it was wrong. I saw the clips from the news and the HBO documentary of his life after his fall. I honestly felt bad for him but figured it was his own undoing. When the topic came up with others I know in ministry, we would feign sadness, but inside we couldn’t care less.”
I was very convicted about that.
“One close friend said he would understand it more if Ted had just sinned with a woman. I agreed with him at the time. It’s amazing how much more mercy I give to people who struggle with sins I understand. The further their sin is from my own personal struggles, the more judgmental and callous I become. I’m not proud of that; it’s just where I was at that time in my walk.” But all that changed one short afternoon. Michael encountered the harsh judgementalism of Christians toward other Christians in a conversation with a non-Christian who said he could not be a Christian because they eat their own.”
And he does not mean that literally, by the way. Michael absorbed the statement and began to work on him.
He says, “I began to distance myself from my previously harsh statements and tried to understand what Ted and his family must have been through. When I brought up the topic to other men and women I love and respect the very mention of Haggard’s name made our conversation toxic. Their reactions were visceral. So I felt I needed to meet Ted for myself, so I had my assistant track him down for a lunch appointment. I lived outside Denver and he was living in Colorado Springs, a little over an hour away, this was perfect. Less than five minutes of talking with Ted, I realized a horrible truth: I liked him. He was brutally honest about his failures. He was excited that the only people who would talk to him now were the truly broken and hurt. I met his wonderful wife, Gayle. She is a terrific teacher of grace and one of my heroes. When I grow up I want to be like Gayle Haggard. And so I became close friends with Ted Haggard. But then the funniest thing started happening to me. Some Christians I hung out with told me they would distance themselves from me if I continued reaching out to Ted.”
So these are people who would decry judging.
“Several people in my church said they would leave. Really? Does he have leprosy? Will he infect me? We are friends. We aren’t dating. But in the end, I was told that my voice as a pastor and author would be tarnished if I continued to spend time with him. I found this sickening. Not just because people can be so small but because I have a first-hand account from Ted and Gayle of how they lost many friends they had known over the years; much of it is pretty cold-blooded. Now, the Christian machine was trying to take away their new friends. It would do some Christians good-”
I have never seen this show, so I do not know what this is talking about, but if you have seen it maybe you would understand.
“-it would do some Christians good to stay home one weekend-”
I don’t want you to do this, by the way.
“- and watch the entire DVD collection of Steven Ambrose’ Band of Brothers. Marinate in it, take notes, write down words like loyalty, friendship, sacrifice. Understand the phrase ‘never leave a fallen man behind.’ In many ways, I have not been aggressive enough with my application of the Gospel. My concept of grace needed to mature; to grow muscles, teeth, and bad breath.”
So, his point is that his judgments were based upon things he heard rather than things he experienced. And once he finally met Ted Haggard- and I’m not even going to go down the road and say that I would do the same thing- but I get his point. I would be appalled, though, at people who would actually consider that they would leave a church, or not even be friends with you because you are friends with somebody who, in their eyes, is wicked. That is a terrible thing to consider. And yet, in the world of Christian judging, it is one of the things that we encounter on a regular basis. And as saints of the living God, we just cannot go there. And so, Jesus, in this text, is telling His disciples, ‘I don’t want you to judge,’ and then He says, ‘This is what I’m talking to you about.’ And in essence, what Jesus is doing- Jesus’ disciples are going to be leaders of groups of people, they were going to have authority and power over these people and he wanted to make sure they understand that: You’re going to have a human tendency to be self-righteous and your self-righteousness will cause you to judge people around you who oppose you, or whatever the case may be.
You think about the affect and the power and the authority that came from that. I mean every single time, I cringe – every single time I read it: that the people came and laid money at the feet of the Apostle Peter. I mean, I cringe at that, it’s like ‘Ah! Peter, why didn’t you rebuke them?’ You know, or something like that, because it seems so opposed to everything, but these men had an authority and a power that was amazing in the world at that time, and even in our time today, and they easily could have gone into a self-righteous mode and as soon as somebody opposed them or went against them, their rationale would be that ‘he’s opposing me, therefore he is opposing God, Himself.’ And one of the things that Scot McKnight talks about is the idea that leadership, for those of you that are in leadership; there’s a strong tendency to become self-righteous. So God is working constantly to make sure that you do not get there. With the Apostle Paul, for instance, He used his ‘thorn in the flesh.’ Whatever it was- whatever the thorn in the flesh was- the purpose of the thorn in the flesh was to make sure Paul would stay humble. Make sure Paul would stay humble. That he couldn’t make himself to be more than he was.
And so, in that realm of leadership, there is a tendency or a possibility that we are going to move into that ugliness of feeling that we actually are speaking for God, when in actuality, even though we know the things that God likes and doesn’t like (because the Scripture is actually very plain about things) we are never to take the step of speaking for God in those things. Because then we do become the one who condemns, and it is a very narrow step. The closest thing I could think of- and this maybe doesn’t give a good example- but I’m going to throw my kids under the bus:
Leah and Benjamin- they’re getting along pretty good right now- but when they were growing up, they had struggles on a regular basis. Partially because Leah did not have the authority to mother Benjamin or tell him what to do, but she did it anyway. She became the voice for God to Benjamin, and so there was a struggle. She would tell him, ‘You’ve got to do this, you’ve got to this, you’ve got to do that, Mom said do this, Dad said do that,’ and she did not have the power or authority to do it. And Benjamin resisted. Like, if I told Benjamin, “I need you to do this,” that’s fine, but if Leah comes and says, “Dad told you, you need to get that done,” there was a problem. That, to me, is the closest thing that we, as saints, do. We know what God has told us to do, and so we then take that and we apply it to everybodywe see. And in actuality, God may not be asking that person to do that at that moment in time. There may be bigger things the Lord is dealing with; for that purpose, in that moment in time.
We, as saints, need to back up and we need to let God search our hearts and realize that we are not God’s tool of condemnation. What we are supposed to be is God’s tool of love. And part of loving people is to be able to be honest with them and say, “What you’re doing is wrong.” But you do it in such a way that that person feels loved by you, or hopefully they feel loved by you.
Years ago, I had to ask somebody in our church- when our church was very young- to sit down, because there was some struggle. There was a power struggle going on between me and him, and I realized what was happening, so I said, “All right. You need to sit down for a little while because something is amiss.” Before I got there, though, I struggled with- I’m not a confronter anyway- but I really struggled with confronting him about it and Cherri, one time- I was in the basement of our house on West Fourth and I was praying about it and Cherri came down and she said, “Why is it so hard for you to tell him? You know you have to tell him.” I said, “Because he’s my friend. This is going to ruin our friendship, potentially.” Which it did, for a lot of years. Like, this is serious. And honestly, I think it changed the way Cherri thought about how we deal with things, even, too.
It’s my personal judgment that anyone who wants to confront people should never confront people. If you are somebody who wants to be a confronter, you should absolutely not be a confronter. But if you’re a person who knows that the Gospel message, and the message of sin and holiness needs to be out there and you are going to struggle with doing it because of people that you love and enjoy the presence of, you absolutely then have the tools to be the one to do it. Should it be done? It absolutely should be done. Absolutely should be done.
You know, just in the last three or four years we have encountered things that we had to actually make judgments about. And elders in the church made judgments; they said, “This is how I feel about this. I’m going to say it,” and I said, “Say it! Absolutely say it. It’s the word of God; because it’s true and because I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, you love the person you’re talking to.” You love the person you’re talking to.
So, Christ, in this little verse, because He wanted to make sure the disciples were cautious, he left them two very simple rules that we should live by. These are laws, I guess you could say. We will call them laws, but we will just- you know, let’s just call them rules because “laws” is so ugly.
First he says, “Do not judge so you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.” The first thing is: Are you willing to be judged under the same thing? That’s the first thing. And when I was a young pastor I encountered a guy who- there were some sexual sins going on and he says, “You’re judging me.” And I went to this verse and I said, “Hey, I’m willing to fall under this judgment. So you may think it’s judging you, but I’m willing to fall under the judgment. I’m just speaking truth to you.” So, are you willing to be under that same judgment? Are you willing to- I think the picture Jesus uses about somebody taking the speck out of their eye, which is actually the second thing, so we will get into that.
Are you willing to be under the same judgment?
And the second thing is: Is there a hindrance in my theology life or past that affects my judgment of this? So, is there something that is causing me to react to somebody in a way that I would not react to And that’s what Jesus is saying in the thing about the speck. He says if you have a log in your own eye, if something is actually hindering you from seeing clearly to help your brother, then don’t you need to deal with your own log first? Deal with your own log first.
I mean, who in their right mind would- there is some show that is a comedy and in the show this guy has these huge glasses, like the real thick where you can’t hardly see and somewhere in the show he is talking to somebody, and somebody comes over and turns him so he can point to the guy he is actually talking to. He is using hand gestures like this [pointing gesture] and talking, and somebody turns him and, “Oh yeah, thank you” and he is actually looking at the person he wants to talk to.
So, who would go to an eye doctor that wore something like that? Or who would go to a surgeon? I mean, if you went in a surgeon had these big goggles and they would talk to you but not be able to see you. Like, ‘Yeah, I want that guy cutting on me’ or ‘I want that guy to tell me about my eyes.’ We would never do it! And Christ is just saying in a matter of fact way, if you’ve got something that is hindering you from honestly helping your brother – for instance you don’t like him, or you are glad that he is under judgment, or whatever the case may be; you probably need to deal with yourself first. Get the log out of your own eye and then you can honestly deal with your brother or sister in Christ.
Fix what’s wrong with you. And then you can take care of things correctly.
And, again, in my lifetime I have had to do those kinds of things. I have had to step away from situations and get things right with me, because I felt angry or frustrated or I felt like ‘somebody needs a good spanking.’ It’s like, ‘Stop it! Get away,’ because you want to meet them with love and grace. Otherwise, you are not being Christ to them. Even though you may absolutely know that what they are doing is wrong, beyond a shadow of a doubt, and you’ve got scripture after scripture to back it up; for us to be Christ to people, we have to meet them in humility and we have to understand that our frame is very much like theirs.
But for the grace of God, there I go.
One of the revelations of the Apartheid movement, when somebody sat and listened- no, it wasn’t that, it was during World War II, or after World War II, and somebody sat and listened to stories; how they were going to deal with German prisoners and such and this guy realized, he said, ‘That could be me. I could be that man sitting condemned.’ He became, I think, a judge or some sort of a big wig in one of our Presidents’ offices. But he realized, ‘Man, that could be me. I could be that person.’
But by the grace of God, there go I.
Jesus is simply telling his disciples, ‘You guys, don’t be hypocrites.’ 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.
In this text itself, Jesus actually is even saying- He says, “Do not judge,” on the very first phrase and in verse five he actually says, ‘Go ahead and judge your brother, once you make sure you are doing it from a right heart.’
So, when it comes to judging others, we don’t just chuck it out like ‘Oh, we are not going to judge anybody.’ Of course we are going to judge people. We judge people all the time. The question is: are you doing it from the heart of Jesus Christ, where you want to actually benefit somebody? Or are you doing it from that hypocritical self-righteous, ‘I’m better than you’ attitude, and, ‘thank God I’m here to correct you, otherwise you would be in trouble’ attitude?
By the grace of God, we do not, ever, want to go down that path.
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Heavenly Father, thank you for your mercy and grace. We thank you, Jesus, that- I thank you, Lord God, first of all, that you made it very clear in the Scriptures that believers actually have an obligation to judge each other, to decide (as the word says); to determine right from wrong. And I thank you, Jesus, for that. I can’t imagine, Lord God, what my life would be like had not brothers and sisters in Christ approached me and said, “What you’re doing is wrong” or “I’m struggling with this.” Lord God, I just can’t even imagine. And so, I thank you, Jesus, for those voices from people who loved and wanted the best for me. And, Lord God, I don’t want to be that person who thinks that I have to have relationship with somebody before they can speak into my life because that is so unbiblical. I get it, Lord God, that we, as saints, we thrive upon the relationship with our brothers and sisters and we can empathize and sympathize with them and with strangers we can’t, but I pray in your precious name, I would hear the voice of God coming from anywhere. But in this context, Lord, just dealing with brothers and sisters, we would assume we know, I pray in your precious Name that we’d be open to whatever judgments people would bring to us, and I pray, Lord, even if I have a speck and somebody with a log comes to me, I pray in your precious Name that I wouldn’t be somebody who says, ‘Yeah, you’ve got to get the log out of your own eye, dude,’ because that, alone, reveals a log in me. Help me, Jesus, to not be that kind of a human being. And I pray, Father, that we would be gracious to those that are going through difficult things: moral decisions; struggling with things going on in their life that are difficult to grasp. And I pray we want to be a voice of righteousness; speaking truth, knowing that you and you alone, God, are the only one who can actually lay out for us, a proper way to live. But I pray that we would meet them where they are in their struggle and not just put aside their struggle as if it were a non-factor. Just pray in your precious Name that we would be a people that extends grace and speaks truth. And we ask that in Jesus’ precious Name.
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Amen and Amen.
The Lord bless you guys; go in peace.
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Gospel of Matthew Sermon
Matthew 7:1-6
Pastor Rob Putz
smf
09-08-2019