Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev19960225.htm

MATTHEW: JESUS AS ISRAEL'S MESSIAH AND HIS MESSIANIC KINGDOM
Part VII: Discerning True Kingdom Righteousness From Mere Religiosity
D. Christ's TRUE Righteousness As Contrasted With Religiosity's Bankrupt Practices
3. Contrasting RIGHTEOUS Human Judgment With Religiosity's False Concept
(Matthew 7:1-6)
  1. Introduction
    1. When one attempts to be upright, he automatically becomes different from those who are not trying to be upright, and that difference can create interesting tensions. With those tensions come judgments as to who is right and who is wrong, and how much so, and why!
    2. However, the very reaction a spiritually maturing party has to noticing increasing distinctions between those who are right and those who are wrong themselves become barometers of righteousness and sin.
    3. The Pharisees, assuming that they were upright, were fond of making severe, legalistic judgments about others who were different from them, and this judgment was therefore suspect.
    4. Jesus addresses RIGHTEOUS human judgment with the Pharisees' false concept in Mtt. 7:1-5,6.
  2. Contrasting RIGHTEOUS Human Judgment With Religiosity's False Concept, Mtt. 7:1-5,6.
    1. Jesus corrected the Pharisee presumption that upright people were to be censorious, Mtt. 7:1-2.
      1. In teaching we should "Judge not," Jesus did not mean that one should never make a judgment; were that the case, He would not have advocated casting out the mote in the brother's eye in Matthew 7:5b.
      2. The command not to judge in verse 1a is expanded by the information of verse 2: making judgments on others can backfire as those whom we censor will use our same bases of censoring them to appraise our uprightness, and will freely censor us in retaliation where we fail our own standards, Matthew 7:2!
      3. In other words, by commanding us not to judge, Jesus warned against being censorious as a way of life!
    2. Rather, before judging another party, one needs to apply his standards of judgment to himself and pass that standard as a prerequisite to making that judgment, Mtt. 7:3-5:
      1. Jesus contrasted the speck in a brother's eye with the wood plank in one's own eye, B.K.C., N.T., p. 33.
      2. It is hypocritical to judge a small negative sin in another person (a speck of sawdust in a brother's eye) when one had a glaring, similar sin in his own life (a wood plank in his own eye), Mtt. 7:3.
      3. It is equally ineffective to get another person to repent of a sin when he knows good and well that we are harboring the same sin in our own life, Mtt. 7:4.
      4. Thus, we must apply our standard to our own lives before make judgments on others, Mtt. 7:5.
    3. On the other hand, one may tend to become so humble and non-censorious that he fails to make any negative judgments on others at all. Jesus corrects this problem in Matthew 7:6 as follows:
      1. In ordering the disciples not to give that which is holy to dogs, Jesus implied that they were supposed to discriminate between that which was morally upright from that which was not so upright, 7:6a!
        1. John MacArthur reveals that parts of the holy temple offerings were given back to the one offering the sacrifice so that he could take it home and eat it up with his family. However, for one to take part of the meat of the offering and give it to the dogs on the street would be tantamount to desecration of the offering to the Lord, MacArthur, Matthew 1-7, p. 437.
        2. Thus, Jesus advocated that one needed to distinguish between the holy sacrifices of the temple altar and the unclean dogs of the street, an urgent appeal to making a discriminatory judgment.
      2. In making that discrimination, the disciples were to separate the holy from the profane, Mtt. 7:6b!
      3. The reason for making such a distinction was that failing to make it desecrated the holy and valuable with that which was invaluable and unholy, and unthinkable thing, Mtt. 7:6c.
Lesson: Though we should never be censorious, we ARE to discriminate between right and wrong if we would please God. The difference between censorship and godly judging is whether it is sinful pride and hypocrisy or a love of what is objectively u pright that motivates our judging activity!

Application: If we make judgments on others out of love for censoring as an end in itself, our judgment is flawed and should stop. If we make judgments out of an appreciation for uprightness itself, our judgment is valid as an activity, and God ur ges us to practice it!