Matthew 7v1-6 Two Ways to See

Here are my notes from LightHouse an dthe questions we used to get us thinking about and applying the passage:

1. How are followers of Jesus to be counter cultural in our society?
2. How is gospel community distinctive from the rest of society?
3. What makes such living hard?

As we come back to Matthew we need to remind ourselves of the context of the gospel. Matthew writes for a number of reasons but here are three of them: he writes so that Jewish Christians are secure in their discipleship of Jesus despite the hostility of their fellow Jews, so that they can answer Jewish objections by pointing objectors to Christ as the fulfilment of God’s promises and the Old Testament, and so God’s people know how to live counter culturally.

Matthew 1-4 show that Jesus is the Messiah, in the line of Abraham, and David, God’s Son speaking God’s word and in him the kingdom of God draws near! (4:25)We see “Large crowds… followed him.” It looks like the kingdom is growing but Matthew sees a distinction, he sees two groups. 5:1 “Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.” What are the two groups?  Who does Jesus teach?

There are the curious crowd drawn by miracles and the chatter about Jesus, and the disciples, who are committed to following him. Jesus sees the crowd but teaches his disciples. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches his people what it means to follow him, the marks of discipleship, the characteristics of citizens of the kingdom. It is not a universal kingdom, you cannot come anyway you like, it is not an easy kingdom to join and it is radically counter cultural.

It is a kingdom that is concerned with a changed heart and a new relationship with God through Jesus which radically alters everything, which changes the heart and makes God’s kingdom what we seek, and God our greatest treasure. It’s standard is not the righteousness of the Pharisees (6v20)but goes way beyond it, its concern is(5:48) to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” And it transforms attitudes, and actions, including radicalising giving, fasting, prayer and reliance upon God.

But there is a danger that accompanies godly living if the attitude of (5:3-11) of thankfulness and gratefulness to God for his salvation begins to slip.

Don’t be judgemental
What instruction does Jesus give his disciples in(1)? “Do not judge...” It’s important that we understand what Jesus is not saying as well as what he is saying. He isn’t saying his people are to have no part in the judicial system under which they live, that Christians cannot serve on juries or tribunals or the like. Nor is Jesus saying that Christians are not to exercise judgement or discernment.

Look at (15)Jesus calls on the disciples to do what? “Watch out for false prophets”. In order to do that you would have to use your faculties of judgement and discernment to assess their fruit, to spot false teachers who you then guard against. So Jesus isn’t saying his followers should never make a judgement on something or someone.

What Jesus is saying is don’t be judgemental. Don’t act as judge, spiritual assessor or auditor of others. Don’t have a critical and fault finding attitude, don’t assume the worst of others, don’t be ungracious towards them.

What reason does Jesus give? “Or you to will be judged...” Remember back to ch5:1-14 where Jesus shows us the heart of those who are in the kingdom. To be judgemental is to believe in my self-righteousness, my ability, my holiness, my meeting God’s standard. When we are judgemental of others it is because we are not meek, not mourning our sin, and not being merciful because we have forgotten that we have received mercy, we have lost that hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness believing we’ve attained it ourselves, the result is that we are proud not poor in spirit and that leads us to be judgemental.

When we are judgemental it’s because we’ve forgotten that we have failed God’s standard and by grace that standard is not applied to us, but we are given Jesus record and he has paid for ours. To be judgemental is to display our failure to understand the gospel.

(3-5)Jesus brilliantly illustrates that with this image of someone with a substantial log or plank in their eye trying to take a tiny speck of sawdust out of someone else’s eye. To be judgemental is to minimise our own sin whilst maximising the sin of others.

2 Samuel 12 provides a helpful illustration of just such hypocritical judgement. King David has just committed first adultery - bedding and getting Bathsheba pregnant - and murder - having Uriah her husband killed on the battlefield. But the shocking thing as the tawdry saga ends in ch11 is that such hideous sin is glossed over, it looks like there will be no consequences. David seems unaware of his sin, he has married Bathsheba and she is expecting his child and both are living happily in the palace in Jerusalem. There is no guilt, no sleepless nights, no conviction and no awareness or remorse for sin.

Until God sends Nathan the prophet. (2 Sam 12:1-7)What is David’s response to the sin of the rich man? He condemns the theft and even calls for God’s standard of justice to be applied to the man, and he doesn’t see his hypocrisy. He can’t see his own sin, though he sees the sin of this other man, he can see the speck but not the plank. But God the perfect judge knows and has graciously sent Nathan to reveal the plank, “You are the man!”

Don’t be a hypocrite in being judgemental in your assessment of others whilst ignoring your own sin. Doesn’t this strike home? Don’t you feel that temptation in yourself? To be quick to condemn someone else’s sin, or to refuse to forgive others as readily as we forgive ourselves or expect their forgiveness when we sin. To be quick to apply the bible to others when we read it or hear it preached on and to utter those words ‘Oh, that was just what _____ needed.’

But I think most subtly we do this in assessing someone’s spirituality by the sins they are struggling with. If I was to ask you to name the three worst sins I wonder what pops into your heads instantly. My hunch is that it is the sin we see in others, not the sins we struggle with. We know mentally in our head that all sin is sin but we have our own private blacklist of sins and are prone to judging others who struggle with them whilst excusing our own struggle with maybe more respectable sins like a lack of thankfulness, or anger, or greed, or idolatry of family or career, or selfishness.

Don’t be a hypocrite dealing with others sins but look to your own heart first. Don’t be judgemental but remain meek, keep hungering and thirsting for righteousness, show mercy to others as you have been shown mercy.

Don’t be judgmental...

But love your brother (5)
It’s vitally important that we don’t misunderstand and therefore misapply what Jesus says here. He isn’t saying that each disciple is an island and is to look out only for sin in their own life. (5)“first take the plank out of your own eye then...”  what? “you will see clearly to remove the speck from the other persons eye.”

The kingdom community is one where sin is taken seriously, both as individuals and in others, where we love enough to help each other fight sin. It’s seen in that example we looked at in 2 Samuel, how does God confront David with his sin? He used Nathan, a prophet, a man of God, someone who knew and listened to God but who is also for David and who David trusts.

We are meant to be helping one another deal with sin, but not in a judgemental way, not looking at others before we examine our own hearts, not as a means of spiritual one up man ship, not as a defensive reaction – where someone challenges me therefore I lash out and challenge you telling you a few home truths.

So how do we do this? First of all we do it with humility, when I am aware of sin in others I am to examine myself and my own heart first. Am I seeing that sin because I struggle with it too, is God using that person as a means of grace to highlight a problem for me to deal with before I help them.

Secondly we mourn sin and take it to God in prayer. Jesus has just taught his disciples to pray these words “forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation...” The disciples prayer is one of reliance on God, we are to be aware that we are frail sinners in need of grace and we are to pray that God would work by grace. We also check our motives as we pray; are we aiming to restore, rescue and reconcile?

Thirdly we approach the person who already knows that we care for them and want what is best for them, not in public, we don’t air it with others, but go 1-2-1 and express loving concern. And we aim to apply the gospel not promote legalism.

Fourthly we express our forgiveness of them if they have sinned against us, and we pray with them.

Practically we only ought to do this with others if we welcome such input ourselves. If we can straight away think of someone or a few people whose sins we want to put straight this week but we wouldn’t welcome them doing so to us, it is a warning that we are in danger of being judgemental hypocrites. That we need to refresh ourselves in the gospel and what Jesus has done for us.

Such loving application of the gospel ought to mark our marriage, our parenting, our friendships and our church communities.

Don’t be judgemental but love your brother...

And exercise discernment(6)
Jesus moves on to two graphic pictures which both make the same point. Jesus in these pictures is calling on disciples to exercise discernment. But what exactly is he calling on us to do?

What do you think of when you read the word dog? You think of man’s best friend. Images of faithfulness, play time, comfort, care, love, walks all spring to mind. But the dogs Jesus has in mind are the feral untrained dangerous pack animals of the rubbish tips that roamed the city. In Psalms 22 and 59 David uses the imagery of dogs to convey being trapped and threatened by his enemies. In Philippians Paul describes dangerous false teachers as dogs. In Rev 22:15 those opposed to God and his kingdom are described as dogs. And pigs were unclean animals. Both of these animals are a picture of those opposed to God his kingdom and his people.

The second part of the image is the idea of giving something sacred or precious like a pearl to such animals. What is sacred in Matthew is the good news of the kingdom of God, and in chapter 13 the kingdom is described as a pearl of great value.

Jesus is saying that whilst disciples are not to be judgemental, we are to exercise discernment. When people aggressively and repeatedly reject the gospel and oppose God and his people we are to exercise our discernment and stop telling them the gospel because it will confirm them in their rejection and lead to greater opposition.

It seems counter intuitive doesn’t it, it seems almost non-gospel. But it’s a principle we see in practice, when Jesus sends out the 12 in ch10 he tells them to leave a town or village if they reject the gospel. In Acts 18 when those in the synagogue reject the gospel and oppose him Paul leaves and takes the gospel to the Gentiles. In Titus Paul tells Titus to “Warn divisive people once, then warn them again. After that have nothing to do with these people.”

The disciple is not judgemental but loves his brother and exercises discernment.

1. What stops us helping others with sin? Or welcoming their help with our sin?
2. What is at the root of a judgemental attitude?
3. Is it ever right to stop telling someone the gospel? When and why? What do we not stop doing for such a person? (Try to think of real world examples)