Do Not Judge
Matthew 7:1-5 (Part 1)

Baxter T. Exum (#1782)
Four Lakes Church of Christ
Madison, Wisconsin
May 4, 2025

Good morning and welcome! We are glad to have you with us this morning, and if you are visiting with us today (either here in person or online or on the phone), we’d like to ask that you fill out a visitor card – either online or on a card from the pew in front of you. And we also invite you to pass along any questions or prayer concerns in that way.

This morning, we’d like to welcome Kelly to the congregation. Kelly and her daughters moved here from Olkahoma and have been worshiping with us for several years now. Most of us probably already consider Kelly a part of the family, but Aaron and I finally had a chance to sit down and talk after worship last week. We are working to get her information into the church directory, and we would encourage you to get to know Kelly and her awesome daughters if you haven’t done so already. But, we are glad that you are here, and we hope that we can all encourage each other in the years ahead.

Once again, I’d like to ask for your help with what I preach on over the coming year. Most of you received a sermon request card last week, and many of those were returned already. Thank you so much for that! And we are also asking for song requests. If there are any songs you haven’t heard for a while, if you have a favorite new song in the Beaver Creek books (or elsewhere), please let us know, and we will share this information with our song leaders. Thank you so much!

As we get started this morning, we want to make sure that we share the good news that God loves us and sent his only Son to this earth to save us. He died on the cross in our place, he was buried, and he was raised up on the third day. We obey this good news by believing it, by turning away from sin, by confessing Jesus as the Son of God, and by calling out to God for a good conscience in the act of baptism, an immersion in water for the forgiveness of our sins. At this point, we are born into God’s family, and we are raised up to live a new life from that point forward. And as our custom has been, we are sharing some updates concerning what this actually looks like, and we start today with some news from Gospel Chariot Missions, and the work they are doing in Mexico this week. They say that, “JESUS RANGEL AND SERGIO CERVANTES SURRENDER THEIR LIVES TO GOD [through a] MEXICO CAMPAIGN IN SAN BUENAVENTURA COAHUILA.” They refer to it as a “MEET-GROW-GO WITH LOST SOULS IN MIND.” They say, “We thank God for His great mercy that continues to call souls to repentance and new life!!! Now our new brothers and sisters will be equipped in discipleship to live their new identity in Christ, with lost souls in mind. Welcome Jesus and Sergio to the family of God. God bless and continue to use the church of Christ in San Buenaventura to continue announcing the gospel in all his community. Let's pray for brother Sergio del Valle who together with other brothers from San Buenaventura who will be discipling the new converts to go and make more disciples for the Lord Jesus Christ.” The Gospel Chariot is a box-type truck that’s been outfitted to travel from place to place, preaching the gospel. They have a P.A. system in there, along with Bibles and a baptistery, and it looks like they are making good use of it.

This next one is an update from Dwight Dell, who lives in Magnolia, Texas. He says, “Welcome to God’s family! Justin snd Megan were baptized into Christ tonight in the middle of a thunderstorm! Many were praying as we studied. They learned who Jesus is, what He did to bring us the option of salvation (the gospel of Christ) and what God has set as conditions of surrender. When asked when they wanted to be baptized Megan said, ‘How about now?’ Yes! How about now? After his baptism Justin led a wonderful prayer of thanksgiving. After all they received justification, the indwelling of Gods Spirit, and entrance into the kingdom! Very thankful indeed!”

This next one comes to us from the Sullivan Village congregation in Lawton, Oklahoma. They say that, “We praise God for another soul! Rob Rooker, was a free will Baptist for 39 years! Brother Jim Beverly (one of our elders), asked Rob if he would like to study and Rob said yes. We went through the 3 Back to the Bible booklets and Rob learned that he had been taught wrong about salvation. He obeyed the gospel today having believed in Jesus, repenting of his sin, confessing Jesus as Lord and was baptized for the remission of his sins!” They then give a long series of scripture references, and they close by saying, “Please keep Rob in your prayers as he begins his new walk in Christ! To God be the glory!”

There are many others, but I’ll close with this one from a Christian woman, Darlene Kirk Lair, from somewhere in Oklahoma, doing the Lord’s work remotely, in a far off place. She says, “I haven’t posted before...but the three in the middle are 2 brand new sisters in Christ, and a brand new brother who live in KENYA. The sister in the light colored shirt read “Muscle and a Shovel,” and knew what she must do!” She says, “There was NO CONGREGATION of The Lord’s Church in Sori, Kenya where she lived, but brethren from The Church in Grove, Oklahoma support the church in Kenya. Brother David Marube and Brother Thomas Ondieki traveled a great distance to teach and baptize these three… and establish a congregation of The Church of Christ in Sori, Kenya. Today, April 27, 2025, the small congregation met and had worship to Our Father in their home.” That is awesome! And we share this as our invitation: If you are ready to respond to God’s love as we have been instructed in scripture, and if we can help with that in any way, we invite you to get in touch. You can send a message to info@fourlakeschurch.org, you can give me a call or send a text to 608-224-0274, or you can simply pull me aside after worship this morning, and we would love to help in any way possible.

This morning, I would invite you to turn with me to Matthew 7, as we return to our ongoing and quite sporadic series of lessons from the Sermon on the Mount. Over the past several years, we have been working our way through one of the most famous sermons of all time, and today we come to what is perhaps America’s favorite verse. Just as baseball is America’s pastime, today we come to a verse that is perhaps known and quoted more often than any other. At one time, the most famous verse in scripture might have been John 3:16, but we have moved on from that one. Today, we come to Matthew 7:1. But as you can see on the wall up here, Matthew 7:1, is a verse that is often taken out of context! People may hate Christianity, they may completely reject the Bible as being the inspired word of God, they may ridicule the most basic Bible concepts, but they love to quote this verse; or, more accurately, they may be able to quote the first part of this verse. And really, what I find interesting is to hear people who don’t love Jesus quoting Jesus, and when they do, they will almost always get it wrong. In fact, Matthew 7:1 is a verse that has been used as a defense for nearly every type of sin we can possibly imagine. As God’s people, if we speak up against almost anything our culture accepts, somebody will throw this back at us, “Well, who are you to judge? After all, Jesus himself said: Do not judge!” As if this neutralizes anything else the Bible says on any other subject. Matthew 7:1 is the trump card. In our society, it is popular to be tolerant of almost everything, and I say “almost everything” for a reason. Those who believe that judging is wrong will immediately condemn anyone they perceive to have made any kind of judgment. So, we might say that those who condemn judging really do seem to be judging!

We actually studied this passage in sermon form back on December 2, 2012. So, it’s been just over 12 years, but we do need to study America’s Verse from time to time. This morning, though, so that we can come to a more complete understanding of what Jesus is saying here, I want us to study this statement in context. In other words, let’s not just look at the first half of verse 1 on its own, but let’s consider the verses around it. Was Jesus suggesting that Christians should never speak up concerning sin, that we should just quietly accept everything our culture accepts? Or is there something else going on here?

Let’s start by looking at all five verses. This is what Jesus says in Matthew 7:1-5,

1 Do not judge so that you will not be judged. 2 For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” and behold, the log is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

As we look at this passage in context, I want us to take a look at the warning. Then, we’ll note the Lord’s explanation. Next week, we will continue this study by taking a look at a special danger. And then we’ll close by looking at the goal here.

    I. But first, let’s take a look at the WARNING.

In verse one, Jesus very clearly says, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.” And right away, we should note that the word Jesus uses refers to judging or making a decision. And the same word is translated elsewhere as “judge,” or “condemn,” or “decide” or to “pass judgment.” So, we find right away that as in English, the ancient world also understood that there is some nuance in the word. On one hand, we may make a decision about something, but on the other hand, we also understand that judgment may involve a pronouncement of judgment or even a condemnation of some kind. So, the question is: What is Jesus forbidding here? Is he telling us that we can never make a decision on any moral issue? Well, we will get to this in the near future, but in verse 6 (the verse that comes right after this passage), Jesus says, “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine.” And he wasn’t talking literally! Again, we will get to this soon, but in the verses right after this one, Jesus demands that we make a decision: Some people have proven themselves unworthy of hearing the gospel over and over again. And then, a few verses after that (starting in verse 15), Jesus will go on to warn about the danger of false prophets, wolves in sheep’s clothing, and he tells us that we will know them by their fruits. Elsewhere in the gospel accounts, Jesus will tell the woman in John 8 to “Go your way and sin no more” (he was making a judgment, in a sense). What she was doing was wrong, and she needed to change. When Jesus healed the man at the pool of Bethesda, he said, “Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.” Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell us that when Jesus saw the paralyzed man, he said, “My son, your sins are forgiven you.” Jesus, then, clearly labeled certain behavior as sinful. The same is true of the prophets. We think of Nathan calling out King David’s sin with God’s approval. We think of Ezekiel, who was told by God to “make known to Jerusalem her abominations” (in Ezekiel 16:2). We think of God’s command to Isaiah to “Declare to my people their transgressions, and to the house of Jacob their sins” (Isaiah 58:1). And on and on. We have other passages in the New Testament (outside of Matthew) where we are told to remove a person living in sin from the congregation (in 1 Corinthians 5). That involves a judgment of some kind. We see the behavior, we decide that it’s bad, and then we act on it.

So again, he is not saying (here in verse 1) that we can never make a decision about somebody. But that is the way many today would apply this verse. The world says: You don’t tell me that what I’m doing is wrong, and I won’t tell you that what you’re doing is wrong, and then we can all just keep on doing what we’re doing, and we can all feel good about it! But, that is not what Jesus is teaching here. Jesus is not suggesting that we can never come to any kind of conclusion concerning what is right or wrong.

To illustrate, let’s imagine having a kid who steals something from a store. Some of you know that I was that kid many years ago. I was maybe 5 or 6 years old, we had just moved to Crystal Lake, Illinois, where my dad had just started preaching, and our whole family went to this store that had a huge pallet of gum balls. I asked if I could have a gum ball, and my parents said, “No.” Well, we were halfway home and my dad heard chewing in the back seat of our 1979 Plymouth Volare. Not good! At that point, my life took a turn! We got home, and I learned that it was wrong to steal. Let’s put it that way. With extensive therapy, perhaps I may be able to remember everything that happened that night. I do remember, though, that we went back to that store, and I had to pay for that gum ball, and I had to apologize in person to the manager. I learned something that night. But let’s imagine that my dad sits down with me on the couch that night, and let’s imagine that I respond, “You can’t judge me! Jesus said, ‘Do not judge.’” If I had said that, I might not be standing here this morning! Jesus never intended these words to be used as a shield for evil behavior.

So, in what sense, then, are we not to judge? The other sense of this word refers to the kind of judging where we harshly and hypocritically condemn, perhaps without considering the facts of a situation. And there is a difference. Jesus, for example, says in John 3:17 that he did not come “to judge the world.” And yet, a few chapters later in John 9:39, Jesus says that his purpose for coming into this world is “for judgment.” So, which is it? Did Jesus come to judge the world or not? I think the key here is to understand that the word “judgment” can be used two ways: 1.) We can judge in terms of making a decision concerning behavior, or 2) We can judge in the sense of condemning, the idea of treating someone with judgmental contempt, looking down on someone, perhaps treating them as less of a person. And it’s this second kind of judgment Jesus is warning about here. It’s not wrong to ever point out what’s wrong, it’s not wrong to hold each other accountable, but it is wrong to look down on others with judgmental contempt, and I say this because of what comes next...

    II. ...because in verse 2 we come to the rest of our study this morning, where we have A TWO-FOLD EXPLANATION.

And what Jesus says here is basically an explanation of how the punishment fits the crime, because he explains by using the word “for.” These are the consequences of improper judging. When we judge inappropriately, two things are true. First of all, “For in the way you judge, you will be judged.” In other words, he explains that there’s something wrong concerning the MANNER of judgment; there’s something wrong about “the way” that somebody has judged. And here, the punishment fits the crime, so to speak. The first explanation of the warning, then, is a reminder that the way we judge is so important. And if we turn this around, if we flip it from a warning to an encouragement, the encouragement is that we need to be extremely careful to have the right attitude in the judgments that we make. Down in verse 12 of this chapter, we’ll come to what we commonly refer to as the “Golden Rule,” where Jesus says that, “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Applying that to judging, before I correct or condemn, I need to do everything possible to try to put myself in that other person’s place. Because I know that when I need to be corrected, I really want want it to be done in a loving way, not harshly. I want somebody to come to me personally. If somebody has an issue what something I’ve done, I want them to come to me privately, and with humility, and with concern. In other words, when we have to judge somebody, we need to put ourselves in that person’s place and we need to ask ourselves how we would like to be treated if we were on the receiving end of that judgment. And if I were on the other end of what I’m about to say, how would I take it? And with that in mind, we may need to change or adjust our own attitude in delivering that judgment.

And a big part of this may just involve looking for the best in people. There are many situations where we may just need to give people the benefit of the doubt. Assume the best until proven otherwise. I see your actions, but I may not be able to accurately judge your motives. So, I really need to approach a situation assuming the best of what you were thinking when you did what you did, because that’s what I would want you to do for me. And I think this recognizes that our approach may need to vary depending on who we are approaching. We see this with Jesus, don’t we? On one hand, when confronting religious hypocrites, Jesus was brutal. There were times when it got violent, turning over tables, driving people out with whips. Sometimes he called people names, to their faces, describing these people as “blind guides leading the blind, whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones,” and so on. But on the other hand, when someone was broken down in sin, the Lord was incredibly calm, and patient, and compassionate. He certainly wasn’t soft on sin, but he had a way of correcting people with a gentle attitude. And as he warns here, we are to do the same. We must be careful, “For in the way you judge, you will be judged.”

The second explanation of the warning comes in the second part of verse 2 as Jesus goes on to explain that we must use the proper standard of judgment. As the Lord says, “...and by your standard of measure, it shall be measured to you.” So, our attitude is important, but it’s also important that we use the proper standard. Since we will be judged by the word of God on the Judgment Day, doesn’t it make sense to judge ourselves (and those around us) by the word of God...before the Judgment Day gets here? When we look at it this way, I think we start to understand that judging itself isn’t condemned, but it’s the abuse of judging that’s a problem here. In other words, if I’m just out to whack everybody who doesn’t agree with my OPINION on something, then I have done wrong, because my opinion doesn’t really matter. On the other hand, if I apply the word of God to my own life first, and if I judge with the proper motives, then it seems that I have God’s permission (and even a mandate) to then turn around and try to help others as well.

Let’s imagine someone in the habit of sinning. One person might say, “I can’t judge; therefore, that person is okay.” And someone else might say, “No, actually, that person is doing something against the word of God and needs to change.” Both statements are actually judgmental, in that both people are making judgments about someone’s behavior. However, what really matters is how well each judgment matches up with the word of God. Let’s remember how the Lord said (in John 7:24) that we are to “judge with righteous judgment.” In that context, Jesus actually commanded judging, but the command was given with a warning: Our judgment has to be “righteous,” our judgment has to match up with the word of God.

Unfortunately, it’s far to easy to judge based on opinions, or to judge based only on the outward appearance (without knowing the heart). Years ago, I was taking a graduate class on non-verbal communication, and in that class, we learned that when someone has their arms folded, it is a sign of hostility – it’s a sign they want to bring the conversation to an end. And that may be a general rule, it might be supported by a lot of research, but sometimes people fold their arms because they are cold! In other words, looks can be deceiving, and there are times when we may need to ask somebody to clarify something before we make a final judgment. We need to make sure we are using the proper standard, that we are judging righteously.

Conclusion:

As we come to the end of today’s study, we’ve seen the warning not to judge, and then we’ve also seen the Lord’s explanation, the qualification on that warning: He’s warning about judging with the wrong motives and by using the wrong standard. He’s not telling us to ignore sin, but he’s telling us to show mercy and to judge with righteous judgment.

Next week, if the Lord wills, we hope to consider a special danger as well as the goal in all of this. And next week, I hope to share some artwork from some kids who were still kids when we studied this last time.

Before we sing, let’s go to God in prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

You are the one and only Judge of all the earth. You are holy and righteous. This morning, we pray for wisdom as we live in a dark and sinful world. We pray that you would give us courage to judge with righteous judgment as your Son has told us to do. At the same time, we ask for hearts of mercy and love, that we would see what others are going through and that we would treat others just as we would like to be treated. Make us more like Jesus.

We ask this in Jesus’ name. AMEN.

To comment on this lesson: fourlakeschurch@gmail.com