Judgment and The Golden Rule
Marc Jolicoeur · Tidal Church Moncton · July 28, 2024 · Kingdom Citizens series
Marc Jolicoeur teaches from Matthew 7 on the speck and the log, showing that Jesus calls us to clear our own eyes first. The Golden Rule sums up the whole Sermon on the Mount, and treating others as we want to be treated starts with honest self-examination.
More from Marc Jolicoeur · The Kingdom Citizens series
Topics: Grace, Relationships, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] Have you ever heard statements like the ones that I'm about to make, something like that's the whole enchilada? Ever heard that one? Or that's the whole ball game, or that's the be-all and end-all. These kind of like, you know, explicit ones like this. I'm gonna venture into sports territory, which is always very dangerous for me. But I hear there's this really popular hockey player named, like, Connor McDavid. He plays for some Canadian team. Oh, that's it. That's right. I've been doing. Thank you. So if somebody was like, you know, Connor McDavid isn't just good at hockey. Connor McDavid is hockey. Have you ever heard people say things like that before? Or the Summer Olympics are on the television, if you have television. And so, like, for example, if I was to say there's lots of things going on at the Summer Olympics, but the Olympics is soccer, or football for those of you who are actually from the majority world.
[0:49] Something like that. Or the most controversial possibly of all Canadian cuisine is poutine or chicken balls. So that's just a random assortment of these kind of, you know, hyperbolic statements. They're meaningless, they're very, very low stakes. And I wasn't trying to garner you to agree with me on any of these things. I was just teeing you up for the fact that the scripture that we're gonna read this morning, Jesus has what is a much more controversial hyperbolic statement. So if you wanna read along, you can actually start now by looking up Matthew chapter 7. That's Matthew chapter 7. That's the first book of the New Testament, 7 chapters in. The version that we have been using is the New Living Translation.
[1:36] So if you're like looking it up online on an app, you can Google NLT. If you wanna read along with what's gonna be on the screen, it will be on the screen. But just to quickly recap and get you up to where we are, you have joined us in the middle of a 10-week series, as the video just said, on the Sermon on the Mount. This is Jesus's manifesto for what it means to be a kingdom citizen in His Father's kingdom. In weeks 1 and 2, Pastor Jeremy, he set us up with the broad context of this collection of teachings. Jeremy also walked us through the intro statements to that sermon. Those are often known as the Beatitudes. Maybe you remember, like, "Blessed are the poor, blessed are the peacemakers," et cetera. And then he opened up for us Jesus's surprising teaching on what we might think of as the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible.
[2:23] And namely, that surprise was that He didn't come to do away with it, but He came to fulfill it. In week 3, our friend Matt Vincent from over at Lewisville Baptist, he began to unpack some of the specific laws that Jesus intended to fulfill. And he did so by looking at His teaching on anger. You've heard it said, "You shall not murder." But Jesus says to us, anyone who is angry with their brother or sister will be subject to judgment. God looks not only at our actions, but also our interior motivations. And then last week, the dynamic duo of Jim and Gisèle Clements talked to us about Jesus's vision of commitment within marriage, within family bounds, and the importance of letting our yes be yes and our no be no. Now, the content for this week's message comes actually near the end of the Sermon on the Mount.
[3:13] So we're actually skipping ahead past the end of chapter 5 and all of chapter 6. But don't worry, we're gonna circle back there in the weeks ahead. This week, near the middle of our series together, we wanna take a look at a section of scripture that contains within it a brief statement that is in effect a summary of, and also I like to think of it as like a decoder key for the whole message of the Sermon on the Mount, the whole life and teaching of Jesus Christ, the entirety of the Christian Bible, and perhaps even the entire goal of the Christian life. So, you ready? Let's dive in by starting in Matthew chapter 7, starting right at the top, verse 1. "Do not judge others and you will not be judged. For you'll be treated as you treat others.
[4:04] The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged. And why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying to your friend, 'Here, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,' when you can't see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye. Then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye. Don't waste what is holy on people who are unholy. Don't throw your pearls to pigs. They will trample the pearls and then turn and attack you." Now, the key verse that I mentioned is actually a little bit later on. We're gonna get there, but let's park here first. Now, if you're familiar at all with this passage of scripture, which I'm guessing a lot of you are, then maybe your experience with it is like mine.
[4:56] And in your mind's eye, if you see it, what you're actually seeing are the words: "Do not judge others." Period. Like, full stop, no comma, right? No ifs, ands, buts, or thens. Just do not do it. And that way of interpreting this passage of scripture is helpful for a lot of us at a lot of the time. It helps us avoid things like judgmentalism, and it helps us avoid things like legalism, a couple of isms that are no good. So it can be useful to interpret it this way. However useful or not, it's not exactly what this passage of scripture is saying. So let's look at the text itself. It actually says, Matthew 7:1 and 2, "Do not judge others and you will not be judged. For you'll be treated as you treat others.
[5:50] The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged." Now, there's a tension here in the language. The original language, the Greek, leaves us open to the idea of using the word "and," but more likely we're seeing something like "in order that" or "so that." And that's why we could read, "Do not judge so that you won't be judged." And at first you might not really see that as being much of a tension. I understand that. But let me ask you this question, and it's a simple one: Do you actually believe that you won't be judged?
[6:41] Now, I'm guessing that your answer to that question differs, maybe depending upon your religious convictions. Maybe you believe in God, maybe you don't. Maybe you've been raised in a certain tradition, maybe you haven't. But let me remind you of this little section from the Lord's Prayer. Most of us probably have some familiarity with the Lord's Prayer, right? "Our Father, who art in heaven." This is actually from the Sermon on the Mount, right? Chapter 6, verse 12, this little section says, "Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors." Now, it might not be immediately clear why I would bring that up, but a few verses later, it says this, "For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
[7:29] But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." Now, forgiveness and judgment, they go hand in hand, not only in the Scriptures, but also in real life. And hopefully you can see that 'cause they don't really have the time to significantly dig into it. Today, these Scriptures that we just read imply that there is a conditionality in how we receive and experience God's unconditional love. Don't miss here, God's love is unconditional, but there seems to be some conditions in how we experience it, how we get it. Now, a number of you would've been with us a few months ago when Pastor Jeremy actually opened up our worship service by leading us in the reading of an ancient creed of the church that's known as the Apostles' Creed.
[8:23] These statements of faith, they're not from the Bible, but they sum up the biblical teachings and Christian beliefs. Now, here's one part of that creed kind of crammed together for time. In fact, if you're comfortable, I'd even invite you maybe to read it with me if you happen to believe that it's true: I believe in Jesus Christ who is seated at the right hand of the Father and will come to judge the living and the dead. So there is one true and ultimate judge. This is a basic Christian belief. So do you actually believe that you won't be judged?
[9:08] So then choosing not to judge others, if that is even possible, it might not guarantee that we ourselves will never experience judgment. Rather, how we judge others is likely to have direct and immediate impact upon how we are judged. Now, this is not just some sort of future eschatological consideration. This happens in real time, and I think you guys know it. Now, I have a bit of a hobby and that hobby is looking for errors in grammar and spelling in other people's writings. Now, I'm a professor, and so I literally get paid for it sometimes. But you know what? I love it so much. I would do it for free. I do, I love it. It's so fun.
[9:56] And so because of the fact that I do this all the time, you better believe that when I make mistakes and I make mistakes, those who have been on the other end of my red pen are very happy to return the favor and to judge me accordingly. This makes sense, right? This resonates with us. So then what's the alternative? Am I to just turn a blind eye to such grammar mistakes and allow them to run rampant all over the world, to go unnoticed, or worse, to allow somebody who maybe is less kind than I am to be the one who picks up on these things? Now, obviously this is a specific example for me. I'm pointing at me, but maybe you could think of ones that resonate with you.
[10:41] Maybe you are a young person in the room. Any young people in the room, self-identified young people? Okay. Maybe you have siblings. And if you have siblings, maybe you have noticed that your siblings tend to be, I don't know, inconsiderate or not good with their belongings. And so when they wanna borrow your stuff, you're like, "Yeah, but no," because, you know, this, that, and the other thing. You judge them accordingly. But then when they get the latest video game, when they get that shiny new toy, when they get the book that you really want, have you noticed that they also treat you the way that you treated them? They judge you kind of along the same standards. Maybe you're not a young person, maybe you're somebody who has a driver's license. Anybody with driver's licenses in the room, I see those hands.
[11:27] Maybe you're the best driver, maybe you're the best driver. So much so that when you notice everybody else on the road, you notice how bad they seem to be at driving. You notice you're so good that you notice it when you're in the passenger seat. You notice people on the other, you notice this guy, this person, I'm not naming names. You notice this person here. And then of course, when you get behind the wheel and make very rarely any kind of mistake, maybe people would be willing to judge you. These are trivial things to bring up. But maybe you can think of some things that are a lot less low stakes in life. Maybe you could think of things like cheating. Maybe you could think of things like lying or stealing, verbal abuse, sexual misconduct, violence of any kind.
[12:16] Listen, when people are behaving in harmful and judge ways, surely the answer can't just be as simple as, "Hey, judge not." That can't be it. Maybe this next section is, as we keep working through the text. Maybe this will help us. Matthew 7:3-5. "Why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying to your friend, 'Here, let me help get rid of that speck in your eye,' when you can't see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First, get rid of the log in your own eye, and then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye."
[13:01] Now, I am, as you can probably already tell, and because I've already mentioned, I'm fascinated by words. This will be a recurring theme today. And so the word that's translated here as "log" in Greek is something like dokos or dokon. Sometimes in other translations you'll see it translated as "plank" or as "beam." The gist seems to be that it's the central, like the main, the biggest piece of wood used in a building's construction. The big piece that the other big pieces connect into. So the word "log," I think, works 'cause you can maybe picture something like a log home or one of these rustic homes where, you know, the exposed beam at the center of the spine of the roof is basically a tree that's been logged and hewn.
[13:47] We're talking about a comically large piece of lumber that one could realistically not physically have stuck inside one's eye, versus by contrast, something tiny like a twig, like a splinter or like a speck. Now, this is not really what He would have in mind. This is actually tame by comparison, but at least it gives you some kind of an idea of what's going on. Now, imagine, if you will, somebody walking up towards you, maybe blissfully unaware of their own misgivings or failings, and saying, "Brother, I notice the speck in your eye.
[14:39] May I approach you?" You would decline. You would decline that offer. "Sister, I have seen that you have some visibility issues. May I be the one to assist you?" "Thank you." No, and you, no, nobody, nobody thinks that maybe this person is the one who is well suited to assist them in their life challenges. No, it is, it's a bad move. It's a bad move. It's a bad look. It doesn't really make a lot of sense. And what is, what is worse is that so much, so many of us seem to do it, because we seem to think that Christ has asked us to do it and because we think Christ has asked us to do it.
[15:29] Then we do it in the name of Christ. And then we drag the beautiful, loving, powerful and gracious name of Jesus through the mud as we're walking around with these brutal, brutal beams sticking out of our eyes. Friends, I'm speaking to the church, brothers, sisters, don't do it. You have to stop doing it. Here's the truth, the fundamental truth. We have all had lumber in our eyes. Maybe it's the ridiculously large and obvious stuff that everybody can see, even if you can't. Maybe it's a little more respectably sized, but it's still a problem.
[16:17] It's still painful for you and it can injure other people. Or maybe it's so small that you think you can put on sunglasses and walk around and fool the world. And you can for a while. But eventually you'll know and the Judge of all knows. Now, as I mentioned at the beginning, there is this all important hyperbolic decoder key verse that I want to get to. And this is what we're gonna read. Now, this is a few verses down from where we just were. Matthew chapter 7, verse 12. This is often known as the Golden Rule. Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.
[17:06] Everybody has heard this before. Do to others what you would have them do to you. I've heard from a number of you how impactful and valuable our Kingdom Citizens devotional companion for this series has been. I wanna let you know that they're actually still available out in the atrium today. If you want a physical copy, you can also get them online at Amazon. And from this week, this fifth week's entry, the fifth day, right smack dab in the middle of the book, our own Sarah wrote this about the Golden Rule. She says, "This is Jesus' take home. He's saying, if you remember only one thing from my whole sermon, remember this: treat other people the way you want to be treated.
[17:51] It's as simple as that." And it is as simple as that. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets, but perhaps a more direct kind of word for word translation. Instead of saying this is the essence, it might say something like, well, like I said at the beginning of the sermon, it actually is like this is the law and the prophets. This is the Golden Rule. This is the whole enchilada. This is the whole ball game. This is it. Boom, straight down the middle. Simple, simple. And yet for some reason incredibly difficult to do. Why is it so easy to say and so hard to do?
[18:41] We already talked about the word log and how interesting that is. There's another word here that shows up that frankly is a little bit harsh. It's the word hypocrite. Anybody wanna hazard a guess of what the word hypocrite is? In Greek, it's hypocrite. Good. You knew it. That's very good. It's what we call a loan word. So in other words, when we take one word from a language, don't translate it. So like when English people say, I had the craziest déjà vu yesterday, they're taking the word déjà vu from French, right? Already seen, and they're bringing it into English. So the word hypocrite comes to us loaned from the Greek into English, but it is loaded a little differently in English than it is in Greek. Now, I don't know if this is entirely your experience, but when I hear the word hypocrite, what I tend to think of is someone whose actions, like what they do, doesn't really line up with their judgments.
[19:38] Does that make sense? So like there's a mismatch between what they say and what they do, or more specifically, what standards they hold for themselves versus what standards they hold for others. And you'll actually see that Jesus uses this word a lot of times, frankly, in the Gospel of Matthew. And this seems to check out when you look at the situations. This tracks with what He might be meaning. He uses it for, you know, teachers of the law, Pharisees and some other people. And He doesn't really hold back. But there's also a nuance of what we might call, in the Greek, something like performativity or acting. Some of you might know that the ancient Greeks, they actually called stage actors or play actors hypocrites, people who would put on masks to intentionally try and perform the role of a character, whether that character is real or imagined.
[20:35] Now, I'm not saying that Jesus was picturing Broadway style or movie style actors when He used this word, but I do think that He had in mind people who are trying to control the narrative, trying to control their own narrative. People who want to be known as the kind of people who are good, log-free, clear-eyed people. And they want to be known as such people even more than they want to be such people. They believe that somehow their reputation will determine their reality, when in fact, in the end it is the opposite. That is true. Let me say that again. People want their reputation to determine their reality, but in the end it is the opposite.
[21:27] That will be true. Hypocrite. First, get rid of the log in your own eye and then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye. Now, I'm not sure if you guys have noticed this, but to me it actually kind of seems like the world around us isn't all that averse to having people help with the specks or even with the logs in their own eyes. Now, they might disagree on what a speck or what a log is, but when you think of, you have doctors, you have teachers, coaches, counselors, mentors, mental health professionals, I mean really anytime that you sit across the table from somebody else and ask them to see something that you can't see, ask them to help you to become something that you are not, those people are exercising their judgment.
[22:23] Now, of course, the overwhelming majority of the time, these are what we would describe as opt-in relationships. The person seeking help is seeking help. They're asking for it. Heck, most of the time they're paying for it. But unsolicited advice usually falls on unopened ears. And that's why we read Jesus saying in Matthew 7:6, don't waste what is holy on people who are unholy. Don't throw your pearls to pigs. They will trample the pearls and then they're gonna turn around and they're gonna attack you. This is reminiscent of a proverb actually that says, whoever corrects a mocker invites insults.
[23:10] Whoever rebukes the wicked incurs abuse. Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you, but rebuke the wise and they will love you. Now, the other thing about people who are inviting judgment into their lives is this: if at any point the person who is helping turns out to, oh, I don't know, have a giant log sticking out of their eyes, it would be not only appropriate, but wise for you to decline their judgment, to turn around, refer them to a mirror, and to leave. Now, what I'm about to say, I'm saying specifically to Christians, and it might sound counterintuitive to some of us. I hope that you won't mishear me.
[23:59] Even though, as we read throughout the New Testament, Jesus came into the world for the sake of others. And even though He came not to be served, but to serve, and even though He calls us to follow in His footsteps by radically giving ourselves away, our time, our talent, and our treasures, in some very key ways, the Sermon on the Mount invites us to start by actually surveying ourselves before we turn our eyes and attention to others. Later on in the book of Matthew, Jesus is asked, "Teacher, what is the greatest commandment? Another one of these things. How can you boil it down for us? Give us the takeaway." What does He say? Jesus said, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.
[24:48] This is the first and greatest commandment. It involves love, but then this is a second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments." Again, what's the whole ball game? "Do to others what you would like them to do to you. This is the law and the prophets." We start by having the lumber cleared from our own eyes, cleared so that we can see ourselves clearly, know ourselves clearly, see, and know God clearly. And only then will we be able to see and know others clearly, to be able to love them the way that God has called us to love.
[25:43] Now, I'm actually gonna invite the prayer team to join me down front. And normally they kind of come into the middle, but I'm gonna invite them to hang out on the outskirts this morning. I'm gonna do things just an itsy, wee bit different. It won't be different if you haven't joined us before. This will be the same. But they're gonna start praying even now as they just kind of consider what's going on here. And in a moment, I'm gonna invite you guys to just about one minute, just about one minute of guided quietness. And I'm gonna ask you to ask God to reveal to you what is next for you, what He might be saying to you this morning. And then after that, I'm gonna have a few different next steps for you.
[26:29] But even just right now, I would say, however it works best for you, you could do this at home as well, whatever works best for you, whether it's palms open, whether it's eyes closed, just the ability to literally kind of try to tune the distractions around you out and just in your heart and in your mind. I want you to pray this, prayer, if you're open to it, which is just simply this, Lord, open my eyes this morning to clearly see where I am and where You want me to be. And just take a moment and just listen for how He might speak to you.
[28:01] God might have spoken in any number of ways to you. He might be speaking right now. You might not have heard anything. This is the way that the cookie crumbles. So He could have been calling you to respond in any number of ways. And to the degree that He did, I would encourage you and invite you to respond. I specifically have about three groups of people that I want to give what I hope are tangible steps. And here's the first one. It could be easy if you've joined us for the last number of weeks, or maybe you've been here for a while, it could be easy to think that what we're telling you is by living this kingdom lifestyle, you'll become a kingdom citizen. And if you've heard us say that, we repent.
[28:51] This is not how things work. In fact, a number of you have been in the room with us for months or years and you know how difficult it can be to become a citizen of another country. You can come and eat the poutine, you can go to the hockey games, you can do all this stuff. But until you are invited in, then you are not yet a citizen. This morning we were blessed with the opportunity to observe a couple of initiation rituals. People who've moved into the kingdom of Christ, their citizenship was removed and placed in a different place. And that doesn't just happen by living better, by working harder. It only happens by His grace, by acknowledging the fact that Jesus died for you, was raised to new life for you, and then committing to follow Him only after.
[29:41] And so for you this morning, if you have joined us, whether that's in the room or online and you wanna make that step, then in a few moments when we sing the song, I'm gonna invite you to come forward and to pray with one of our prayer team members. They want to welcome you into the kingdom. They want to help you become a kingdom citizen. Now, for a lot of you though, I think what happened is probably what would've happened to me if I listened to this message, hopefully, which is that you will have noticed maybe afresh or for the first time a piece of lumber, of various sizes that might be sticking out of your eye. And there's two different ways that you can approach that this morning. Lots of different ways, but two that I can think of. One, if you already know and you just needed a refresher on this and you're like, I actually God's been dealing with me on this and I just need to recommit and I just need to, you know, bring this to Him in a fresh way.
[30:36] I would invite you, whether it's at your chair, whether that's to come forward during this next song, make some sort of a move so that you can declare that this morning. But there's a lot of you, I think there's a lot of you who have, one, either already tried to have the log removed or two, you just know this is a big piece of lumber and I'm not going to be able to get it out by myself. The Bible lets us know that actually brothers and sisters are able to help and we have the ability to help you this morning. And so I know that Pastor Jim already mentioned Connect cards earlier. If you want, I'm gonna invite you, and you can do this online as well, for those of you who have physical Connect cards, if you make sure that your details are in there. And I just want you to write these two letters on the bottom: CR for Celebrate Recovery.
[31:24] Signing up for that. All right, signing up for that does not mean that all of a sudden next Tuesday you're going to see... What it means is we will follow up with you and give you some information about how the program that we have at the church can help you with any of the kinds of hurts, the habits or the hangouts that you might be experiencing. A number of you, it's the first time you've heard of this. A lot of you have heard it a lot of times. Don't let this moment pass you by without trying to actually take advantage of how the Holy Spirit through the church could be helping you with the giant log that's sticking out of your eye. Okay? So listen, would you stand with me this morning? Some of you are gonna be coming forward, some of you are gonna be doing work right where you are. If you need to fill out the card, you can sit down and do that as well. But we're gonna join together in worship as we sing of the God who is love, and how that God who is love loves us so much that He doesn't wanna leave us where we are, but He wants to bring us further in the journey and wants to use your story, your clear-eyedness, to testify to His goodness and to bring glory to His name.
[32:29] Let's sing together this morning.