The Judge Judged in our place

Good morning, everyone.

Would you remain standing for the reading of God's Word?

Turn your Bibles or your bulletins to Matthew chapter 7.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 7, we'll start in verse 1.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

This is God's Word.

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.

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?

Or how can you say to your brother,

let me take the speck out of your eye when there is a log 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.

This is God's Word.

Please be seated.

Do you pray with me?

Father in heaven, we have come into your house expecting you,

and we know that you are here.

You've been with us as we sing, as we give, as we greet one another,

doing spiritual things in our midst.

And we pray now that as we look at your Word,

that you would not stop,

but that you would all the more through the power of your Spirit work in our hearts,

in our church, in our families, in our marriages,

that you would be glorified,

and that Christ would be big and beautiful.

It's in his name that we pray.

Amen.

Just a quick introduction.

My name is Jonathan Clark.

I'm a local pastor here in Colorado Springs.

I grew up here in Colorado Springs.

I've been away for a while,

but I just recently moved back in April with my family.

I'm married to Caroline.

She's an artist in town,

and we have a little girl that God's entrusted to us.

She's three.

And so they're worshiping at another church for consistency for my daughter's sake.

But I'm here occasionally.

If this is your first time,

I'm not normally here at Cheyenne Mountain,

but I come occasionally,

so you'll see me around.

If you have been around a while,

then you've probably known me for a shorter or longer time.

I serve as a campus pastor with an organization called Reformed University Fellowship.

It's the campus ministry wing of our Presbyterian tradition.

So I'm at UCCS,

but also looking at other colleges around Colorado Springs.

And so it's great to be with you today on this Lord's Day

to open up the Bible and ponder it with you.

So I was this week...

...on the Internet.

You know, I spend a lot of time on the Internet

as I'm hanging around with college students

trying to discern and hear what they're thinking.

And I saw a video.

This video was of someone who double parked their car, right?

We've all seen it.

Somebody who takes up more lanes than they're supposed to.

And somebody else looks at this and says,

well, this is unjust.

And so they're criticizing it, right?

And very quickly,

the whole episode in the video

explodes from two people ignoring each other

to all of a sudden,

two complete strangers absolutely yelling at each other.

And you've probably seen something like this.

One person is mocking the other person.

One person is saying,

stay out of my business.

You don't understand, right?

And there's another person

who's recording, live streaming the whole situation, right?

And they're watching the whole thing.

They're watching this scene take place, right?

And so the person who double parked

is feeling wrongly judged.

And the critic is feeling the need to judge,

to assess at the very least.

And it's escalating.

And both are feeling superior.

Both are feeling vindicated in their position.

And I'm sure that, you know,

many of us are thinking,

well, you know, this would never happen, right?

Maybe you've seen a video like this.

Maybe you haven't.

But you know, there was another person

who was at work in this.

And it was me who's watching the video saying,

well, I would never,

I would never get caught up in this situation.

Look at these two fools

yelling at each other in a parking lot, right?

Thinking, oh man,

I would never, ever be caught in a situation

of yelling at a total stranger, right?

And so lots of criticism at the very least

at its very worst,

the word that Jesus asks us to focus on today,

judgment is happening in this moment.

One person is judging another parker.

The parker is judging the recorder

and then I'm judging the whole situation, right?

Well, as my black pastor in seminary would say

to this whole situation,

Jesus has a word for us.

If you found yourself like this,

and it's a sharp word

and it's a generous action, right?

Jesus today commands us

not to judge other humans,

but in so doing,

he saves judging hypocrites

by becoming judged for them.

Jesus commands us not to judge,

but then he saves judging hypocrites, right?

So look down at your text, if you will,

and you look at verse one.

Jesus is in the middle of his Sermon on the Mount,

which is Jesus' great exposition

and teaching on the law.

And he's telling how the Old Testament law

continues to have relevance

for the life of the Christian today, right?

And how the standard of holiness

is not lowered by Christ's coming,

but is actually elevated,

strikes to the very core of our hearts,

and pervades all of our society, right?

And he says here,

he says in these striking words

right from the get-go,

judge not that you be not judged, right?

For with the judgment you pronounce,

you will have measured against you, right?

Well, what's going on here?

What does Jesus mean?

Well, honestly, it's pretty straightforward.

Jesus is not necessarily saying anything

that's too hard for us to understand.

Jesus is saying here that no human being,

no person has the right or the responsibility

or even the ability to judge, jury,

and be executioner for another human being, right?

That no person has that responsibility.

No person has the right to declare the final verdict

for another human being, right?

That is alone God's role.

It is God's right to condemn.

It is God's right to not condemn, right?

And if you think about the opposite of this,

in Romans 4, Paul says that Abraham

is reckoned or counted as righteous.

And that word that Paul uses

is the Greek word for logizomai,

which means to declare something is true,

to declare that Paul or Abraham

is righteous by faith.

This is the opposite of what is happening here.

This judging is to declare unrighteous.

Unrighteous.

To judge, even to the very core

of who a human being is, right?

And so here, judging is snatching from God

the right and responsibility of final condemnation.

And in a sense, then,

it's to pretend to be God for a moment.

For a brief moment in time to say,

I know this world and this person

and this universe well enough

to declare this person's status, right?

It goes beyond what a person does or believes or says

and strikes to the core of this person, right?

And so if we sit in what's actually happening here,

we are quickly, throughout the book of Matthew,

placed with sort of the archetype,

the stereotype of this judgment,

and it is the Pharisees, right?

Jesus is constantly lambasting, attacking,

saying that you are the worst example

of this judgmental spirit.

Here are men who are so quick

to assess the spiritual status and social value,

compare it to their own,

and then say, you are wanting,

spiritually, socially, in every way,

that the Pharisees were some of the most vindictive

and judgmental people in Jesus' society, right?

To make a snap judgment,

to look at a person and say,

you can never be holy like we are.

Oh, you are spiritually inferior to me.

They would say things like,

oh, Lord, I am so thankful

that I am not like this tax collector.

Or to Jesus, Jesus,

do you know who you are eating with?

What kind of a person this is?

What they have done?

Does Jesus know?

They claimed to do often

what only God can do

and deliver the final verdict

over a person's dignity, value, and status.

Now, what does this have to do?

How does this apply to our day, right?

Well, I shouldn't have to spend too much time

because we all know this is true,

that we live in one of the most vindictive,

judgmental times in all of society, right?

That 21st century America

is full of this judgmental spirit.

Think about with me of a non-religious context,

perhaps a secular context.

Think with me about the reality,

the phenomenon that we know today

is cancel culture, right?

What is cancel culture?

Well, it's the ability for a group or a person

to eliminate a person's social standing

almost immediately, right?

Cancel culture is when a person or a group

can shun, shame, fire, derail a career

of a person almost overnight

for any little thing, right?

Cancel culture or call-out culture

is a giant social exercise in this judgment

to say you have no role in our society anymore.

You are done for, condemning a person

to social and even career death, right?

And we've all seen examples of this

where a tweet, a very old tweet possibly

or a new tweet can become unearthed

and immediately this person's career

is if not eliminated, set back decades

and they have to go into hiding, it seems, right?

Right?

And this happens everywhere from junior high schools,

middle schools to A-list actors, right?

This is the kind of judgment

that our world lives in, right?

But consider it's not just the non-Christian world

where this sort of thing happens, right?

It happens as much in the religious world

or in the Christian church, right?

So I hang out with college students

a good bit of my time

and I hang out with students

who are not Christians,

not walking with the Lord,

unchurched or de-churched.

And what is the number one complaint

both that I hear anecdotally

and the research says about Christians, right?

The number one reasons why someone would say

I'm not going to church with you

or I will not come to a faith event.

They say Christians are what?

Judgmental hypocrites, right?

They look at the church and they say

you say one thing but you do another

or I walk in the door

and I immediately fell judged, right?

And now whether or not there's validity to that

is a different question

but it's true that we live in churches,

we live in marriages and families

that can be incredibly judgmental places.

And it might be tempting for us to say

well that's the secular cancel culture

or no that's the fundamentalist church.

But like when you stick a magnifying in the sun

and let it burn a little bit until it gets hot,

I want to let the magnifying words of Jesus

to sit on our hearts until we squirm

under the gaze of Jesus' words, judge not.

A few weeks ago I went to Estes Park, Colorado

which is a big old tourist destination

if you've gone into the mountains at all.

And I was walking around Estes Park

on a busy weekend afternoon

and I was thinking about this text

and I was astonished at how quickly

I could look around me in Estes Park

and assess, nay, judge the people around me, right?

I would judge the people

who were in mountain yuppies, right?

Oh, look at those granola hippies here.

And then I would look at the Texas tourists

for ruining my Colorado mountains, right?

How I was perfectly capable

of judging the Florida license plate

for how they drove the mountain roads, right?

How I was perfectly capable

to judge someone

for what clothes they wore

in the mountains, right?

Incredible how our hearts

are so capable of this, right?

From parking jobs

to a person's politics,

from their sitcom taste

to their sexuality,

to declare a verdict

about someone's value

and even their eternal status, right?

And I think if you're honest with yourself,

if you sit in this,

you start to see,

oh my goodness,

I am the one

that Jesus is talking to, right?

Because Jesus' words here

challenge and alarm us

with the possibility

that I am the judgmental one

that Jesus is speaking to, right?

I'm rereading currently

The Lord of the Rings,

which is J.R.R. Tolkien's

just epic narrative

about the finding

and destruction of the one ring.

And Gandalf,

who is the wizard,

the kind of the spiritual father,

shepherd for this whole saga,

is telling Frodo,

who is the one

who has found the one ring

and it must destroy it.

He's telling the story

of how the ring has passed

from Sauron,

the great evil dictator

of the universe,

to Gollum,

the sniveling,

griping worm of a creature,

and then how it passes

to Frodo, right?

And he's talking about

how the Gollum,

when he finds the ring,

it slowly corrodes

and corrupts his soul, right?

And Frodo is disgusted by this,

and he declares

that Gollum is loathsome.

And you're imprinted

in your text

as Gandalf's next word

in your bulletin.

Gandalf says,

I think it is a sad story,

and it could have happened

to others,

even to some hobbits I know.

And Tolkien hits something

right there to say,

don't be so quick

to judge Gollum, Frodo.

You are just as capable

of the same corrosion

and destruction

that Gollum is.

And as the story continues,

we see that that happens

to Frodo gradually,

to where he eventually

claims the ring as his own, right?

That Frodo is perfectly capable

of the same corruption,

and therefore has no standing

to judge the creature Gollum.

Try this on.

When we go to a grocery store,

this is some of the,

go to a grocery store

that you don't normally go to.

I went to the Walmart

last week on Platt.

I'm not normally

at that grocery store.

And I saw a pig's head,

literally a head of a pig,

and I thought,

who buys that?

And I found myself

incredibly judgmental

of the people

who are in that Walmart, right?

You'll be astonished

when you go

to a different grocery store

how quickly you can size up

another human being,

stereotype them,

judge them for wearing clothes

too expensive

or not expensive enough.

Judge them

by what's in their cart

or by what's not

in their cart.

Outside of a store,

we assess people

by how little they're

on social media

or how much

they're on social media,

by how woke they are

or how anti-woke they are,

by how they think

about politics

and race,

little things,

big things.

We are a world

and a society

that is subconscious,

constantly,

impulsively judgmental, right?

Dr. Adam Moore,

he's a psychology professor

on social judgment thought

at the University of Edinburgh,

did several clinical studies

on this phenomenon.

He says this,

he says profound words,

he says,

we enjoy that feeling

of moral superiority

and the feeling

that we are a good person

or the one in the right.

It feels great

to be in that self-righteous place

where you stand

on your pedestal

and look down on others,

but he says,

it is not healthy.

So why is this judging

so easy for us?

Well,

this non-Christian professor

put the nail on the head.

Self-righteousness,

this self-righteous impulse

that is at work

in all of us

and the Bible

has a word for that.

Sin.

It is sin

that all of us

are this judgmental,

knee-flexed,

subconscious condemnation,

right?

And sin brings judgment,

the Bible tells us,

right?

Listen to what Jesus says,

judge not

that you be not judged.

Verse two,

for what,

with the judgment

you pronounce,

it will be,

you will be judged.

And with the measure

you use,

it will be measured

to you.

The standard

that you and I use

to assess

and ultimately condemn

another human being,

Jesus says,

will be meted out

back to you.

You will be judged.

That's in the passive voice,

which whenever there's

a passive voice

in the Bible,

often that is,

that God is the active agent

behind that.

God will judge us

based on how you judge

others,

right?

God assesses us

based on our own standards,

right?

Martin Lloyd-Jones,

who's an old British preacher,

writes a commentary

on the Sermon on the Mount

and he says of these two verses,

Matthew 7, 1 and 2,

that they are some

of the most alarming

and indicting verses

in the whole Bible.

And the longer you sit in it,

the longer it hounds us.

It condemns us

because we are a self-righteous,

judgmental people,

right?

And Jesus has a word for this.

If you skip down

to verse 5,

you hypocrites,

all of us,

Christians,

non-Christians,

conservatives,

liberals,

man,

woman,

child,

old,

all of us are the kind

of people who are guilty

of the vices

and the sins

that we judge in others.

And this hypocrisy

has the root

of self-righteousness,

of sinful condemnation

and error,

right?

It's the Pharisees' error

and it's our errors,

right?

And we should feel

the sting of it

because we are all sinners.

And this leads us

to this broken place

of saying,

what hope is there

for a person like me,

a judgmental sinner?

We are all condemned

to be judged

by each other

and ultimately judged

by the living God.

And when we find ourselves

in this place,

we must return,

friends,

to the very core,

the heartbeat

of the Christian message,

the gospel.

And it is this,

that God is a great Savior

who saves judgmental sinners

like you

and like me.

That the whole mission

of the Christ

who comes to earth

is to deliver us

from this mess

of judgmentalism

that we have created

from ourselves.

The message of the gospel,

the heart of the Christian good news

is even though you and I

are judgmental hypocrites,

Christ died to save

us from judgment,

our own and ultimately His,

right?

This is what the Bible says.

Yes,

I am the judging one

and God does not judge me

but places another one

to be judged in my place.

If you have a Bible,

turn to Matthew chapter 26.

Matthew 26 · chapter mention

Scroll ahead a couple of chapters

and Matthew 26

is when Jesus

has done His ministry,

His time has come,

He has been arrested,

He's now on trial,

He's innocent of the charges

but He's on a trumped up trial

for charges of blasphemy.

He claims that He is God

which was a punishable offense

by death.

Now He is God

so it's a false trial

but if it turns out to be true

then He deserves to die,

right?

And so look with me

at Matthew 26,

Matthew 26:65

verse 65.

The high priest

is interrogating Jesus

and it says,

then the high priest

tore his robes

and said,

He has uttered blasphemy.

What further witnesses

do we need?

You have heard

His blasphemy.

Look at verse 66.

What is your judgment?

And they answered,

He deserves death.

The council and the people

cry out,

kill,

judge,

condemn,

destroy

this man.

Karl Barth

who is an amazing scholar

of the Bible.

He's not right on everything.

He's not right on everything

but he hits the nail

on the head with this.

This is a bit of a wordy quote

but it's beautiful.

It's written in your bulletin.

He writes this,

Those who are to be judged

are given space

and freedom

and power

to judge.

The judge

allows himself

to be judged.

The punishment

falls on the very one

on whom it ought

to fall

least of all

and not at all

on those

on whom it ought

to fall.

Jesus,

the judge,

the righteous one

who never wrongly judged

places himself

in the position

of being judged,

condemned,

and destroyed

by sinful hypocrites,

Pharisees.

He is judged

by them

even to death

even though

he has done

nothing wrong

to be judged.

And friends,

if that is true

2,000 years ago,

it is still true

for us today

as Cheyenne Mountain

Presbyterian Church.

Jesus,

with the most authority,

the most authorization

to judge

and condemn us

says,

No,

I will not judge

but I will be judged

in their place.

The judgment

that we deserve

falls on him.

the one who can only

rightly judge

does not exercise it

but is gracious,

merciful,

kind,

and generous

to you

and to me.

Judgmental hypocrites,

right?

The only non-hypocrite

in the history

of the world

suffered

and died

the judgmental

hypocrite's fate

so that hypocrites

like you and I

would escape judgment.

That is the good news

of the Christian message.

And friends,

that has the potential

to begin to dig us

out of

this judgmental mess

that we find ourselves

in our families,

in our marriages,

in our churches,

even in our society,

right?

We read earlier

he was crushed

for our iniquities.

The righteous

suffered for the unrighteous.

The judge is judged

in our place.

And that, friend,

is an undeserved gift.

It's a free mercy

that the good

God,

who is active

in our world,

gives us,

right?

That is the gospel.

And I think

it's incredibly compelling.

I think it's

incredibly beautiful.

It's more than just

intellectually plausible.

It's satisfying

to the great need

of our heart

and to our society

and to our families,

right?

It becomes hope

for a world

of hypocrites

like you and me.

And so what do we do forward?

Where does this leave us?

Well, it leaves us

right where

chapter 7

places us,

which is it forces us

to do radical

self-examination,

right?

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?

Or how can you say

to your brother,

let me take the speck

out of your own eye

when there is a log

in your own eye,

right?

Jesus used an illustration

that has a rhetorical

question behind it,

and it's this.

Can you tell someone

to remove a splinter

or a speck of dust

from their eye

when there is a whole plank,

a two by four?

And those are the words

that Jesus is using

in your own eye.

Well, absolutely not.

It's impossible.

And just like a speck

is far worse,

a log is far,

a log in the eye

is far worse

than a speck of dust,

self-righteousness,

judgmentalism

is far worse

in your life

than any other issue

you may see

in another person's life.

And that the self-righteous

judgmental spirit

is the one thing

that is preventing you

from being able

to accurately see

around you, right?

And so the application

here for us

is to take

a hard look

at ourselves.

It means that

each of us

must be in consistent

patterns

and relationships

and liturgies

of self-examination,

of constant repentance,

of self-reflection.

There's an author

whom I respect greatly.

It's named Fleming Rutledge

and she says this,

every Christian

is summoned

to see him or herself

among the perpetrators

for whom Christ

has substituted himself.

That we must be people

who are daily,

weekly,

monthly,

examining our own hearts,

looking for the specks

in our own eye,

not snapping out,

searching for the errors

and logs in others, right?

And this self-respect

is especially important

when we come to a task

of speaking to another brother,

right?

Or a sister.

Notice,

Jesus doesn't say

never go to another person

and call out their sin.

He says just do hard work

on yourself first.

And this is so important

for those of us

who are in positions

of authority

or leadership

in our world, right?

And all of us

have that authority

in some ways or another.

Elders,

parents,

husbands,

peers.

If you are going to go

to your brother and sister

and say,

hey,

this needs work

in your life,

spend days

in prayer,

examining your own heart.

Spouses,

if you know of an error

in your husband

or your wife's life,

before you go and say

this needs to change,

spend days

looking to your own heart.

Roommates,

before you get on

your roommate

for cleaning the dishes again

or not picking up

their shoes at the door,

look at your own heart.

Where are there failures

of love in you, right?

I often tell

in premarital counseling,

which I do a lot

with college students,

that if you're going

to have a fight,

you have to go into it

saying,

I'm 51% of the problem.

I'm bringing more error

into this relationship

than you are, right?

If you have two people

who are willing to do this,

there can maybe

be reconciliation, right?

Parents,

this is so true for us.

As we're shepherding

young hearts,

as we're directing

young minds

to know and love the Lord,

we must be

constantly repenting.

I had to do it

this morning

with my daughter.

Here I am,

a preacher,

having to tell my daughter,

I'm sorry, honey,

I snapped at you.

Will you forgive me?

Constant repentance.

And this is true

for all of our lives,

neighbors,

co-workers,

classmates,

to be examining

ourselves more and more,

to be examining

for the specs, right?

And think with me,

if we were to create

cultures,

marriages,

families,

churches,

community,

home groups

that are animated

by this kind of

repentant

self-reflection,

what kind of a church

would we be?

If we,

Christians,

if Cheyenne Mountain

Presbyterian Church

was a church

known inside

and outside

as a church

that is a repentant,

self-examining community

that looks to the one

who was judged

in their place

and then responds

with self-examination

and repentance,

what kind of a model,

what kind of a good news,

what kind of a salt

and light contrast

would that provide

to a world

of condemnation

and judgment?

Suddenly,

I hope,

I trust that our peers

and our non-Christian friends

would say something's

different in this place

and we can say,

yes,

we are not a people

condemned.

We are a people

who know mercy.

Though we are hypocrites,

we serve a merciful God.

Husbands,

how are you?

Session,

how are you?

Wives,

how are you?

Children,

how are you repenting?

One of my favorite pastors,

he's a missionary theologian,

commenting on this passage,

writes,

he says,

the world does not need

a perfect eye,

but a consciously imperfect eye.

The world does not need

a perfect Cheyenne Mountain

Presbyterian church.

The world needs

a consciously repenting,

imperfect Cheyenne Mountain

Presbyterian church.

That is what Jesus

is getting at here.

That means as long

as we are a world

full of logs and specks,

we are in this

conscious,

vicious cycle.

But as long

as we are people

who are aware

that we are imperfect

and repentant

and looking to the judge

judged in our place,

then there can be hope.

Then there can be

goodness and sweetness,

right?

And so this passage

does not command you

to go out

and beat you up

and say,

stop judging others.

No.

That would abuse us all.

That would beat us up.

But rather,

as John Owen,

the great pastor

of mortification,

says when he talks

about killing sin,

he says the only effective

and long-term way

to kill sin

is to not focus

on our sin,

not focus on the brokenness,

but to focus on Jesus.

Focus on his loveliness.

Focus on,

in this text,

the judge judged

in your place.

how sweet

and compelling

and how generous

and how merciful

that is

to marvel

at the anti-hypocrite

punished

for your hypocrisy.

And if that,

when that,

as that is sweet

to your heart,

that becomes the balm,

the healing

for our judgmental

and your judgmental world.

So don't try

to not be a judgy person.

Look to the one

who was judged

in your place

moment by moment,

hour by hour,

and be ever humbled

by that

and refreshed

by that good news.

Would you pray with me?

Father in heaven,

your word cuts

to the core

as it always does.

We are struck,

I'm struck

by my desperate need

for you to be gracious

to us all,

that we live

in a time

and in a world

that is full

of judgment,

wrongly placed judgment,

and that you alone

are our hope.

Thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Christ,

that you were indeed

judged in our place.

You received

the condemnation

that we deserve

and we receive

the acceptance

and the mercy

that we don't deserve.

I pray for each

heart in here,

maybe people

who have heard it

for a million times

or for the first,

that it would sink

in deep

and that you would

minister to us

and send us out

more Christ-like

through your word.

That it's in Christ's

name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.