Journey Through Matthew: You Be the Judge
Journey Through Matthew • Sermon • Submitted
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· 3 viewsWe should be careful about blindly passing judgement on others, especially when we have no idea what they may possibly be going through in thier lives.
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Introduction
Introduction
Good morning and welcome back!
It is good to see everyone out this fine Sunday Morning.
This morning we are going to be continuing our Journey Through Matthew, and this morning we are going to be looking at .
Specifically, I would like to look at if you would like to start turning there in your Bibles.
As we have been for the last few weeks, we are looking at some of the different aspects of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount found in and this morning we are going to be looking at the subject of “You be the Judge.”
Anybody ever heard someone say “Don’t Judge me?”
Or, “who are you to judge?”
Well there is some good truth found in that and most people will cite as their source for their rational that no one should ever judge a single thing they ever do.
However, there is a very big difference in judging someone and judging their actions.
And while to be honest we cannot accurately judge someone as a person, but we can get a pretty good idea of their character based on their actions.
And I will go a step further and say that we should absolutely judge the actions of others.
Not so much whether or not it is something we would do but rather whether or not their actions are in line with God’s Word.
And lets take it just one more step further, while we are judging the actions of others we should also hold up a big mirror and look at our own actions a bit as well.
Because, we have no business judging and looking at what others are doing when we are doing the exact same thing.
So, that’s where we are going to be going with this Scripture this morning.
If you have found in your Bible, I’d invite you to stand with me as we start looking at what Jesus says about judging others.
Matthew writes . . .
Scripture Focus
Scripture Focus
1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way as 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 then turn and tear you to pieces.
Don’t Judge Unless You Want to Be Judged
Don’t Judge Unless You Want to Be Judged
Now, Jesus in the previous section, which we did not cover in detail was dealing with the subject of worry.
He actually tells them in chapter six starting in verse 25 . . .
Matthew 6:25-
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
And then in verse 27 . . .
27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
Matthew 6:27
And then in verses 31-32 . . .
31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
Anybody know someone like this?
They will worry themselves to death over things that they have absolutely no control whatsoever over.
You may be here and that describes you.
Jesus tells us though not to worry because God knows exactly what we need, even before we could ever ask for it.
So, this morning think about it for a minute, what do you need from God?
What is it in the back of your mind that has you worried today?
It could be a physical sickness, and we have a lot of people right now that are sick.
And if you are not sick, you should be praying for those around you who are.
Praying that God will touch them both physically and emotionally, because sickness impacts more than just your physical condition.
You could be worried about money or worried about your kids, or any number of things.
I want to tell you again though, and it is much easier said than done but Jesus tells us not to worry because God has got this.
Whatever is on your mind, on your heart, God knows and God has it under control.
But also, it is very, very easy to say “Don’t worry” but much harder to carry out.
However, Jesus has the answer for that as well.
Jesus knows that it easier said than done.
So he gives us the answer to worry.
Jesus tells us . . .
33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:33
Seek God’s kingdom, God’s righteousness, God’s path and the worry will start to diminish.
It diminishes because as you seek God, you see God work and your faith begins to grow and build.
And that in turns turns down the voice in the back of your head telling you to worry about this and worry about that.
Will that voice ever completely go away?
Probably not, but it’s power will begin to get weaker and weaker and weaker.
Because as the Holy Spirit begins to grow within us the flesh begins to decrease.
So today start asking God to reveal Himself to you.
To reduce that worry that resides in you.
And you will see things begin to change.
It may be a slow change but they will start to change.
So, Jesus here goes from talking about worry to now talking about passing judgement on others.
And the reason for that is because many times people will get that flippant attitude of “you should just stop worrying,” when they have no idea what a person is going through.
Also, they will begin to judge them on other aspects of their life, when they haven’t walked one minute in that person’s shoes and experienced one thing that person has.
So, Jesus uses the worrying issue as a springboard to start talking about judging others.
And he starts out with . . .
1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way as you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
matthew 7:1-
And this goes right back to what I was talking about earlier regarding passing judgment on other people.
Jesus plainly tells us us do not judge, or you too will be judged.
And like I was saying, Jesus was in no way talking about what people do, the actions that they take in life.
This is why Jesus says in verse six of our passage . . .
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 then turn and tear you to pieces.
He is talking about judging sin as sin and judging actions as they are.
However, Jesus is not talking about passing judgement on their entirety as a person.
The best way I can explain it is that Jesus is saying put yourself in their shoes.
if your life was just like theirs was how you would react to situations?
What choices would you make about things?
Because if you want to judge others those are the standards.
Don’t go around judging other people based on how you would would typically react because your life has been different.
You can’t judge based on your standards.
All judgment is based on God’s standards.
And the last time I checked God was the only one qualified to judge on those standards.
That is what Jesus means when he says to them . . .
2 For in the same way as you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
If you want to get into the judgement business then that’s fine but realize that God, who knows all will judge you based on the same standards as you are using to judge others.
Are you harsh and critical of other people?
If you are you need to be very careful.
Because God does not care about our standards and what we think is right or wrong.
Look around the world today.
It is turned completely upside down.
What the world thinks is right is completely wrong in a lot of instances.
And there may even be some things that you think are right that just may not be so either.
But again, don’t misunderstand me.
Sin is sin and the Bible is very clear on many things that are sin.
This is not what we are talking about here.
If it is sin, we call it like we see it, but be careful that in judging the actions that you don’t transfer that judgement on the person.
Don’t look at their sinful actions and conclude that “they are no good,” or “they are worthless.”
No, their actions may be no good, but that person is a valuable creation of God that was created with the same love and care as you were.
Instead of dismissing them as “useless,” You should be fulfilling the command to love them and teach them different.
Judging Actions in the Proper Context
Judging Actions in the Proper Context
Now, we have established that there is a difference between judging others and judging their actions.
And we have established that Jesus never told us not to judge a person’s actions for what they were.
However, in this next section, Jesus is going to call us out a bit.
He is going to give us some guidelines about how we should be judging these actions.
Matthew records Jesus as saying . . .
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.
matthew 7:
And I love these verses.
I like how Jesus lays it out there and how he explains it in a way that it is easy for them to understand.
Because Jesus knows that even though he is is telling them not to judge the person and to focus more on their actions and how they could be taught to do different things that people are still going to be looking at them.
They are still going to be saying things like “I would never do that,” or “why don’t they just quit,” or “I can’t believe what they did.”
All those things we hear.
Well, Jesus stops them dead in their tracks.
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?
You know, they may have a little problem, so why are you so focused on that little thing when you have a BIG problem?
And that’s what we do.
And the reason we do it is because we want to ignore the big huge gigantic problem that we have.
We will nitpick somebody to death, all the time ignoring our own sin.
Thinking that if we can point out their faults it somehow makes our sin “not so bad.”
We compare ourselves to them based on our standards of right and wrong and not God’s.
Sin is sin and God is going to judge all our sin based on His standards, regardless of what we think.
So we might as well get it out of head that we are going to stand before God one day and say “well at least I wasn’t as bad as so and so.”
That’s not going to matter, only God’s standards.
So, Jesus is telling us that maybe we need to spend some time focusing on our own sin and our own faults a bit.
He tells us in verse 4 . . .
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?
And then in verse 5 . . .
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.
In other words, deal with your own sin and then you can understand how to HELP someone else deal with theirs.
Not judge them for it, but help them get over it.
Altar Call
Altar Call
But are we doing that?
Do we have a heart for others?
Do we have the ability to see beyond the sin in a person and see the potential in them?
Can we see them as God does, someone searching for Him?
If we can’t then we need to come and pray that God soften our hearts.
We need to ask God to move on us and help us.
If you struggle in this area, God can fix it.
If you are the type that is always cynical of others, always sees the worst in them, then the Holy Spirit needs to get hold of your heart.
Are you willing to come and let him do that?
Are you willing to be obedient to God in all things?
Maybe you are here and you are the worrier that we talked about earlier.
God can deal with that too, if you are willing to let him.
Maybe you are here and have some other need that we haven’t even mentioned.
God knows what it is, will you come and let him care for it?
Whatever it is, if the Holy Spirit is drawing you to this altar, I would invite you to come this morning.
Will you come?