This is the manuscript of the seventh sermon in the "Listening To Heaven's Infallible Teacher" series from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew Chapters 5-7.
In this section of His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus centers his attention on the sin of censoriousness w means having or showing a tendency to criticize someone or something severely, so the sin of censoriousness is the sin of nit-picking, fault finding, and cutting other people down to our size.
Jesus, being aware of human nature, realized the propensity of individuals to measure everyone else by themselves. Trying to force others to fit exactly into their own concepts. So, Jesus gives us clear and stern instructions: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged”!
Scripture
Matthew 7:1-5 NIV “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “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? 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? 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.
Text:
Matthew 7:1 NIV “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
Introduction
This is the 7th sermon in a series taken from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount Matthew 5-7. There's a lot more than the Beatitudes in that sermon. In preparing for this sermon the Holy Spirit caused me to take a good look at myself and really reflect on my actions because Christ’s statement, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” points its accusing finger directly at each of us. This is one of the most disturbing passages in all Christ’s teachings.
I learned a new word in my study of this part of Jesus' sermon. In this section of His sermon, Jesus centers his attention on the sin of censoriousness (cen-SORIOUS-ness), I’ll spell it but this is the only time that I am going to use this word in this sermon. Censoriousness, spelled c-e-n-s-o-r-i-o-u-s-n-e-s-s means having or showing a tendency to criticize someone or something severely, so the sin of censoriousness is the sin of nit-picking, fault finding, and cutting other people down to our size.
In Greek mythology there is a story about a robber chieftain named Proclustes. Anyone who invaded his territory was taken to Proclustes’s cave, where he had an iron bedframe. Each captive was carefully measured on the bed. If the captive was too short, he was stretched. If he was too long, his ankles and legs were cut off until he was short enough.
We may have a Proclustes bed too. We look around for people to measure. Then we stretch those who are too short and cut off those who are too long. So that they can exactly fit our bed.
Jesus, being aware of human nature, realized the propensity of individuals to measure everyone else by themselves. Trying to force others to fit exactly into their own concepts. So Jesus gives us clear and stern instructions: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged”! This is not a subtle suggestion or a gentle nudge. “Do not judge” is an authoritative command, or for you English students an imperative!
I. A prohibition.
A present imperative with a negative is used in verse 1, where Jesus said, as it says in the Message Bible “Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults—unless, of course, you want the same treatment” (MSG). So Jesus was prohibiting something and that something was our judging others.
A. But let’s first look at what Jesus was not prohibiting.
1. Jesus was not prohibiting the due process of law. Often this statement of Christ has been misunderstood and misapplied. The Russian writer Tolstoy is best known for his book War and Peace. He took the words of the Sermon on the Mount literally. He believed that Jesus Sermon on the Mount was intended as a divine blueprint for a new social order that Christ had come to establish.
For example, when Jesus said, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” Tolstoy concluded that every courthouse should be destroyed, and the judicial system should be set aside. Now we know that Jesus never meant for his words to serve as a replacement for the law.
Matthew 5:17-18 NIV “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
This was text in a sermon a few weeks ago and in that sermon I said.
"Jesus specifically said that He was not here just to destroy the law. No one was ever sent by God to just destroy. To destroy requires little intelligence or compassion. The most destructive person can destroy more in an hour than a great artist can create in years.
Jesus was here standing as the one who would fulfill rather than destroy the law.
When He said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets”, Jesus avoided the danger of being negative.
He clearly avoided taking a position that would cause anyone to say, “Christ is the end of the law; now I can do whatever I please.”
All duties, all responsibilities, and all demands of the law remain. Now we are not talking about the food or clothing laws we are talking about the Ten Commandments and the moral laws that deal with our relationship with God and people."
As Paul said later the law was good.
Romans 7:7-12 NIV What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
1 Timothy 1:8-11 NIV We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.
The due process of law and the grace of God are not directly opposed or contrasted. They simply operate in different ways. Christ would never advocate anarchy. Jesus knows human nature well enough to know that authority, government and a judicial system are necessary.
2. Jesus was not prohibiting the practice of moral judgments either. Jesus himself passed moral judgment on others. For instance, he called the Pharisees a generation of vipers and whitened sepulchesr and He announced that if they did not repent, they would surely perish.
Matthew 23:27-28, 33 NIV “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. 33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?
Because of our own hesitancy to make moral decisions, we tend to drift into an indiscriminate moral neutrality, and to justify our hesitancy we quote this passage, “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” and in so doing abdicate our responsibility to make moral judgments. Actually, the correct position is that we should judge morally and be prepared to be judged morally.
Jesus was not prohibiting the due process of law and
He was not prohibiting the practice of moral
judgments either.
B. Now, here’s what Jesus was prohibiting.
He was attacking the sin of nit-picking, fault finding, and cutting other people down to our size. He was addressing the hypercritical, fault finding attitude that encourages us to stretch people out or chop them off so they will conform to our bed.
Here Jesus placed himself in diametrical opposition to those who would inflict slow death on others by relentless criticism. Employers sometimes do this to employees. Parents do it to their own children. Teachers, by this means, destroy pupils, and ministers wear down their church members. “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”
This is what Jesus was prohibiting, nit-picking, fault finding, and cutting other people down to our size.
II. In verse 2 there is a promise to those who do severely criticize or are very critical.
“For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (NIV).
This promise reflects the law of reciprocity, a law that states that we always get back what we give out.
Galatians 6:7-8 NIV Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
Luke 6:38 NIV Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
The law of reciprocity or sowing and reaping, may not be the highest motive for appealing to others—that they should be Christlike—but it is a motive based on fact.
You do sow what you reap. Sow dishonesty reap dishonesty, Sow stealing reap stealing, sow nit-picking, fault finding, and cutting other people down to our size, reap sin nit-picking, fault finding, and being cut down to someone else's size. On the other hand the opposite is also true: sow truth, reap truth, sow faithfulness reap faithfulness, sow love reap love.
Modern psychology bears witness that those attitudes of nit-picking, fault finding, grudge-bearing, hatred, and related attitudes are destructive to a person’s body and mind.
Our sin of nit-picking, fault finding, and cutting other people down to our size, reveals five things about us:
our sins,
our jealousies,
our ignorance,
our inability to deal with our own problems,
and our lovelessness.
So each time we judge somebody, we are saying to all who have ears to hear, “This is the kind of unloving person I am.”
Here’s what Paul said.
Romans 2:1-3 NIV You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?
Romans 2:17-24 NIV Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God; if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
There are four reasons why we receive God’s judgment when we are censorious toward others.
First, the sin of nit-picking, fault finding, and cutting other people down to our size, hinders God’s work.
Second, when we do that we are assuming God’s position as judge.
Third, it destroys what God has given, which is a person’s character and influence.
Fourth, it is showing contempt toward the grace of God, which is extended to those whom we would destroy by the sin of nit-picking, fault finding, and cutting them down to our size.
III. Jesus then makes a confusing or perplexing statement.
Matthew 7:3-4 NIV “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? 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?
Jesus painted a picture of a man with a log in his eye trying to pick a splinter out of another man’s eye!
Not one of us is without sin; not one of us is free of glaring defects in our own life.
Ecclesiastes 7:20 NIV Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.
Romans 3:22-24 NIV This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
1 John 1:8-9 NIV If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Jesus was saying, “Look at the ridiculous role you are playing. With a glaring flaw in your own life that everyone else can see, you nitpick at the small problems in the lives of others.” If there is anything that Jesus does not want his followers to be, it is hypocrites.
Jesus set the example this way.
Luke 19:1-10 NIV Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Here's the point; when Jesus saw Zacchaeus, he reached out to him. This man had been cheating and defrauding the public. Jesus could have said, “I know who you are, Zacchaeus; you’re one of those terrible tax collectors. You’ve earned the bad reputation that is yours. Come down out of that tree, fall on your knees before me, and confess your sins publicly. If you get your life straightened out, you might be good enough to come and join my followers.”
Instead of standing in judgment on this fallen man, Jesus established a relationship of love. By the tone of his voice and the actions that followed, Jesus said to Zacchaeus, “I love you very much.” In the light of God’s love, Zacchaeus became aware of the fault in his life.
Luke 19:8 NIV But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
IV. So here’s the proposal Jesus makes in verse 5 .
Matthew 7:5 NIV 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.
We have our hands full in correcting the problems in our own lives without nit-picking or being overly critical in our judgment toward others. We could spend our time quite constructively if we concentrated on our own faults, leaving the faults of others to the goodness and grace of God.
First of all, we should recognize nit-picking, fault finding, and cutting other people down to our size as sin. It is a sin, just as stealing or lying or immorality is a sin. In God’s eyes, being critical and hurtful toward others is a serious sin because it doesn’t show the love that Jesus says is the second greatest commandment.
Matthew 22:34-40 NIV Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Second, we should confess our tendency to judge as a sin. Only through confession will we ever rid our lives of the deadly sin of nit-picking, fault finding, and cutting other people down to our size.
1 John 1:9 NIV If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness
Third, we must quit doing it. It is not enough to own up to the sin and ask God to forgive us. We must also claim the grace of God that will enable us to stop.
Three good filters through which we should pass every word that comes from our mouth are: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?
Conclusion
One day while walking in Florence, Italy, Michelangelo came across a piece of discarded marble. He had it brought to his studio. Someone else had started to work on the marble but had cast it aside as useless. Michelangelo said, “There is an angel imprisoned in this piece of marble, and it is my task to bring out that angel.” This is exactly what we are supposed to do. We are to see the good in people and by the grace of God bring it to the surface. Too many people are willing to throw others aside as human rejects.
Let's pray, God grant that we will become people who release the angels imprisoned in the twisted forms of humanity. Save us from joining the ranks of those who stand idly by and point out the flaws and faults in others. In Jesus name.
Sermon Audio
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