I’ve got some good news for you this morning.
In our lives we make lots of mistakes. The good news of Jesus is that God does not always treat us according to our mistakes. He does not always judge us. He does not always condemn us. He provides a way we can be forgiven, and a way we can be helped to become better people
I’ve got some bad news for you as well this morning. When other people make mistakes, we aren’t always as kind, as lenient, as merciful as helpful as God is. If only we were.
In the Bible reading we just heard, Jesus sets out how we can become more like God. How we can be more patient, more merciful, more considerate as others make the same kinds of mistakes we do all the time.
Let’s get ourselves correctly oriented as to where we are in the Bible. We are in Matthew’s gospel. Matthew is one of the 4 accounts we have of the life of Jesus. Matthew structures his account around 5 big blocks of teaching that Jesus delivered.
The first of those blocks of teaching is Matthew chapters 5, 6 and 7 – which we call “The Sermon on the Mount.” It’s the first block of teaching, so it’s the place where Jesus sets out his manifesto. Who is he? What does it mean to follow him? Who’s he calling us to be? What’s he calling us to do.
We thought about Matthew chapters 5 and 6 a year or so ago, and in the autumn (on and off) we are returning to chapter 7.
Let me recap for us where we’ve come from.
In Matthew chapter 5, we discovered that Jesus came as God’s king to bring God’s blessing to people who don’t deserve it. He also came to bring the Old Testament to its fulfilment. The Old Testament law could tell you what to do. It couldn’t give you the power you need to carry out what it asked of you. It could only give you external instructions.
Jesus came as God’s king to bring God’s blessing. He didn’t just come to tell us what to do. He came to change us into new people – people whose hearts are transformed so that we are actually changed into brand new people. People who can shine out for God into the society we live in. People who can make a difference for God in the world.
In Matthew chapter 6, we learnt that this will happen as we know God as our heavenly Father. Jesus calls us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. We’re not to pretend to love God, while we really want other people to think well of us, impressing them by what keen worshippers we are. We’re not to half love God, while forever worrying about where the next meal will come from, or trying to stockpile our treasures on earth. We are to live wholeheartedly for God, trusting him as our heavenly Father to meet all of our needs.
And so we come to Matthew chapter 7. You probably know that when Jesus, later, was asked to summarise the whole of the Old Testament law, all that God requires of us, he did so with two commands. We are to love God – with all our heart, soul mind and strength – and we are to love our neighbour as ourselves.
Jesus came to bring that law to fulfilment, to change us from within, into people who are able to obey it. Who become more like our Father in heaven. In Matthew chapter 6, he’s shown us what loving the God will look like if we do that from our heart. In the first half of Matthew chapter 7, Jesus will show us what it looks like to love our neighbours as ourselves – if we do that from our hearts. How can we be like our Father in heaven in the way we relate to those around us.
Which brings us back to how we relate to people when they fail and make mistakes. After all, this is what makes other people so very hard to love!
Jesus gives us two ways not to relate to them. He gives us a motivation for getting this right. And then he gives us the right way to relate.
First Wrong Response: Judgemental
Here’s the first wrong way: Being judgemental. In verse 1, Jesus say: Judge not, that you not be judged.
He’s not saying that we should never make a moral judgement as to whether something’s right or wrong. That would contradict too many other things he said. He’s not saying that a Christian shouldn’t be a magistrate or a member of a jury. He’s saying we shouldn’t be judgemental. When we relate to other human beings, we are not their judge. God is.
We know what it means to be judgemental, don’t we? Jesus is saying we’re not to be negative people, always looking for other people’s faults, always the one to bring others back into line, always harping on with criticisms. People like that are not pleasant to be with. But more to the point, it’s not our place. It’s none of our business. God is judge, and we are not.
There’s the first wrong way: Being judgemental.
Second Wrong Response: Hypocrisy
The second wrong way is hypocrisy.
Verse 3: 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 the log in your own eye? You hypocrite!
Jesus is drawing a cartoon with words.
To bring it up to date: Picture an optician. They have a patient having an eye examination. The optician is trying to remove a tiny speck of dust from the patient’s retina. But stuck to the optician’s face, so that it totally obscures both their eyes, is a 6 foot plank of wood.
Jesus intends to bring a smile to our faces, maybe even a chuckle. Perhaps a few in the audience laughed out loud.
You see his point. How ridiculous to think you can help someone else with their faults, when you own are glaring, visible to everyone, and spectacular. It’s sheer hypocrisy.
Motivation
And here’s the motivation for not being judgemental or hypocritical with others. Verse 1: Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.
Jesus asks us: How do you want to be judged by God? What measure do you want God to use for you?
The language of measures comes from the marketplace. We buy everything pre-packaged these days. Or its sold by weight. But in the old days, everything was sold by volume. You’d buy one scoop of cherries. Two cups of broad beans. Whether you get a good deal all hangs on the measure the seller uses. A dishonest seller might have two measures. A larger one for friends. A smaller one for everyone else.
Jesus says: When God weighs your life on the last day, what measure do you want him to use? The one that asks what you’ve done wrong? Or the one that asks how merciful God’s been? He’ll use the same one that you use with others. As you hear of other people’s exploits, which measure do you use with them? Do you ask what they’ve done wrong? Or do you ask how kind you can be to them? God will use the same measure.
The whole Bible pictures God as having two measures. On the one hand, he’s a God of perfect justice. At the end of the day, all wrong must be punished, and all good must be rewarded. He holds in his hands the scales of justice, and they are perfectly balanced.
But God is also a God of the most amazing mercy and grace. He longs to forgive.
How can God be both perfectly just, and yet forgive us what we do wrong? The answer is that he sent his Son, Jesus, to live as a perfect human being. He only did good, and did nothing wrong. And yet amazingly, he loved us so much that he changed places with us. He died on the cross, willingly being punished for what I’ve done wrong. Which means I can be rewarded and blessed as though I was as good as Jesus.
And so God is just, and God is merciful and forgiving.
But then which measure do we want him to use? Do we want him to assess our lives by what we’ve done wrong, or do we want him to assess our lives by what Jesus did for us on the cross?
The other way Jesus puts it is to ask which law we want God to judge us by. Verse 2: With the judgment you pronounce you will be judged. When you sign a contract, it often has a clause in that tells you that it’s the laws of England that count, or France, or Bermuda, or California, or wherever it is. If there’s any dispute as to whether the contract has been kept, what counts is the justice in whatever state it is.
So Jesus says: Which judicial system do you want your life to be judged under? When you die, which law courts do you want your life to be judged in? The courts of strict justice? Every minor misdemeanour is punished and broadcast in there. Or the courts of mercy? Where do you want your case to be heard? You make your choice in the way you relate to others.
Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas. The birds on the turkey farm do not vote and decide today should be slaughter day. If you are bankrupt, and there’s a referendum, you wouldn’t vote for all bankrupt people to do 10 years in jail. If you’re a follower of Jesus, and you fail God every day, you don’t vote for a system where every failing must meet its strictest punishment. And yet lots of us do just that when we treat other people in exactly this way.
That’s Jesus’ motivation.
Don’t be judgemental. Don’t be hypocritical. You wouldn’t want God to bring up every one of your failings would you?
The Right Response: Help them as a brother or sister
Then comes the right response: Help them as a brother or sister.
Jesus isn’t saying that we should mind our own business to the point that we never get involved. That’s not loving your neighbour. It’s not what you’d do with a member of your own family.
If you become aware of the faults of someone you know and love, you want to help them. But you have a problem. You have very similar faults yourself, and they may well be worse. It would be hypocritical to dive in and meddle in their life, while cutting yourself a load of slack.
But what’s to stop you dealing with your own faults first? Then you can get alongside them without being a hypocrite. Then you won’t be judgemental, because this is something you understand all too well. You know how hard this particular sin is to battle with. You’ve been there. That makes you ideally placed to get alongside them – gently, with understanding, and to try and help.
It’s the old picture of the oxygen masks on the plane. You know the safety briefing. If a child or another adult needs help with their mask, put yours on first. It sounds so selfish. But if you haven’t got your own mask on, you’ll soon be no help to anyone else.
When you become aware of someone else’s faults, that’s not an invitation to meddle. It’s an invitation to examine yourself carefully. Here’s an opportunity to straighten a few things out for yourself. Only when you’ve done that, are you in a position to get alongside them in the right spirit.
Help them as a brother or sister.
Applying This
We find this so hard to put into practice don’t we? It’s much easier to spot faults in others than it is to address them in ourselves.
Take work. How easy it is to make ourselves look good before our line manager or our colleagues, by belittling someone we work with. We subtly draw attention to other people’s mistakes, so that we look competent by comparison. Never mind the fact that we’ve probably made that mistake at least twice as often as they do.
Is this not how gossip works? We love whispering about what so and so got up to. Because every notch that someone’s reputation is destroyed, is a little step up for our own reputation. It’s why the papers love printing celebrity gossip too. It allows us to feel better about ourselves. “Please would you pray for this person,” we say. “They’re having such a struggle with their marriage.” But what we’re really trying to say is: “I have no struggles in mine”. Or perhaps we’re saying: “Look at their struggles. Because if you’re looking over there you won’t notice me too closely.”
We can even fall for this one in church of all places. You know how it is – you hear something in a sermon. And what strikes you immediately is how relevant this would be for a friend of yours. The sermon bounces off your head, and lands two pews behind you on someone who needs to hear it more than you. Jesus is saying: “Don’t do it. I’m speaking to you, too. They may need help working this one out, and that’s why you need to listen first.”
Irony of ironies, there’s even a chance that some here are doing it with this sermon. So and so is so judgemental. I do hope they’re listening. Indeed. I do hope they are. But I hope you are too. This isn’t about them. It’s about you. Unless you’re me. If you’re me, it’s about me, not you. And by the way, it’s only about me if you’re me. The rest of you are not me, so for you, this is for you.
Conclusion
We’ve run out of time to look at the pigs, the dogs and the pearls. We can’t talk about everything. Ask me later if you want to know what that’s about.
The first five verses give us plenty to work on as we seek to love our neighbours as ourselves. God has been so merciful to us.
If you’re here as a Christian, the death of Jesus means the forgiveness of everything you’ve ever done wrong.
That is so wonderful.
Jesus wants the children of this loving heavenly Father to grow into his likeness.
Which means not being fault-finding, critical, negative and picky. But being loving and gentle. Letting God deal with our sin, and then getting alongside others in a brotherly spirit of humility.