“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do
not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”
Luke 6:37
“White lies aren’t meant to hurt anyone, but a
lie is still a lie. It’s not really stealing when the company logo is on it; it’s
advertising. Everyone day dreams about being rich and having ‘that car, that
house, even that mate’.” We might not actually say these things, but we think
them when the fingers are pointed at us, but what about when we are the ones
pointing the fingers and the words coming back to us are a paraphrased edition
of Matthew 7 accompanied with a wagging head and waving finger, “Judge not,
lest you be judged.” Are we supposed to
leave our canon of Biblical truth at the door when it suits us, but pick it up
when we have suffered a wrong from another? What exactly was Jesus saying when He
was teaching on judging? Was the Master Teacher asking us to leave our sense of
right and wrong at the door? What exactly did He mean when he told us:
“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. Matt. 7:1-2
To understand the concept
of judgment we have to understand our position in the grand scheme of things as
we are now. We were meant to judge things.
God gave us dominion over things,
even living things, but to be a judge implies a final resolution on a matter.
For example, if we are to judge a contest, we pick a winner, and as a result we
place others in the position of ‘not best’ which makes them the loser of the
competition. We choose the best runner, the best pie baker, the best hoop maker,
or whatever the contest is, by what the product is. If it’s a race the product
is who finishes first. If it’s a contest in which someone’s strength is in
question, it could be whose shoulder touches the mat first. Although, we could
be wrong and have missed a first touch. We can, and do misjudge. We come to
final conclusions based on our own preferences or perceptions. Who are we to
judge?
We are the image bearers.
We were meant to judge, some things, but not the hearts of other people. “For
the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it
penetrates even to the dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges
the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12
In a world of everybody wins, nobody actually
wins, we all lose because there is really no competition, thus no judgment.
Therefore, a judge could be a good thing if you win, or a bad thing if you
lose, or you could take the pragmatic approach and enjoy doing your best and
scoring better than you did before. Do
you remember how you did on your 4th grade spelling test in your fifth week of
school? Probably not, but chances are you can spell all those words now. Why?
Because of change, you’re not a 4th grader anymore. You’ve grown up.
How would you like for everyone to judge you by who you were then? Or treat you
like they did then? Would that be fair? No matter how you did on that spelling
test, win or lose, it didn’t define you. You are not the sum of the all the
judgments or assessments made about you by the people around you. Isn’t that
wonderful!
When God sees you, He sees
you. He judges you based on His scale. His scale comes down to one thing, and
I’m sorry, it’s not the sinner’s prayer. It’s what the Master said, ”Love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and will all your
mind.” Matt. 22:37 Do you love Him?
There might be a reason
that we have trouble not judging another person. There is an expression in
Christian circles. “Hate the sin, not the sinner.” There is a problem with that
expression. It excuses confronting the sin by wanting to befriend the sinner.
Jesus didn’t look out in the crowd and see sinners. He saw lost people in need
of direction. He saw weary travellers in need of rest. He saw sick and injured
in need of healing. He saw the embattled in need of peace. Jesus saw the need,
and met it. He judged them to need saving, whether they saw it or not. He saw
men. Jesus hated sin, because it separated man from God. So yes, hate the sin,
but not the man, pull him from the sin. When we refer to people as sinners we’ve
judged them as being separated from God.
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? 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 the you will see
clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Matt. 7:3-5
Sometimes we tend to think someone’s sin is
so much bigger than our own, but what we need to realize is that all sin
separates us from God. God is pure, 100% without flaw, and no matter how flawed
we are, we’re all flawed, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God” Romans 3:23. It’s when we think we can sit in judgment of
someone else without first hearing the matter that we have the plank swinging
around and hitting everyone in the head, and we don’t even realize it because
we can’t see it. We’re too focused on the speck that no one else seems to
notice. Talk about a mole hill raised to a mountain! Look at all the lumps on
the heads of the people around we’ve used to build it up.
It’s hard to remove a plank! It requires
brain surgery once a person gets a plank impaled in their noggin. In other
words, it requires a change in perceptive thinking, and that takes God. So how
can we do this? The Master had the answer for that too. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Matthew 22:39 We have no problem loving ourselves. Even the most
self-loathing person is just having a lover’s spat. It takes a lot of sacrifice
to love someone as much as we love ourselves. If we could love people in that
manner what incredible people we would be. We would truly be servants without
looking for anything in return. We would not take any account of wrongs
suffered, nor would we demand respect. We would simply take care of the person
next to us because they were there.
If you’re reading this in a setting where you
can accept this challenge, I challenge you to turn to your neighbor, probably
someone you don’t know, and meet a need you see they have. It might only take a
second, but do it anyway. Maybe they’re having coffee, hand them a napkin, or
help them carry something to their table. If you’re by a door, stand and hold
it open for a few people. Some will say thank you, be sure to answer with a
smile and say, “you’re welcome.” If you
see a mother struggling with her children, offer a smile and a kind word of
encouragement, ‘you’re doing an awesome job, it’s not easy, but you hang in
there,’ can mean the world to her. That usually quiets kids down. Offer praise
to your co-workers, and your boss too. Tell people around you that you like
your job, even when you’ve had a hard day. You’d be surprised how it changes
the work environment. And SMILE! It makes you look like you like people.
“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.” Matt.7:6
Does this mean we aren’t to judge sin? No, we
are to judge sin, in our lives and in the lives of others. We need to keep
sacred what is sacred, and what is dirt needs to stay away from that which is
meant to be clean. It’s how we call it out that can make the difference. We
don’t plant our roses out in a patch of weeds, and we don’t send our children,
in the midst of a hurricane to fend for themselves in hopes it will make them
stronger. As Christians, we shouldn’t be engaging in sin, or excusing it. To
say something is a sin is to speak the truth, but follow it up with the
solution, not the condemnation. It is hard to balance the “in the world, but
not of the world” existence we’re living. We live a life of submariners, and it
can be a dauntless reality of trying to continue in a world where if we step
out of bounds we will die. Yet, we have to remember our mission on this planet
is not to point fingers, but to clasp hands, even when those hands are dirty.
We also have to remember that there are people who will reject us,
who will seek to hurt us, and who will refuse to accept us. Don’t take it
personal. We’re in good company. “Blessed
are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject
name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy,
because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated
the prophets.” Luke 6:22-23
We have to see ourselves as here to be different, not because of
some church directive, or set of rules laid down, but because we’ve been made
sacred by the redeeming work of Jesus on the cross and sealed by the Holy
Spirit inside of us. We’re submariners now, not sea creatures who when pulled
out of the water will die. We are blessed to be able to live under the water
due to the confinement provided by the Master teacher, and will be able to live
above the surface when the mission is over, and we return to shore. Until then,
we judge only those things God has given us authority over. We stick to the
mission at hand, not on finger pointing out each other’s wrongs, but on
pointing to the way to the surface.
“So then each of us shall give account of himself to
God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this,
not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way.” Rom.14:12-13
