Don't Judge
Notes
Transcript
Do you judge others? Now this is a passage that is sort of like a balloon animal. If one were to have a ballon animal, they start out with a nice long balloon. And how do they get it to look like an animal. They twist it. This passage the meaning is generally twisted, and for people’s own feelings. People use this as, don’t say what I am doing as sin, or this teaches people to toss discernment out the window. This is not saying you should not be discerning or to call sin sin. Jesus even says you are to judge righteous judgment. Even in this chapter there gives Rather in the context it means to criticize or condemn. You are not to criticize or condemn others. James 4:11–12 “Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?” It takes the place of God.
Here we are in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is now transitioning from talking about money and worry, to talking about having a critical spirit. Do you have a critical spirit? Do you just enjoy pointing out the faults of everyone? Do you just try to hold everyone else to this high standard, and hold yourself to this standard?
Why you should not judge?
It will come back to you
God will judge
God will judge you by whatever you judge others. It does not matter what man does, but God will
When it says what measure you mete, commentators were saying that the rabbis in Jesus’s time were saying God can deal with people in either mercy or judgment. This is from rabbi Harold Schulweis
Traditionally we are taught by the rabbis that the acts of God belong either to middat ha-din, the way of justice, or to middat ha-rahamim, the way of compassion. This implies that everything that happens in the world is either a judgment of justice or a judgment of mercy. https://www.reconstructingjudaism.org/article/adonai-elohim-two-faces-god/
James 2:13 “For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.”
So if you want God to be merciful, be merciful. If you want God to judge you, be judgmental.
You become a hypocrite
Jesus now gives an illustration, proving the hypocrisy of the people.
A mote is a small speck. Even in the dictionary is it actually that. Merriam Webster defines it as a small particle, so you are so focused on the fault’s of other people, that there is a beam in your own eye. You don’t care about your beam, and when someone points it out. Your reaction is don’t judge me.
Get your own life right, so that you can help the one with the mote. Jesus does not excuse someone having a mote but rather wants you to make sure you are clean, before you help someone out. It is similar to if you have flown, put your oxygen mask on before you help others.
Galatians 6:1 “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”
One of the things that annoy me is when people would condemn or criticize someone who is better than them at something. People criticize athletes all the time, yet when you were to be put in that situation, alot worse.
I know people who hold themselves to a standard about this high. But they will hold someone else to a standard this high. And with that, there is this hypocrisy, because you did not reach my standard for you, but you’re better than me
“You should be hard on yourself and gracious towards others” was something one of my mentors would say.
v. 12 gives the Golden Rule, treat people not the way they treat you but rather the way you want to be treated
Are you critical?
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