Judgmentalism is viewed as an awful thing in our society. Judgmentalism is seen as a prejudice, an unreasonable bias, against a people group. And so judgmentalism is commonly linked with racism, sexism, homophobia, misoginy, and biggotry. None of it fits with modern western liberal attitudes. The great value of western liberalism is personal freedom and autonomy.
Now, one of the truths of scripture and the gospel is that ‘All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God’. There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one good, God alone. There is no one righteous who does what is right and never sins. This is the great equalizer. We are all in the same boat, the boat ‘sinner’, whether believer or unbeliever.
And of the believer, it ever remains true, that until I receive the new resurrection body, when I want to do good, evil is right there with me. Each Christian must discover, challenge, and then battle against, the evil thoughts and attitudes of their own hearts.
The flesh wars against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. (NIV)
And so Jesus Christ, to disciples who are poor in spirit and mourners, proposes an important rule. Matthew chapter 7 verse 1:
Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
Do not judge, lest you be judged. So often thrown into the face of Christians who dare to say anything about sex or marriage in public. 'Do not judge my blended family, my sexuality, my lifestyle. That’s what your bible says, isn’t it? So get back into your hole, you bigot and homophobe.'
And so this verse, if we would listen to the social progressives and those who want to justify the new sexual ethic, ends all discussion. We cannot judge. Our Lord says so. So we cannot say that marriage is between a man and a woman for life to the exclusion of all others because that is judgmentalism.
But of course, such a view proves too much. For if Jesus says ‘Do not judge’, does that not apply equally to the progressive, who call those of us who defend traditional marriage bigots and a homophobes? So I can say to the progressive, ‘You cannot judge me to be a bigot, a homophobe, because then you are judging me’. Because then you would be the bigot, you would be the judgmental one.
Our society is extremely judgmental. The Mardi Gras is good and genuine, and the church is bad, and hypocritical. That’s is the judgment of vast swathes of our society.
In fact, if that were true, no one can judge. So we should stop the royal commission, because that involves judging. And no Christians should sit on the bench as judges, because that involves judging. And the church should not have any ethics panels. And the church shouldn’t have court tribunals and ordination chaplains and assessment panels, because that involves judging people.
But you only have to keep reading to verse 6 to see that Jesus cannot mean that. The judging that Jesus warns us of cannot mean discerning what people are truly like, because Jesus requires us in verse 6 to work out who are pigs and dogs. Verse 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. (NIV)
Verse 6 requires judging other people, in making a judgment. You need to ask yourself the question, in applying Jesus’ command in verse 6, ‘Have I got a pig or a dog here?’ The Christian is called to think and assess and make a judgment about another human being. 'I think this person is a pig or a dog for the purposes of Jesus' saying in verse 6, so I am not going to give them my pearls'. That is one judgment. Or 'I don’t think this person is a pig or a dog. I don’t think they will tear me to pieces. So I will share my pearls with them'. All that requires judgment and discernment.
Likewise, in verses 16 and 20, Jesus gives us a rule for judging whether someone is a false prophet, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Verse 15, he says, ‘Watch out for false prophets’. That means you need to keep an eye on others, a very judgmental thing to do. You need to keep an eye on other humans beings, what they are saying, what they are doing, to obey Jesus’ words. You cannot bury your head in the sand with the excuse, ‘Well Jesus doesn’t want me to judge’. Jesus DOES want you to judge whether someone is a false prophet.
And Jesus gives you the tools to make the judgment. Verse 16, Jesus says, ‘by their fruit you will recognize them’. In other words, you will be able to discern and tell which ones are false prophets by their fruit, whether it is good or bad. By ‘fruit’ I take Jesus to mean that it is the outcome of their teachings, and their lifestyle, which will show whether they are false prophets. The things they say and the way that they behave are the things you must watch, and assess, and then make a judgment on.
So, again, we cannot take the proposition ‘do not judge, lest you be judged’ in an absolute way. Jesus has not given us the key to the universe, the great answer to every moral problem. Just make sure you don’t judge anyone else, and all the problems with living in this broken world will evaporate. No, you still must make some judgments, according to Jesus in the same chapter of the sermon on the mount.
Life is not that simple. Christians are, in other contexts, called to judge. There is so much scripture that requires of believers the ability to discern and judge. For example, Paul says to the Corinthian Christians that the spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to judgment. Paul says that in the church, he must judge. He judges the man who is committing adultery with his father’s wife. Paul hands him over to Satan, that is, heexcommunicates him, until he repents. And having done so, Paul asks the church, ‘Are you not to judge those inside the church?’ and expects a yes answer. And he says, 1 Corinthians 6 verses 2 to 3:
Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! (NIV)
Christians and the church must judge. We are called to judge various things, and cases, and issues, and morality, and even people, properly understood. Judging is unavoidable.
Remember what Peter Jensen said in his talk on the thief on the cross at our launch service. We humans can’t help judging things and people. We are little gods, judging everything before us. It is how God made us in His world, as His image bearers, judging things like God does. You can’t help judging things and persons, whether they are good, or bad, or competent, or foolish, or truthful or liars.
And fortunately, Jesus goes on to explain what he means when he says ‘Do not judge lest you be judged’. That is what verses 2 to 5 are about. And what we see in verses 3 and 4 is that Jesus first of all applies this axiom, the proverb, this saying, to relationships within the new Israel he is creating, within the church, within the brotherhood. We are looking at a brother’s eye, we are helping a brother. The example Jesus uses is of brotherly relations.
Does this require that we work out if someone is a ‘brother’? Usually whether someone is a brother is a given. In the context of Israel, it meant a fellow Israelite. But Jesus is also reforming and reconstituting Israel, to be the poor in Spirit, the mourners, those that hunger and thirst for righteousness. Not all Israel is Israel. And even more seriously, Jesus does say, ‘Not everyone who says to me “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my father.’ Not everyone who claims to have Jesus as Lord actually truly has him as Lord.
So while I don’t think we should exclude a broader application of the rule, ‘Do not judge lest you be judged’, I also think Jesus’ application of the rule to relationships within the new people of God is instructive. It lessons the tension between the broadness of the rule 'Do not Judge lest you be Judged', and then having to determine whether someone is a Pig, a Dog or a False Prophet.
But again, after we have included these various qualifications, let’s get to the heart of Jesus’ teaching and warning about judging others.
In verse 2, Jesus gives us a sobering reminder that just because we take the posture of a judge, that doesn’t let us escape judgment. Verse 2.
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.
Paul made the same point in Romans 2, that the one who judges others, will not for that reason escape the judgment of God. Moreover, there is an equity, a fairness in this rule. It is strictly 'doing unto other as you would have them do to you'. It is the lex talons, the law of retribution. As I have treated and judged others, so I should be judged.
The yardstick that you and I use on others, God will use on you and I at the judgment. And no doubt, other people will use that yardstick on you and I, too, that we use on others. That is completely fair. That is ‘Eye for an eye’, ‘tooth for a tooth’. If I want forgiveness, I need to forgive others. And Jesus promises to forgive me only to the same extent and with the same forgiveness that I have offered my forgiveness to others, when he teaches us to pray 'forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us'.
But what I want at the great day of judgment is mercy! I don’t want justice at the judgment. I want and need mercy on the great day of judgment. Don’t give me what I deserve, the eye for the eye. Then I am doomed to hell. Please Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, the sinner.
And so as debtors to mercy, as those who need oceans of forgiveness, as those who mourn and are poor in spirit because of our own sin, we disciples must turn to one another likewise with the eye of mercy, not with the eye of self-righteousness. Look at verses 3 to 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.
A ‘speck of anything’ in your eye is quite painful. It really does get in the way of life. You have to blink a lot to get it out, or get an eye bath.
Many of us have had a literal speck in our literal eye. But I don’t think anyone here has ever literally had a plank in their eye. Because while a speck in the eye is painful, a plank in the eye is fatal.
A speck is a small inconvenience. Yes, a friend might be helpful. But if your friend with a plank in his eye wants to help you, he won’t be much good. Because he is either dead, or he can’t see clearly.
In other words, put your own house in order before you seek to help a friend. Because it may be, if your own house is not in order, you are doing all this help and ministry not for him, but for you. You are helping your friend with a speck to avoid the plank. You are doing it all for show, to obtain the praise of men, not obedience to God.
Let me make some observations here about how we do this ministry of helping our brothers and sisters in church.
First, your brothers speck is your brothers speck, not yours. The fact that it is a speck shows it’s relative importance to you. You are more responsible for your own sins than for your brothers. And this reflects the way God made us, that each is responsible for God.
Second, your brother is your brother. We are brothers and sisters, we are family. We must turn to one another with brotherly love, with fraternal affection, philadelphia. And this calls us not to have one-upmanship.
Third, Jesus illustration suggests that we have a tendency to be much less aware of our own sins than the sins of others. It might be a plank in our own eye, but we can still see that speck.
Fourth, discovering the plank, we need to get rid of that first. Our first priority is always our own sins, not other people's. In fact, our own sins might prevent us from seeing clearly other people’s sins. So if we are going to be any good with others, we have to repent ourselves. Otherwise, the help we offer will lack clear vision. Those of you 'who are spiritual' should restore the sinner gently (Galatians 6). It is those who have removed the whopping great plank who should do this necessary work in the church.
And fifth, we don’t ignore the speck in our brother’s eye? We don’t say, ‘No, it’s not a speck’. ‘You were born that way’. ‘If that speck feels right, do it. You Only Live Once.
Jesus tells us what to do: 'and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye'. There is still an obligation to remove the speck from the brother’s eye. No, it’s a speck, and you should get yourself in a position to help your brother. You just can’t and shouldn't do it with the plank.
Of course, all this is attacking hypocrisy, or playacting, at the root, just as Jesus did by teaching that 'secrecy safeguards sincerity'. Hypocrisy is all about the show, the appearance, and impressing people. It’s about building up our popularity and influence among people and in the church. It's about hearing the words, 'Wow, what a good Christian he is!'
Everything is done for men to see. May it never be. Because attacking our own sin in the secret (and if necessary, the not so secret) places will help us be of use to others.
The good news, friends, is we have a God who is ready and willing to help us. We have Jesus Christ, in the divine throne room, with grace to help us rid ourselves of our hypocrisy and playacting. Verse 7:
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
God is ready and willing to hear us and give to us sincerity of heart as we seek to deal with our sins and with those of our brothers and sisters.
And so when we find that we’ve been hypocritical, we need to run to God, confess, mourn, be poor in Spirit, and ask for the forgiveness that we both need and that we must be prepared to give to others. And then we need to ask God to renew our hearts, to create in us clean hearts and renew a right spirit within us.
It is sometimes said, ‘the church is full of hypocrites’. And then some wise Christian thought of the come back. 'No it’s not. We’ve got room for some more!' Well, this is true. All of us are hypocrites somewhere, sadly. That is part of our sinfulness. However, it is also true that we’ve got plenty more room for other hypocrites to join us. So let’s ask Jesus to help us extract the planks out of our own eyes.