STRAIGHT OUTTA CONTEXT: Matthew 7:1

Chris McCurley: Good to see you again. So I was driving down the interstate the other day and got behind a a semi And decided to pass several other semis, and you know they go seventy and the other semis are going sixty-nine. And so you you it's it's a test of patience, right? To see how long that you can stay behind them without losing your mind. But finally, I got around them. Right before I did though, I noticed a sign on the back of the trailer that said, How's my driving? Call 1-800, whatever. He probably wouldn't have gotten a good report from me that day. Then I go to a restaurant and I'm sitting there and it's one of those experiences where you feel more like a nuisance than a valued customer, and you know the the food was not good, it it took forever, the price was way higher than it should be, and I noticed on the the table there was a comment card. How did we do? Then I go and get some gas. Take the nozzle out, I put it in the tank, and it's one of those that you have to babysit it. You know, I'm talking about it clicks off every ten seconds, and I can't I can't leave it alone and it's raining and I'm trying to get back in my vehicle as quickly as possible. And I notice on the pump there's a little note that says, How did we do? We'd love to hear from you. Isn't it funny? In a culture that says, Do not judge, how many times we are asked to make a judgment? You can't make a purchase anymore without getting a thirty foot long receipt. And at the bottom of it there's a little survey. And if you take this survey and tell us how you how we did, you get a you know ten dollars off your next visit. And it just reiterates what we already know, and that is you cannot not judge. It's impossible, right? I have found a surefire way to get non-Christians to quote the Bible. Just bring up a controversial topic. Pick the side that is biblical, and people from that can't tell Genesis from Revelation will pull out Matthew chapter 7, verse 1. Do you know what Matthew chapter 7, verse 1 says? Of course you do. Do not judge, so that you will not be judged. And even folks that don't know the Bible know this verse. But No sooner had Jesus made this statement in verse 1 of Matthew chapter 7 than he says these words in verse 6. 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. Well now wait a minute. That seems like a judgment, doesn't it? I I mean, how am I supposed to know who are the dogs and who are the swine? Same chapter, verse 15, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. How am I supposed to accept that in light of what Jesus said in verse one about not judging? I I mean, that's not very tolerant. It's certainly not very politically correct, and it's certainly not very Christ-like, at least Some in our culture would say so. But Jesus says it. You will know them by their fruits, he says in verse 16. But how can I test their fruits if I'm forbidden to make a judgment? If I'm not to judge or to make a judgment, then I am sinning over and over again every day. Because I make hundreds of judgments all day. What am I going to wear? What am I going to eat? I'm going to drink. All those kind of things. You know what I'm talking about. You make several judgments per day as well. And what about the Great Commission? Jesus tells us to go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. How am I supposed to do that if I can't make a judgment? How am I supposed to know who needs the gospel and who doesn't? How can I reach out to the lost if I'm not supposed to judge whether they're lost or saved? The idea that we shouldn't judge is number one, absurd. It's number two, impossible, and number three, it's actually, believe it or not, at odds with Scripture. It's also very inconsistent, even hypocritical. Telling someone not to judge is a judgment, is it not? In fact, anytime you start a phrase with you should not, whatever follows that is going to be a judgment. It's kind of like the folks who say there is no such thing as absolute truth. If that's true, it's false, right? And so, what does the statement do not judge really imply? Does it mean that we need to stop making decisions, that we need to stop inferring and stop discerning and stop thinking altogether? Is that what Jesus meant when he said, do not judge? I guess that clip question is out of line as well, because to answer it, you'd have to make a judgment, right? There are many folks in our world Who care nothing about what the Bible says concerning any other subject, but are quick to pull Matthew chapter 7, verse 1 from their holster. However, Jesus had a lot more to say after making that statement in Matthew chapter 7, verse 1. In fact, once you understand the context of his words, you will find that what he meant is quite the opposite of what the do-not-judge culture insinuates. I have not mastered the English language. You can probably tell that by my preaching. I I see a lot of use of words on social media that can be annoying sometimes. Then and Dan and U and your and your Wow U R Wow U, comma R E, you know, you know what I'm talking about. Phrases that we use sometimes, I hear this one all the time. I could care less. That's not the phrase. That's not how you use it. What is it? I couldn't care less, right? Or how about for all intensive purposes? It's actually for all intents and purposes. I heard someone say the other day, I was so hungry, I literally inhaled my food. And I'm like, no, you didn't. If you literally inhaled it, you'd be dead, right? So I'm not a master of the English language, but I do find some things annoying, and I'm sure you probably have your own pet peeves as well. It kind of reminds me of the Princess Bride and Ego Mantoya. I don't think that means what you think it means. And I think people are using this scripture and many others that we've talked about in the series in the wrong way. It doesn't mean what they think it means. And I will give the do not judge culture partial credit. They do have it almost right. Jesus said did say, do not judge, but they leave out a very important word when it comes to understanding what Jesus is saying, and that is do not judge wrongly. And that that is the pivotal piece here that we have to have if we're going to understand what Jesus is saying. It's not that we should never judge. It's not that that we should never make a discernment. It's that we must judge rightly. Wrong judging is what Jesus is bringing to light in Matthew chapter seven. Let's consider Jesus' words in the proper context. 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. So is Jesus telling these Jewish leaders, hey, quit judging people, quit telling people they're wrong, stop making assessment of these people. Let's all just gather around the fire and sing kumbaya. Is that what he's getting at? And obviously not. What Jesus is saying here is can you take what you give? Jesus is not saying do not judge under any circumstances. He is saying, be careful how you judge. What standard of measure are you using? You had better evaluate the standard that you use because that standard is going to be used against you. When you judge others, I should say when we or when I judge others, I'm not trying to judge you, but when I judge others, I often do so with very little mercy. And that's a me problem. Many of us assume things. We we think if you don't agree with me on politics, then you don't care about our country and you're not patriotic enough. And if you don't agree with me on every theological issue, then you must not love God. You know, I have disagreements with brethren sometimes and over email you know, maybe they didn't like something that I said. Of course nobody here or somebody, you know, that may be watching from afar and And unfortunately, a lot of times it ends with, well, basically you don't care about the Bible. You know, I mean you don't care about the authority of scripture. You don't care about scripture like I do. And isn't that sad? That assumptions are made? If you don't raise your children like I do, then you must not care about their well-being and their welfare. The problem is that that you disagree or think someone is wrong, and you've assumed you've judged motives. That problem comes when you jump to judging motives and as a result you write the other person off. It's what we've been talking about in our series that we started this morning. Stay in the conversation. Don't slam a door. When you slam a door, you've ruined any other opportunity going forward, more than likely. Luke records it this way. For by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you in return. Are you prepared to live up to the standard that you hold others to? That is the heart of Jesus' message in Matthew 7 1 through 5. It's hypocritical, hypercritical, self-righteous judgment that Jesus is condemning. How are you able to see the tiniest speck of sawdust in someone else's eye when you have a log protruding from your own eye? You can't. Which means that you're going off of assumptions or you're judging most. motives and judging motives is one business that we need to stay out of. Righteousness is the standard that we should be using, not self-righteousness. We can't judge people by our own standard because we don't always measure up ourselves. So many times we condemn failings in others that are glaringly obvious in our own lives. We want to hold people to a better standard than even we're currently meeting. And to be overly critical of others when we are failing to meet our own standard is the height of hypocrisy. Which is precisely what Jesus is condemning here. It's like the woman who was waiting on her flight at the airport. She decided to to go grab some cookies from one of the little kiosks there. And she sits down and she sits next to a man who is reading a book, as she is as well, and she's engrossed in her book, and and she notices the man is reaching down and getting a cookie out of the bag beside them. And she's appalled. Like, what are you doing? Just helping yourself. And he gets another. She's singing the audacity of this guy to be getting cookies out of my bag. So she's trying to keep up. She's trying to actually get ahead of him. He takes a cookie, she takes a couple, and finally it comes down to one cookie. And he reaches in and he shows it to her like he's offering it to her, and she's just totally disgusted. What do you mean you're offering me my cookie? And then he pops it in his mouth. Well, she's so incensed, they finally call to board, and she gets on the plane, and she gets settled down and she goes to get her book out of her bag, and guess what's in there? An unopened bag of cookies. Turns out that she was the cookie thief and not the guy that she was so appalled at. We often wrongly assess people situations, either intentionally or unintentionally. Our standards of judgment are flawed. We tend to look at everyone else's shortcomings through a microscope, and we zoom in and we can see every little detail of their sins, and we tend to look through a microscope of our own that has the cap still on it. We can't see the things that we see in others, and we tend to think that we have everything together while everyone else is falling apart. And that is what Jesus is condemning. Using a standard that is not God's, placing yourself in the judgment seat. But before doing that, Jesus says, take a long look at your own life, at your own heart. Now, we said this before, but the Jews had a double standard of judgment. They believed that they were the chosen, and therefore they were going to be okay when it came to the end of times, that they were going to have their place in heaven with God for all eternity because they were good. Their heritage would save them. But they believed that God would punish the Gentiles a hundredfold. That it was even believed or even taught by some that you know the fires of hell would be stoked by the bodies of the Gentiles. They had no use for Gentiles because they believed that God had no use for Gentiles. And so you can kind of see where they're coming from in their judgments and why they took this approach. And you'll remember that Jesus even referred to the Pharisees as blind guides of the blind. That's a ridiculous thing for a blind person to lead another blind person, but you know what's even more absurd than that is a blind optometrist. I mean, who would want a blind optometrist? And that's what Jesus is pointing out here. That's what he says the Pharisees were basically that they were searching for specks of sawdust in everyone else's eye while they had this log protruding from their own eye and they couldn't even see it. They could spot the tiniest sin in someone else, and yet couldn't see the obvious in their own lives. So Jesus is condemning the jumping to motive. When you know nothing about the person or the situation. The Pharisees assumed that the tax collectors and the prostitutes that they were worthless, that they didn't deserve the love of God. They assumed that God had no use for sinners. The religious elite had no ability to see into their heart, yet they condemned them anyway. And this is why we can't follow suit. We can't judge motives. We can't judge motives because we don't even know why we do what we do. How are we going to assume that we know what someone else is doing, the reason behind it? We don't even know why we do what we do. We're not qualified to judge motives. We don't even understand our own motives, much less those of other people. No one can determine the motive behind another person's actions or conduct because there are limits to what we can see in other people. It's our own motives that we should be concerned with, and that's what Jesus is pointing out. Look inward before you look outward. Before you start looking for the tiniest speck of sawdust in someone else's eye, remove the log. The Pharisees had better moral behavior. Their standing in society was better. They were more respected. Their lives reflected a better religious position, but their hearts were far from God. And what a shock it must have been to their system when Jesus says the dregs of humanity are going to enter into heaven before you do. That person that you condemn may be closer to Jesus than you are. And did you notice what Jesus calls the judgmental person? He calls him a hypocrite. Now there's probably not a worse insult in our culture than a hypocrite. In fact, it's been what given as one of the main reasons why some people don't come to church because it's full of a bunch of hypocrites. We we don't like hypocrites because we don't like fake. We don't like someone who is unauthentic. We want we want real and we want somebody to be real with us. We despise the artificial individual, the one who pretends to be something they're not. And yet we may find that we fit that description if we're not careful. If we're gonna be hard on anyone, it should be ourselves first. And if we're going to come down on anyone, it needs to be us first. Before we go condemning others, we need to give ourselves a thorough examination. Look inward before you look outward. And my guess is we could all probably find a few things that we need to clean up in our lives. I think we could keep ourselves busy working on ourselves. And I think that should be our primary focus. Don't allow the shortcomings of another to override the sin in your own life, get our own house in order, focus on our own. Now, you've probably already jumped ahead in your minds. Jesus never intended for Christians not to judge. Rather, he intended for us to judge rightly. John 7:24, do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment. And so the person who says, Jesus says, do not judge, yeah, but he also says to judge. Both are explicit. Do not judge. So then he says, You are to judge. What's the difference? Well Matthew seven it's do not judge wrongly. In John seven twenty-four it's judge rightly. We must be able to discern truth and error. We must be able to recognize false prophets who come to us in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. Paul spoke plainly to the Corinthians about the fact that we must take place, that judging must take place in order to effectively carry out church discipline. We must be able to recognize sin when we see it, or else how do we steer clear of it? And how would we know who needed to hear the gospel? Now, these are all technically judgments. However, the standard is not our own. The standard that we use to judge is the Word of God. He has a standard, and pointing that out to someone is not being judgmental. It's simply speaking where God speaks. Righteous judgment means that we judge according to the proper standard. The Bible is our standard, and within its pages are the specifications for how to live. And pointing that out to someone is not being judgmental. In fact, it's the probably the most loving thing that we could do. Of course, it all depends on how we present it, right? And that's what we talked about this morning. There is a standard of righteousness that one must live by in order to be pleasing to God. And pointing that out to one who is lost is not being intolerant, it's not being judgmental. They don't need us to condemn them. Our job as Christians is to make them aware of their need for a savior. And of course, how we do that makes all the difference. Some people rather enjoy telling people they're going to hell. They feel like it's their spiritual gift. But let me tell you, it's not. And it doesn't do any good. We should be truth tellers with tears. We of all people should be the most sympathetic toward the lost because we too were once dead in our trespasses and sins. Probably most of us here know of a situation that occurred hopefully many years ago. We know of someone who has said, Yeah, I won't ever come back to church. I went one time and they told me I was going to hell because I'm Methodist, I'm Baptist, or whatever, right? We know those stories. We've heard those stories. It's okay to have a stance. You've got to stand for something. What do you stand for? God's standard. That's what you stand for. With conviction, but with compassion. It's how you stand, it's how you present. It makes all the difference. We should be truth tellers with tears. However, we don't love anyone. We love anyone if we withhold the truth from them for fear of offending them. Right? I've said this before. But if everybody hates us, there's something wrong. But if everybody loves us, there's probably something wrong. Jesus stood for truth, and he stood with grace. There's a marriage between grace and truth that Jesus personified, and some loved him, and some hated him. And so to stand with him, to be truth tellers with tears, means that we have to be willing to risk hurting one's feelings as we attempt to help them get to heaven. rather than protecting their feelings and helping usher them into hell. It's a story about a a widowed trapper that lived deep in the Alaskan wilderness. And he had a a a little son and a trusty dog. And the weather was getting bad and he was Out of supplies, he needed to go and gather some food, but he didn't want to leave his son. It was too small. But at some point he realized, I I've got to, I've got to risk, because I've got to go and get some food or else we're not going make it. So he left his trusty dog in charge of his son. And he went out not expecting to be gone very long, but the weather got progressively worse to the point that he couldn't make it back to the house and he had to spend the night out in the woods. And when he came back home, he rushed through the door and he noticed there was some furniture turned over. the house was in disarray, and sitting in the corner was his trusty old dog with blood on his face. He couldn't find his son and he started connecting the dots. The dog got hungry. Killed his son. And so he immediately wielded an axe and he killed his trusty dog for what he had done to his son. But he began looking around the house thinking, maybe, just maybe my son is still alive, maybe he's wounded, but he's still alive. And as he looks, he hears a familiar cry. And he tips over the bed, and there's his son. Underneath. Not a scratch on him. Not harmed in the least. He sweeps him up in his arms and he turns and he notices a dead wolf over in the corner of the room. And then he realizes what had happened. The wolf was a threat to attacking his son, and his trusty dog saved his son life by killing the wolf. That explained the blood on his face. We often make wrong assumptions. We often make wrong judgments. It's easy to do. We we put the puzzle pieces together and realize, they they don't exactly fit like I thought they would. The Bible is there to shape our judgments. It's there to tell us how to judge. It's absolutely ludicrous to suggest that a Christian is never to judge. We are to judge. We must judge. You can't be an obedient Christian without exercising judgment. But you have to judge rightly. That's the key in all of it is judging rightly and remembering that we cannot judge motives. That is out of our purview. We don't even know why we do what we do. And so we judge with righteous judgment. And then we determine who needs the gospel like we did. And we share it with them in the hopes that they will turn their life around. Live for God. Let's pray. Most kind and gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day, for this opportunity. I know you love these people as I do, and I pray that we will all seek to live the center of your will, that we will leave here tonight and we will make a difference in our community, in our homes this week. Keep us strong, God, and may we keep fighting the good fight. We love you, and it's in your Son's precious name we pray. You I said this morning that It's a tradition that we have you walk down the aisle and come to the front. It's not a biblical thing, it's a traditional thing, and I don't think that's wrong. I mean, I I think it's good to have that opportunity, but I also understand that it's a long walk for some people. And some of the things that they're dealing with may not be conducive to coming down here and once you know my my door is open. Come and see me. You can talk to one of the shepherds like we mentioned this morning or one of the other staff members. But as a family, we want to help you get to a good place. I think about that a lot, more so than I used to. Life is a vapor, it's fleeting. There's no better time than to make things right with God than right here, right now. So if we can help you in some way, feel free to come forward or contact me, see me afterwards. But why don't you come as we stand and as we sit?

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