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In 1884, a very unassuming couple sat in the office of Dr. Charles Elliott. Charles Elliott was the president of Harvard University. The couple didn't have an appointment. They just wanted to visit with Dr. Elliott about a very important matter to them. Their only son had died recently in a tragic accident. And they wanted to visit with Dr. Elliot about an opportunity for the university. Dr. Elliot, when he had some time in his schedule, brought them in. They'd been waiting for quite a while, and this couple came in and sat down, and Dr. Elliott was like, Well, this is a very unassuming couple. I wonder what they want. And they sat down and they said, Dr. Elliot, we've recently lost our son, and we would like to establish a memorial here at Harvard in his name. And Dr. Elliot said, Well, maybe you're thinking about a scholarship. Maybe a scholarship. Trying to accommodate this very plain, very ordinary looking couple.

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And they said, No, we really would prefer to establish a memorial.

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We certainly want to do that if we can. And the couple said, Well, you know, maybe we're not at the right place. And so Dr. Elliott looked at his watch and said, Well, I'm sorry, but I have more pressing matters on my schedule. I appreciate you coming in. If you change your mind, let me know. The couple left Dr. Elliott's office. They left Harvard University and they went out to California and they established a memorial in the amount in 1884 of $26 million. Today's equivalent would be $265 million. And the name of the memorial that they established was Leland Stanford University. You see, Dr. Elliot assumed by their appearance, he made a judgment call. He judged by their appearance that they weren't capable of anything significant. But he was wrong. In the scripture that David read just a moment ago, Jesus is talking about passing judgment. And whether we realize it or not, family, we make judgment calls every day. Some of them are very wise judgments that we make. And quite honestly, if we're all really just truthful with one another, we make some really unjustified judgment calls when it comes to other people. And this is what Jesus is getting into today as we transition into chapter 7. And what Jesus is wanting us to know and to understand this morning, family, is that he wants us to understand the severity of judging others. And so before we get into the message today, let's go to God together in prayer and invite the Spirit to bless our message this morning. Will you join me? Father God, we thank you for the beauty of this day. The most beautiful thing about today is the opportunity to worship you. The most beautiful thought of this day is the thought of your love for us and sending Jesus to the cross for us. Because we know that there is no hope for us without your act of love, your gift, as Steve put it. And thank you so much for his devotional message this morning. You spoke through him. Spirit, we ask your blessing upon this message that it will be your message to us, that it will be the message that you want us to understand and to take with us with regard to judging others. Help us not to be cruel to others. Help us, Spirit, to see the good in others. Help us to see beyond the surface where we make so many judgment calls. Help us to see deeper. Help us to love others as you have loved us. Jesus, thank you so much for going to the cross for us. Father, thank you so much for sacrificing him for us. Lord, we love you so much for so many things. And we bring this prayer and lay this request at your feet in the name of Jesus, and we pray together. Amen. Jesus closes out chapter 6, family, by saying, Don't worry about tomorrow. You remember? He said, Don't worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will worry about itself. In other words, each day has got enough trouble of its own. And I can tell you this right now, from my experience, some days are more troublesome than others.

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Okay? Some days have a lot more. Think about what Jesus says as we close out as a chapter six.

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That's a dose of common sense. Hey, don't worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow worries about itself. If you got enough to deal with today, that is a dose of common sense that just about anybody should be able to figure out. But here's the reality. Many times we wind up worrying about things that we can't do anything about anyway, don't we? In our text, Jesus gives us another dose of good advice that really we should all be able to follow. If we're serious about being disciples of Christ, we should be able to follow this dose of good advice that he gives us in our passage today. And if we take him seriously at his word, family, we would follow more closely than we do. Verses 1 and 2, Jesus says, do not judge. Why? Why is not in the text? It's just a rhetorical question. Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged. And by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Now take a good look at that. Those are the words of Jesus. And the word that's translated there in our English Bible as judge carries with it, family, the idea of not making a habit of judging or having a judgmental attitude. And this is arguably, family, one of the most quoted passages of Jesus. These are some of the most quoted words of Jesus, especially by non-believers or believers who found themselves caught up in the wrong things. And they shouldn't be. You see, our culture has embraced this idea. Our culture has embraced the idea that it's morally wrong to make judgments of any kind when it comes to others. Don't judge. Family, there's not a lot that can be universally or nearly universally agreed upon in American culture more than the intolerance of judgmental Christians. And when the world encounters a judgmental Christian, whether they do so out of genuine love and concern, or as more often is the case, out of self-righteous indignation, the world takes the words of Jesus right there in Matthew chapter 7, verse 1, out of context. They extract it out of the context and they say, Do not judge, so that you will not be judged. And therein lies the problem. Context. The subjective nature of the culture in which we live in makes weaponizing those words of Jesus right there to their advantage a priority. Hey, let me tell you something. Non-believers know Scripture. They know Scripture well, and they weaponize it for their own purposes. People who truly want to understand what Jesus is saying, family, and what the word teaches, they pay close attention to the context around what's being said. Jesus says, do not judge. That is correct. That is something that we all can agree on. Jesus says, do not judge, but when you look at the bigger picture, when you look at the context, you don't have to read very far beyond that to figure out that Jesus is not saying that as his disciples we should never make judgments. It's all based on God's word. Look at what Jesus says in verse 6. He says, Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them under feet and turn and tear you to pieces. Now look carefully what Jesus says there. Verse 6, right there, for a lot of people has been somewhat of a mystery. And what we tend to do more often than not, as believers, when we're looking at Scripture, when we come upon something like that, that's kind of like, well, what exactly does that mean? That's kind of out of the blue, kind of out of left field, kind of a mystery. What we tend to do is we skip over it without spending a lot of time on it. However, church, it's important, it's very important that we don't miss what Jesus is saying there. In fact, what Jesus is saying right there, that's pretty blunt. It doesn't get much more blunt than that right there. In effect, what Jesus is saying, he's saying, you know what? Some people are dogs, and some people are pigs. That in and of itself is a judgment call. As believers, family, we need to recognize this and not waste the good things of our time, our effort, and God's word on people who are not interested in the things of God. James Burton Kaufman writes these words. He says, the most holy things ought not to be offered indiscriminately to all persons. In such a view, the dogs and swine would refer to mean to mean and vicious persons who have no desire to apprehend spiritual things. Look at what he says there. This sentiment with regard to verse 6 is one that has been carried throughout biblical history and throughout church history. Clement of Alexandria once said this. He said, It is difficult to exhibit the true and transparent words respecting the true light to swinish and untrained hearers. So, what exactly is Jesus saying in chapter 7, verse 6? If he isn't telling us that we should never make judgments regarding others, then what is he telling us? I think he's telling us not to automatically reach for judgment when it comes to others. The reason why is because we might just make a fool out of ourselves and bring reproach upon his name. Goes back to what I said earlier, family, regarding the deeper definition of that word that's translated as judge in our Bibles. It carries along with it the idea, family, of not making it a habit to be judgmental or to carry a judgmental attitude with us everywhere that we go. About 20 years ago, maybe a little longer than that, about 25. Now time moves a little quicker the older you get. I was part of a camp board when I was a youth minister. And all the members of the board would go out in the summertime on Sunday nights, and we would go to the congregations that sent campers to our camp, and we would we would do a pitch for the congregation to try and get them to include us as a line item in their budget. And usually what happened was when the campers, and we'd run, I don't know, about three or four hundred kids through the camp during the summer, over the course of the summer, when the kids found out about it, they'd all show up wherever we went. Now, primarily that was my job to go out and pitch the camp to the congregations, but for whatever reason I couldn't do it on this particular Sunday night. And so the guy that was our camp caretaker, a fellow by the name of Eugene, was going to take that slot for me. And so he was going to a little country church out in the middle of nowhere, Arkansas, and do just that. He was going to speak to the congregation that night about all the wonderful reasons why they need to contribute to this particular camp. Now, you need to understand who Eugene Qualz is. Eugene stands about six foot seven and weighs about 400 pounds. He's got red curly hair. He's all tatted up. He wears leather and a Kaiser helmet and rides a big, huge Harley. That's Eugene. And that Harley is loud. So, anyways, church was going to start at 6. He wants to get there early so he can meet some people and get, you know, kind of get the lay of the land. And so it's about 5 o'clock. One of the members of the congregation, this little country church, is there opening the doors for the evening service, and you hear that Harley coming. Okay, and he just kind of looks out the door and he sees Eugene. All six, seven of him, all 400 pounds of him, Kaiser hat, leather, and all. All the tats. And he's like, oh my word, what am I going to do with this? Because church is going to start here pretty soon. Inviting this guy in is the furthest thing from his mind. Okay? And so Eugene, he kind of gets, takes his helmet off, walks up to the door, and says, Hey, uh, how's it going? And the fellow says, not bad. He says, Can I help you? He says, Well, I'm looking. And he could, Eugene could tell right off the bat this guy was not comfortable with him. He says, Well, I'm looking for a church to go to tonight. And this fella, without missing a beat, says, Well, there's a little church about two miles down the road here that I think will work out just just good for you. And Eugene's not, no, I kind of like this one right here. This looks like this looks like the place for me. And that fella, he's sweating bullets now. And he says, No, no, really, really. I really think you'll be more comfortable down the road. And he says, Well, all right. So, you know, he fires up the Harley and he goes around the bend. And about 10 minutes after six, people are in the church building waiting for their guest speaker to show up, and nobody's there. And everybody's talking to one. Well, where's the guy at? Where's the guy from camp? Blah, blah, blah. And then you hear the Harley roll up. And it got quiet real fast. Of course, you got a bunch of kids in there from camp, okay? And so here comes Eugene. He walks in the back door, and the kids just go nuts because, hey, Eugene, blah, blah, blah. And it was it was their guest speaker. Don't let outward appearances taint our judgment. Don't judge a book by its covers. You will never meet a sweeter human being than Eugene Qualtz. But I wouldn't mess with him. I wouldn't get on his bad side, and you got to work real hard to get there. You see, judgment was passed upon Eugene, and it was based upon his outward appearance rather than his inward character. Now, to most in that congregation, because he was all tatted up, and because he wore leather, because he had that Kaiser helmet, because he wore or he rode a big, big Harley, he didn't fit their profile. He didn't fit their profile of what a church camp representative was supposed to be. You see, at the end of the day, it's a question of what standard of judgment we will utilize. Church, every believer believes that the correct answer is the biblical standard, of course. The problem is that we tend to view the Christian standard of passing judgment through our own flawed lens of personal preference. What I mean by that is that we tend to maximize the commands of God that we find easy to obey, and we tend to minimize the commands of God that we struggle with. And when we come across someone who struggles with sins that we got no problem with, family, we stand over them in judgment because we find their sins repulsive and we find our sins dismissive. Church, we have to remember that our father is no respecter of persons. We have to remember that our father counts all sin as equally evil and repulsive. And we have to remember that our father sent Jesus, his son, to die for the people whose sins disgust us the most. Take a good look at that on the screen. Jesus died for the sins that disgust you the most and the people who commit them. Just like he died for you and died for me. Now, for a lot of people, that may be very hard to accept and very hard to hear, but every believer needs to understand what Jesus says in chapter 7, verse 2. He says, With the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Don't miss that. Don't miss that. As believers, Jesus is telling us, he's telling us that we're to be consistent and fair in the judgments that we make, and they have to be aligned with God's standard. It can't be according to our own standard, our own flawed standard. We have to line up judgment with God's standard, or else we will be judged for the difference. So, yes, as believers, we are to judge the actions of others, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ. But we're to do so, family, and While maintaining consistency in judging our own actions by the Lord's standard. After setting the table in chapter 7, verses 1 and 2 regarding judging others fairly, Jesus proceeds in verses 3 to 5 by instructing us as to how we do that. To begin with, before passing judgment on somebody else, church, we need to begin with getting ourselves right. Listen to what he says. He says, Why do you see the speck that's in your brother's eye and do not notice the log that's in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, Well, hold up, let me take that speck out of your eye? Well, there's a log in your own eye. You hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye, then you'll see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Let it never be said that Jesus did not have a sense of humor. Take a look at what Jesus says there. Now try to visualize how ridiculous that would look. I mean, you got a log, a two by four hanging out of this eye, and you're hold up just a second. Let me get this out of the way while I pull that speck out of your eye. It looks ridiculous. And that's the point. Jesus wants us to understand that it's utterly ridiculous for us to even have that attitude. To even try to do that. What we see, family, is that Jesus covers some very valuable points with this illustration. When it comes to passing judgment, we tend to see the sins of others more readily than we see our own. The reality is that this is a big reason why non-believers describe Christians as hypocrites. Think about it. Think about it from their perspective. What must be going through their mind when we do this? This is the way I thought about it. This is the way I would think about it. How can a Christian have the audacity to try and pull the speck out of my eye when they're tripping all over the two by four hanging out of their own eye? What's that all about? Who do they think they are? You know what? Their conclusion is legit. That is a legitimate conclusion to come to. Church, whether many of us want the things that bother us the most about others tend to be the things that we dislike the most in ourselves. And Jesus' caution here is that we do not rush to judgment or make a habit of being judgmental. And to take a good look at our own shortcomings before pointing out the shortcomings of somebody else. And James, the brother of Jesus, gives us some sound advice on this. Listen to what he says in chapter 1, verses 23 to 25. He says, For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror. For once he's looked at himself and gone away, he's immediately forgotten what kind of person he is. But one who has looked intently at the perfect law, the law of freedom, and has continued in it, not having become a forgetful hearer, but an active doer, this person will be blessed in what he does. Family, when we look intently at the Word of God, then we begin to find that it becomes a mirror of our life. The reflection that we see becomes more and more like Jesus and less and less like us. Then we can see clearly enough to extract a log out of our own eye that Jesus speaks of in our text. And be able to lovingly see and to effectively help someone else with the speck that's in their eye. When it comes to passing judgment, we got to deal with our own sins first. And this is where Christian credibility comes in. That two by four of sin that we keep tripping over has to come out. It has to come out before we can credibly address the specks of sin in the eyes of others. And here's the thing. Here's the thing that we don't need to miss. Recognizing that we are sinners isn't enough. It's not enough. We have to actually do something about it. And that's not, family, that's not only the hard part, but it's also the part that establishes our credibility that will open the door to address others out of love and concern about their sins. When you can't even keep your own head above water. Also, when it comes to passing judgment, we need to do so gently and carefully. Jesus doesn't tell us to avoid confrontation. He doesn't tell us that. But he does tell us to get a grip on our own sin problem. And then empathetically try to help others with theirs. And this means that our motives have to be genuine. Our motives have to be genuine, family, when it comes to the sins of others. Our motivation in helping others with their sin problem can't be driven to show them up. He can't be driven to punish them. And he can't be driven to make us look better. Our motives have to be right. And we need to understand that love and empathy must be that driving force behind our decision to get our hands dirty and to care enough to involve ourselves in helping someone else address their sin problem. Church, it's a lot easier to broach the subject when somebody knows that you love them. It's a lot easier to have that conversation when the other person knows that you're genuine regarding their sin problem. Because you're willing to share your own struggles. You're willing to be transparent. You're willing to reveal yourself. And when somebody knows that you're real and that you really do love them, then they're more willing to at least listen to what you have to say. Again, chapter 7, verse 6, Jesus says, Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, or they'll trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces. It's almost like that comes out of nowhere, doesn't it? When you're reading the text and you're going with the flow of the context, it's almost as if verse 6 just kind of hit you out of nowhere, right? Don't miss the forest for the trees and what Jesus is saying there. It's really easy to get caught up in what Jesus says about people being dogs and people being pigs. And totally miss what he's saying. Don't miss it. Jesus is telling us that there's some people in this world. There are some people within the sphere of our influence who just will not accept the things of God, regardless of what we do. Specifically the gospel. Some people aren't interested in being dressed up in the Lord's finest, but rather they're happy wallowing in the mud of the world. So how do we know? How do we know when it's worth our time, when it's worth our effort? That's where discernment comes in. That's where experience plays a role. And discernment comes from the Holy Spirit, following dedicated time in his word and in prayer. And family, let me tell you something. The greatest pearl and treasure we have is the gospel message. And in all honesty, it's wasted on certain people at certain times. In some cases, for only a time. But in other cases, they'll never accept it. In the former, they may ignore and trample the gospel under their feet as they walk away and then respond to it later because of the seed that we planted just before they turned and left us. Sometimes that's the way it happens. Or in the latter, they may be so offended by it that they respond as Jesus indicates, and to one degree or another they turn and they tear us to pieces, either with their words, with their actions, or with both. I can't tell you, family, how many times I sat through the gospel message and I never responded. I listened to at least a hundred gospel sermons, and I didn't respond to a single one of them. And in those times, let me tell you something. The pearl and treasure of the gospel was wasted on this dog, and it was wasted on this pig. Because my heart and my soul were elsewhere. Man, I was happy in my mud. And I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to hear it from anybody. Keep it to yourself. I'm not interested. You ever heard that before? Been there, done that. I didn't want it. Family, this is a hard lesson to Jesus. Because we feel that we should never give up on others. And I certainly agree with that. Don't get me wrong, I agree with that. We shouldn't give up on anybody. But there's a time and there's a season. And discernment tells us the when and the where and the who. William Barclay said this. He says it's often impossible to talk to someone about Jesus. Their insensitivity, their moral blindness, their intellectual pride, and cynical mockery may make them impervious to words about Jesus. Now notice what he says next, because it's the beautiful part. But it is always possible to show men Jesus. And the weakness of the church lies not in the lack of Christian arguments, but in the lack of Christian lives. People really don't care what we've got to say. They watch what we do. Church, the title of this message is A Disciple Should Understand the Severity of Judging Others. But before we do that, we have to first recognize the necessity of examining and judging ourselves. Church, more often than we realize, people aren't responding to our arguments. They're responding to what they see in our life. We can have the best argument for the gospel. We can have the best argument for baptism is a necessity of the salvation process. Whatever theological argument you want to make, you can have everything you need, book, chapter, and verse to cover it from top to bottom. And if we're not living a Christian life that they can see, it does not matter. Doesn't matter. If we're living like a heathen Monday through Saturday, and then going out on Sunday, and hey, come to church, come to church, man. We're where we need to be. This is where you need to be. You know what they're saying to themselves? They're saying, I don't think so. Because you're not any better than I am. People don't need to hear better arguments. They need to see better lives. And that's what we've been called to. Not perfect. Don't misunderstand me. Not perfect. In fact, it's better that we're not perfect. Because let me tell you something. We're better than perfect. We're saved. We're forgiven. We're flawed. And Jesus' blood fills the gap. And that's what people need to see. And so if you're here this morning, if you're joining us online, if you're in 138 or 316, the overflow areas that we have here at Central, and that's what you needed to hear today. And you're ready to respond so that the blood of Jesus can fill the gap in your life, to take care of the things that bother and trouble you the most, so that you can live a confident life. Respond. This is your chance. This is your opportunity. If you're looking for a church home, we would love to have you here to join all of us other flawed sinners. We'd love to have you. If you need us to pray with you and to pray for you with regard to your struggles, at least one shepherd's going to join me up here, maybe a couple, to pray with you and to pray for you when we sing the song here in just a moment. Don't leave this place not being right with God together while we stand and sing.