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Date: October 25, 2026
Sermon Title: Don’t Judge Me
Passage: Matthew 7:1-5
Preacher: Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest - Lead Pastor
Transcript Summary:
Good morning. So if you haven't been around here for a while, you may not know that everybody is tired of this series that we're in and we're slowly winding it down, actually. We're coming to the end of something that we've been in for a very long time, which is Actually, I hope you're not tired. I think this is some of the most important stuff I've probably ever preached on, which is that Jesus teaches us how to live a life and that he offers us two ways in life. And that the one way is the broad way. It's the easy way. It's like our human nature and we're just naturally bent toward going down that broad path. And we have to reorient our hearts and we have to intentionally walk this other path. And it is narrow, right? It is difficult to do sometimes. And the whole judging thing that we're going to talk about today is case in point. I think the broad way is to be judgmental and it's to live out of this place of judgment. The harder path in life is the one where we offer grace and where we look to the best of others, and we try to live the life as Jesus teaches us to live it. So this is what we're doing today. Before we get into it, I do want to pray over the word and the message and over you. So let's bow our heads. Father in heaven, we have gathered today to be in your presence. We have gathered, maybe for many reasons, Some of us out of habit or obligation, but some of us because we're desperate. We're desperate for something from you, something transcendent breaking into the ordinariness of our lives. My prayer this morning is whatever the reasons are that has gathered these today in your sanctuary, Lord, that you do break through. that you show them that you are at work in the world at large, but specifically in their lives today, right now, as these words are being spoken. And so, Lord, speak. We are listening. Amen. So every now and again, I come across these nuggets that really jazz me up because I had never seen it before. I didn't know they existed. And so this week is one of these where I found out that there is this, well, there's essentially these Jewish writings called the Talmud, okay, that could start in about the 1st century AD. I know, I got nerdy quick. First century AD, right? And then they get written for a while. And it's essentially the rabbis. These are the Pharisees, mind you. We have the Pharisees literature. I don't know if you know that. And they write down, the rabbis from the Pharisees, they start writing down their reflections on scripture. And one of these collections is called the Talmud. And I found one that many believe dates back to the 1st or 2nd century AD. So like about the time of Jesus and right after. And I'm gonna read to you what it says. It's going to sound very similar to what Jesus says, but maybe with a few twists, okay? So it goes like this. It is taught in a barata that Rabbi Tarfan says the following. I would be surprised if there is anyone in this generation who can receive correction. So the rabbi says, I would be surprised if there's anyone who can receive correction. Why? Because if the one correcting says to him, remove the splinter from your eyes, that is rid yourself of a minor infraction, The other says back to him, remove the beam between your eyes, which is to say you have committed far more severe sins. So this is the first rabbi. This is, again, first, second century AD, same exact imagery. There's like a speck, and then there's a beam in the eyes of these people, the splinter in the beam. But it goes on, and then it says, Rabbi Eleazar, Ben Azaria, says, I would be surprised if there is anyone in this generation who knows how to rebuke correctly without embarrassing the person he is rebuking. Here's what we got. In this very ancient Jewish piece of literature, by the way, Jesus, our Jewish rabbi who we are all following, is in this same vein. They are using the same ideas and the same metaphor of the beam and the spec, but they are using it slightly differently. And they're using it a little like my title is, which is, don't judge me. That's the first one. Don't you, like if somebody comes and says, hey, you've got something in your eye, your immediate response is, you've got a beam in your eye, right? And you can see the defenses going up there. So this is one problem. The person can't receive correction. But then the other problem is what gets named next, which is that somebody can't correct another person without completely embarrassing them. In a way, this is actually what Jesus is doing, only he's then expanding upon it. And so this sermon and this passage, it is about how to correct others well. And it is also about how to receive correction well. But it is more than that because Jesus being Jesus the prophet is often provocative. And he says things that are bold and it seems black and white. until you kind of dig down a few layers and you realize, well, did he mean what he said? And so he starts off and he says, don't judge, right? Very simply, don't judge. Just don't do it. But then you have to ask yourself, you've got to peel back the layers. Well, does he really mean don't judge in any scenario? And what exactly is that like? Let's go ahead and read the passage again. I'm actually going to read a little bit longer. I hope you have your scripture in front of you. I want to keep reading because there are a few things right after this passage that tie together the passage that we're in. I will focus primarily on one through 5 for the sake of the sermon, but the rest of it is pertinent. So here again, Matthew chapter 7, We are at this point nearing the end of the Sermon on the Mount, if you know your Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus says the following. Judge not that you not be judged, for with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log in your own? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there is the log in your own eye? 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. He goes on and he says, don't give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs. lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. I need you to keep the pigs and the dogs in your head. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds And the one who knocks, it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, we'll give him a stone. Or if he asks for a fish, we'll give him a serpent. If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, well, how much more will your good Heavenly Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him? And then the passage and maybe all of the Sermon on the Mount gets tied up in one final verse, verse 12. Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets. Jesus begins the passage by saying, judge not lest ye be judged. You've probably heard this before, judge not lest ye be judged. I remember when I was moving to Alabama, it must have been in 2013, on my way down there, I stopped in to see my childhood pastor. I hadn't seen him for years and years and years. I don't really keep up with him, and I hadn't at that point either, but he was living in Alabama, and so I thought I would go visit his church. I would hear him preach, and then I even got to eat with him after the service. The sermon was excellent. He was preaching from Romans. He's A gifted orator, and I always thought this as a child, and it was nice to hear him as basically a grown adult at that point. But we ate lunch together afterward. And he hadn't maybe completely kept up with me. Like he didn't really know who I was. And he kind of knew me as a kid, but he didn't really know my path thereafter. And so when he was talking to me at the table, he asked, what do you do and what's your role? And I said, oh, well, I just finished my PhD in biblical studies at Baylor, and I'm actually going to teach at this college down in Marion, Alabama. He immediately, you could almost see it on his face, got very scared. And he said, oh, no, I bet you were just picking apart my sermon and you were finding all the things wrong with the sermon. And I said to him, no, I've learned, judge not lest ye be judged. because whatever measure you judge will be measured back against you, right? And I've done enough public speaking and I've done enough teaching to know that I don't want people picking apart my sermons. And I'm certainly, because of this, not going to do that to my childhood pastor. And so I told him, no, you are in safe territory here. I thought what you said was excellent and it was a joy to be with you, right? But I think we get the idea of not judging out of fear or out of maybe generosity that we too don't want to be judged in the same way, which ties, of course, to that verse 12, the end of it all, the thing that ties the whole of it together, which is we want to treat others like we would expect them to treat us. And so if we don't want someone to be judging us, then we probably should not be doing that to them. Jesus keeps going here, and in verses 3 to 5, we get the real meat of what he's trying to do. And it's this parable that I, again, find fascinating. It connects directly with these rabbis who are talking about correction and rebuking. And I think Jesus is also trying to say something about that. And so you'll notice in verse 3, it goes like this. He says, why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but you do not notice the log that is in your own eye? The see and the noticing are of vital importance here. In some ways, all of this is actually one big metaphor on vision. We all are blind in some fashion, and we need the great physician to make us see again. But one layer deeper is that one person doesn't notice, is the word here, The Greek behind this is catanoia, which means to perceive or to even study. It's to take time to look, in this case, inward. And it's to ask your own self, like, what's in my eyes right now? What's in my heart? It's introspection is what it is. And Jesus is warning us and He's teaching us that it's actually pretty easy to see the specs in other people's eyes. I'm sure we've all played the armchair quarterback and we yell at the TV screen, right, as that quarterback inevitably makes that stupid pass. And why did he do that? He should have run it this way. But it's a whole lot harder when you are the quarterback on the field and you're the one who's having to make the calls and to do the thing. And in that case, sometimes you make mistakes and you do get specks in your eye. And so what Jesus is saying here is he's saying, before you go noticing what is wrong with somebody else, what you need to do first is turn that gaze inward to do some introspection, to look and to ask yourself, well, do I have anything in my life that has caused me to have a log in my own eye. And Jesus is going to tell you there is definitely something. And until you realize what that is, well, you are not really fit to correct somebody else. I think this part of the story in verses 3 to 5, it's about a few things. It's about right judgment, It's about how to correct another person. It's about human nature and properly seeing ourselves in order that we can help someone thereafter. And until we see ourselves properly, you're actually more likely to do some damage in pulling the speck out of the other person's eye than you are to really help them. One of the questions I think Jesus is asking in this passage is who is able to correct another person? I would say like Jesus isn't actually stopping you from doing the correcting. The person with the speck in their eye probably wants that speck out of their eye. They don't want it there. They shouldn't anyway. But the question is, who is able? Who is able to help that person? I do think Jesus offers a real answer here. He says in verse 3 and following, why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log in your own? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out when there is a log in your own, 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. I think there's a real life lesson here. And I think it connects directly, actually, with what those two rabbis were saying in the 1st and 2nd century AD. What those rabbis were saying is that people are not able to receive correction easily. and surely you've been there. But also, people are not good at giving correction, and they typically embarrass someone else when they do. And what I think Jesus is offering here is a third way. And the third way goes like this. Until you've wrestled with your demons that live within you, and what I mean is those failures and flaws that are deep down in and that have hurt others and hurt yourself until you've found a way to recognize those deep flaws, the logs that are sitting in your life and begun to remove them. Well, once that happens, you are now a different kind of person. Once those logs are gone, you've wrestled yourself to the ground and you realize that you are who Jesus says you are here. You might be, in fact, this person in verse 11, the person who is evil in the words of Jesus, but the evil person able to give good gifts to their own kids. And once you realize the rot that has been sitting in here, and then you've allowed Jesus to do something to it, then you have a certain amount of humility and a graciousness because the grace has been shown to you by Jesus, your Savior. And then you are able to approach others, not from a place of condemnation, saying, you should do this, looking down upon them, but looking them eye to eye as a peer, as another sinner just like you are, wanting to help them because somebody has helped you. When Jesus says, do not judge, I actually don't think he means like all judgment is off the table, which means that we must understand what judging is and is not. Because let's be clear, just a few verses after he says, do not judge, he goes into the dogs and the pigs, right? And he's clearly making judgment calls about the kinds of people who are fit to receive a holy message. Who are the dogs? Who are the pigs? Whatever it is, we know this much, Jesus has to make a judgment call in order to name that for what it is. In other places, Jesus will clearly say and wants you to say too, certain things are good and certain things are evil. And we should cling to the good and we should hate the evil, right? And so he's reminding us that there are judgment calls to be made in life. In fact, many. And so what it means to not judge is not those kinds of things. He's also not saying like we shouldn't rightly judge things. So if you were to turn to like Luke chapter 7, there's this really nice passage with the sinful woman. And she comes into the Pharisee's house. Jesus is in there. And Jesus tells a story to the Pharisee. His name's Simon. And He tells a story about debt. And he then asks Simon, like, hey, do you understand this? And Simon kind of repeats it back to him. And Jesus says, you have rightly judged, same word here, rightly judged, right? In this case, Jesus is affirming the judgment that this man has. But he's then using it to turn the tables on him. to make him realize that he has decent judgment in his head, but terrible judgment in his heart. Because he's looking at this sinful woman in a way that Jesus is not. And he is casting her aside as someone who is lesser while Jesus is embracing her and bringing her in and trying to restore her back to health. And so while saying, Simon, you've rightly judged in this one case. He is simultaneously saying you have wrongly judged within your heart. Lastly, I'd say that not judging, it cannot mean a lack of righteous anger. We see Jesus making these kinds of judgment calls pretty regularly, almost always with the religious elite almost always with those who are supposed to be leading the flocks and they're not doing what they should do and instead they are placing burdens on the people they should be lifting up. And so Jesus in Matthew 23, if you want some homework for after the service, has a series of woes and he is just like going after these Pharisees. Woe to you, are whitewashed tombs. Outside you look great, but inside you are deaf. Jesus is clearly making some judgment calls in that place. And sometimes he will invite us to do something similar. So then what does it mean? I think it means something like this. When Jesus tells us not to judge others, he does not want us condemning others. He does not want us to play the role of God. He is not wanting us to demean the worth of another person or to pretend like we know the standing that they have before the Almighty. Those are all God's jobs. These are not my job and it's not your job. And it's also not the job of you or me to judge the heart or the motivation of a person. We can't do that. This is God's job. God can do that. And so when Jesus tells us, do not judge lest you be judged with the same measure, right? He is telling us to avoid doing those kinds of things. So this got me thinking. There are certain things that we should do, and we'll call those discernment. And there are things we should not do, and we'll call those judgmentalism. And what does discernment look like and what does judgmentalism look like? I think it looks like this. In our hearts, discernment feels like humility and it comes from a place of love, a love for the other person. When we are correcting them is because we love them and we want the best for them. Parents, you probably know this with your children. When you correct them, you want what is best for them. And so you're teaching them a better way. But judgmentalism, well, that usually stems from a place of pride and ego and self-concern. Discernment, well, it starts, as Jesus teaches us, with introspection, the catanoia. Mind you, catanoia is closely related to another word called metanoia. Some of you may remember this one as repentance. Catanoia is the internal looking of oneself, and metanoia, repentance, is what then happens after you've properly understood yourself. And so discernment starts with this introspection, but judgmentalism starts with the wrong of the other person and the desire to fix it. Discernment knows the limits of what we can know, that we only get external observations of what other people are doing. And so we should assume the benefit of the doubt for the other person. But judgmentalism We know enough to convict the person and that is good enough. And it assumes motives and heart conditions below that you just can't know. Discernment, discernment still corrects other people. It's willing to go to somebody, but you do it privately in a way that does not embarrass them, but in a way that demonstrates honor and dignity for this person. that is loving and trying to pull them out of wherever they're in. Judgmentalism, sometimes this happens publicly and that gets messy. But oftentimes it happens behind the scenes. And rather than going to the person, you might actually talk to a bunch of other people except for that person. Discernment has certain desires. Somebody who discerns or is living out of discernment, they desire the healing and the restoration of the other person. What is best for that person and for the community as a whole. While the person who lives out of judgmentalism desires vindication. They want their pound of flesh. They may even want to harm the other person. And lastly, discernment. understands that the measure of the way you should judge another person starts with grace. And it starts with the possibility of a hopeful reuniting with that person. Somebody living out of judgmentalism understands the full weight of the law and the desire to place that upon them. Throughout this series, I've tried to occasionally bring in technology and how our technologies are changing us and shaping us in spiritual ways and trying to get you to understand that phone in your pocket, it's not just value neutral, it's doing something to you. And so if you're on social media every single day, hours a day, and what are you doing while you're on there? You're not just scrolling, but you're often doing what? You're liking or you're disapproving. or you are angry, or you are laughing, right? And in each of these cases, you're making little judgments. It's like this machine is teaching us to judge one another. My guess is you're not doing that judgment from a place of love or care. You likely don't even know this person. Instead, you are standing back and you are doing all of the things that appear on the judgmentalism list. probably acting out of pride or self-concern. Maybe you want the other person to be harmed in some way or at least vindicated. And so you might leave a note below and make a comment, right? The point is simple. These devices that sit in our pockets, they change us. And they have the chance, I think a pretty good chance, of making us more judgmental, not less. What one should do with a sermon like this is in some ways very simple. I do believe that Jesus teaches us to start with introspection. Before you go confronting someone, you should pause, look inward, ask yourself, what am I really looking for in this encounter? Am I trying to get my pound of flesh or am I really loving this person? and trying to make some kind of loving correction in their life. You should start with curiosity, not assuming the motive or the heart of that person, but instead asking, I saw you do this. I'm wondering why. What happened? What's going on underneath? Now they might expose to you that, yeah, there was some real heart problems, but at this point, now you have a voice in their life. You should definitely stay away from judging others' motives. And if you won't say whatever it is you want to say to their face, well, you should definitely not say that at all. To conclude, it's worth noting this, that Jesus teaches us not to judge. But he is the great judge at the end of history. And one day we will stand before the judge, and he has just told us what that judgment looks like, and how we judge others in this life is the measure he's going to use against us. But I have really good news. The judge who will judge us is deeply merciful. He is all-loving. He wants the best for you. He is offering His grace to you at every single moment, but He's drawing you into it in a way that you are supposed to look just like Him and treat the world around you just like He treats you. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit, for this morning as we have gathered We understand who you are, the great judge, who loves us enough to send Jesus Christ as our Lord and our Savior, to die on a cross, to rescue us from our sin and death, to be raised on the third day, to defeat death and sin forever, and to invite us into abundant and eternal life. God, may we accept that gift, that grace. But Lord, may we be changed by it. May we be people who are not judgmental, but who have discerned them. May we be people who look at others the way you look at them, seeking what is best for them. Lord, in all this, we're grateful. give you thanks, we give you praise, and we give you our lives this morning. In Christ's name we pray, amen.