Smoking Cigarettes, Chewing Gum & Judging Hypocritically

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts.

Morse Corner is a non -denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist

D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's Word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message.

Let's turn to the gospel of Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter 7, and the title of the message is,

Judge Not? And I put a question mark there. Judge not? Should we judge? So if you ask the average person, should

Christians judge? Obviously people are gonna, most people would respond and say, well no. Why?

Because Jesus said, judge not. And yet there's plenty of other passages where Christians are told to judge.

So the Bible says that you should judge and you shouldn't judge. So which is it?

But I think if believers have a favorite Bible verse, if Christians, evangelicals had a favorite verse, it'd probably be

John 3 16, right? That's kind of the favorite verse of most people, for God so loved the world.

But what about unbelievers? If unbelievers had a favorite verse of scripture to quote,

I think it would be this verse right here in Matthew chapter 7 verse 1, where they they know what it says, judge not lest ye be judged, or they just shorten it to judge not.

And what are they saying? They're trying to communicate that you should never make any personal judgments.

At which point I might ask them, well do you make any personal judgments?

And then the hypocrisy is exposed. And really that's what Jesus is talking about in this passage.

He's talking about hypocrisy. When you judge someone for doing something that you yourself do.

So yes, Jesus does say judge not in Matthew 7. So there is a sense where Christians definitely should not judge.

But then in John chapter 7, Jesus tells his disciples to make righteous judgments.

So this can be a complicated subject. So let's try to clear this up.

We'll begin reading Matthew 7, starting in verse 1. We'll read through verse 6. So the fact is there's a good type of judgment and a bad type.

Jesus says, judge not that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged.

And with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye. And look, a plank is in your own eye.

Hypocrite. First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

And then Jesus says, do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

So we see here just on the surface, Jesus says, judge not, but then he says there are some people who are what?

Hypocrites. Well, isn't that a judgment to say that some people are hypocrites? And then in verse 6, is

Jesus referring to people as dogs and swine? Well, that sounds sort of judgmental.

So, obviously there's more to this verse than simply don't judge, don't ever judge, and that's the bottom line.

So, I would start out by saying again, there is a bad type of judgment and a good type of judgment.

But what Jesus is talking about here is a hypocritical form of judgment.

It's condemning, what's he talking about? When you're condemning someone's behavior when you do the exact same thing, and maybe even worse.

I remember when I was young, maybe nine or ten years old, after church

I was out in the parking lot, and I was chewing gum. That's what nine -year -olds do, right?

So, after church or maybe it was before church, I was in the parking lot chewing gum, and I spit my gum out on the ground.

And there's a guy, he saw that and he yelled at me for spitting my gum out on the ground.

But as he yelled at me, he was smoking a cigarette. And wouldn't you know, the next thing he did was he flicked the cigarette onto the ground.

Now, even as a kid, I knew there is something wrong with this picture. And you might say, well, okay, but you know, you shouldn't have spit your gum out on the ground.

That could have stuck to someone's shoe. And I agree. He was well within his right to admonish me.

I agree with that. But you would think he would have enough self -awareness to not flick his cigarette butt, you know, the next very moment.

So, and he shouldn't be smoking at church anyways, you know. But clearly it didn't register.

And aren't we like that? It's real easy to look at other people and see the things that they're doing, and they shouldn't be doing that.

But we can be completely oblivious sometimes to our own faults. Or some people, they know their own faults, and they pick other people apart because it just makes them feel better.

So there's a good type of judgment that's necessary, and we'll get into that. But then there's the bad type of judgment.

So if you take notes, you can write this down. One type of bad judgment that you shouldn't be involved in is a hypocritical form of judgment.

So do not judge hypocritically. And that's really what this passage is about. That's number one.

Another type of bad, judging people that's bad, is when we just pick people apart, you know, for every little thing.

Because just as easy as we can do that to others, guess what? People can do that to us.

And Jesus said, you know, the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you don't want people doing that to you, don't do it to them.

That's number two. The third type of bad judging is when we pass judgment on things we know nothing about.

You know, we get one piece of information, and we just assume the absolute worst.

So don't make rash judgments. Make sure you have enough information. And then the fourth type of bad judgment is we don't want to judge in the ultimate sense.

Because ultimately, finally, who is the judge? Yeah, the

Lord is the judge, not me. Only the Lord has all the information. So we need to leave that final and ultimate judgment to him.

This was sort of like an epiphany when I realized this, that the Apostles of Jesus didn't go around saying, hey, that guy's going to hell.

He's condemned. You're condemned. That person's in hell right now. They didn't do that.

Matter of fact, I can't think of any passage where they ever did that.

Now, on the other hand, they did issue warnings. They did preach against sin. When something was very serious, they weren't afraid to deal with it.

But they didn't go around condemning in that ultimate sense. So I don't think we should do that either.

So the point being for this passage, Matthew 7, the famous judge not passage,

Jesus is not saying don't ever judge at all. Don't ever point out that something's wrong.

I mean, society could not function if nobody was allowed to say, hey, this is wrong, or that's illegal, or this is evil.

So that's not what Jesus is saying. He's talking about you better evaluate yourself first. Before you judge that other person for what they're doing, because they have this speck in their eye.

You know, you need to make sure you don't have this beam in your own eye where you're doing something far worse. Pretty simple,

I think, right? Okay, let's look at verses 1 and 2 again. And I'm going to be dealing with some of the pushback that we get, because people love to accuse

Christians of being judgmental. And Christians are sort of like the people who are considered by the people of the world that are judgmental.

So I'm going to deal with some of that. Look at verses 1 and 2 again. Judge not that you be not judged, for with what judgment you judge, you will be judged.

And with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. All right, let's turn to 1

Corinthians chapter 11 for a moment. 1 Corinthians 11, this deals with the subject of communion or the

Lord's Supper, which we're going to be celebrating after the sermon. So I think this is a good time to look at this.

If I can put Matthew 7 verses 1 and 2 in my own words, another way of looking at this.

If you show grace to others, God will show grace to you, right?

For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. So if you are harsh with others,

God is going to deal with you in a harsh way perhaps. But if you forgive others,

God is that much more likely to forgive you. And if you're cruel, that's going to come back to you, you know, we reap what we sow.

So this passage in 1 Corinthians 11 it speaks of self -examination, which is part of what

Jesus is saying about first remove the plank from your own eye. In order to realize you have a plank in your eye you have to do what?

You have to examine yourself. So Jesus is saying, and Paul is saying here in 1

Corinthians 11, make sure that you judge yourself first, and then you can go and try to help the other person out.

So Paul is saying something very similar. Look at chapter 11 starting in verse 27, the

Apostle says, therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the

Lord in an unworthy manner he will be guilty of the body and blood of the

Lord. What does that mean? Well Jesus died for what? When He died on the cross He died for?

Sin. And the church members here in Corinth they were not taking their sin seriously.

They were defending, if you've read 1 Corinthians you know this, they were defending all sorts of bad behavior.

There was divisions and factions in the church creating all sorts of problems. People were backbiting, mistreating one another, no doubt judging one another, and yet when it came time for the

Lord's Supper they all came together with a smile on their face in unity. And Paul said this is a massive display of hypocrisy.

How can you mistreat your fellow church members, your fellow brothers and sisters, and then sit at the same table and take communion right next to them?

Like you can't do this, you need to fix the problem first. Now how do you fix a problem?

By pointing out what the other guys doing? That doesn't really fix things, that can make things worse, right?

If you're constantly pointing the finger. Now you could say, but isn't Paul pointing the finger at them?

Isn't Paul sort of judging their behavior? Yeah, yeah he is. Why is

Paul doing that? Because he is in a position to do that. He's in a position of authority as an

Apostle, number one. Number two, Paul was not guilty of any of these things, right? Paul had some ground to stand on.

Paul did not have a plank in his eye. He wrote back in chapter 2 verse 15.

Here's another verse to consider this week if you take notes and go back and study. He says in 1

Corinthians 2 15, but he who is spiritual doesn't judge at all. Never, is that what

Paul said? No, he said the one who is spiritual judges what? All things.

Yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. See Paul was that spiritual man.

No one could point to him and say, yeah but you're guilty of this, and yeah you're doing this, and it's far worse. Paul was that spiritual man who could see clearly to hopefully help others who are having all these problems.

Look at verse 28 he says, and we're going to repeat this later on before we take communion, this admonition, but let a man what?

Verse 28, let a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself not discerning the

Lord's body. For if we would judge ourselves we would not be judged, but when we are judged we are chastened by the

Lord that we may not be condemned with the world. Okay let's go back to Matthew chapter 7.

So before you judge someone else you should do what first? Evaluate yourself first.

Some people are in no position to judge the behavior of other people, right? Now some people say, yeah but we're all sinners and nobody's really in any position to judge.

Again you don't really believe that because you believe there are some things out there that are serious enough that need to be dealt with.

The person who said, mark this down, this is absolutely true, the person who says you should never ever make any judgments,

I mean they're lying. They don't really believe that. Nobody believes that. All right

Matthew 7, 1 and 2 again, judge not that you be not judged for with what judgment you judge you will be judged and with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.

So some of the Corinthians they were not showing grace, they were being reproved by God. So here is a good principle, the way we deal with other people is a pretty good indicator of how

God is going to deal with us. All right let me repeat that, the way we deal with others is a good indicator of how

God is going to deal with us. Thanks for listening, I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Coronet Church.

If you'd like to listen to the complete message or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website morriscoronetchurch .com

and we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.