Mike Bickle addresses the complexities of judgment in his sermon 'To Judge or Not to Judge?' based on Matthew 7:1-6. He emphasizes that while Jesus commands us not to judge with a critical spirit, we are still called to evaluate actions and behaviors in a loving and constructive manner. Bickle clarifies that judgment is necessary for the protection and restoration of relationships, and it should be done with humility and self-awareness. He warns against the distractions of criticizing others or being distracted by criticism, urging believers to focus on seeking God's kingdom first. Ultimately, the sermon highlights the importance of righteous judgment as an expression of love and mercy.

Turn to Matthew chapter 7. Father, we thank you in the name of Jesus for your Word. We love your Word, Lord. And Holy Spirit, we ask you for living understanding. We ask that you would mark our hearts, you would enlighten our minds. Teach us your Word, Holy Spirit. You're the great teacher. We thank you in Jesus' name, Amen. Well in this session, we're going to look at, we're going to begin Matthew chapter 7. And I'm going to spend three different sessions on Matthew 7. And what the general tenor of Matthew 7, the final chapter in the Sermon on the Mount, is Jesus is actually addressing the relational dynamics that take place in the lives of people who are trying to obey Matthew chapter 5 and Matthew chapter 6. So as they're wanting to walk in this radical obedience to God, Matthew 5 and 6, they run into relational challenges. Some are positive, some are negative, and a lot of new dynamics take place, and that's what's going on here. And so we begin in chapter 7 verse 1, probably the most quoted verse in the New Testament. Judge not lest you be judged. However, it's also probably the most misunderstood verse in the New Testament as well. Now we need to compare Scripture with Scripture in order to interpret the various passages in the Old and New Testament. Rarely can you read the Scripture, just that passage by itself, and get the full meaning. But the Holy Spirit intends us to use the Scripture to interpret the Scripture. Now that's especially true on this verse right here, when Jesus says, Judge not lest you be judged. He brings up the subject of judgment, because pursuing radical Christianity, because remember the verse just before is, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Which is a summary of really the first two chapters. It's the crescendo of what Jesus is saying. Make the kingdom of God your absolutely highest priority, a higher priority than money, higher priority than honor. The absolute primary dream of your life is connecting with the King, encountering Him, living for His glory, expanding the kingdom, and walking in righteousness in your personal life. So the automatic thing that comes up is the issue of judgment or criticism. Am I seeking the Lord in a wholehearted way? Are you seeking the Lord in a wholehearted way? And all kinds of judgments naturally come out of that pursuit that He just described in chapter 6, verse 33. Now the subject of judgment, of believers judging one another, or believers judging others is very confusing, particularly in the rhetoric in our society in the last ten or twenty years where the subject of judgment is so primary in the conversation of the society itself. Because people are wanting to have freedom to walk in any kind of sin without any boundaries whatsoever. Any challenging of morality is called intolerance and do not judge, be like Jesus. And so there's a lot of confusion and that confusion makes its way into the church. I was talking to an intern the other day and she was trying to sort something out because really judgment, it means to evaluate. That's really what judgment means to evaluate. You have to evaluate what is right and what is good, and you have to evaluate what is harmful and what is bad in order to protect other people and to protect your own life and other people. Judgment is necessary, it's absolutely necessary. We'll see in a moment Jesus is in no way forbidding judgment in this verse. But what He's forbidding is the wrong application of judgment with a wrong spirit, with harshness, and in other ways we'll develop in a minute. Well anyway, this intern I was talking to her and she was going, well, because she was stuck in a dilemma, she has to evaluate what's right and what's wrong. She goes, well I don't want to judge, which is a standard thing you hear, and I said, why not? She goes, well what do you mean why not? She goes, well I don't want to judge. I said, well biblically you're commanded to. So you better, because if you don't judge you're going to end up in disobedience. And she was a little thrown off, and of course I was trying to have a little fun with her as well, and I said, she goes, what do you mean? I said, the Bible commands us to judge. We have to judge. We have to evaluate. We just have to do it in the biblical way, that's the key point. So I said, let's change your confession. I do want to judge. She went, oh I can't say that. And that's because in our community, I mean in the society at large, that is such anathema to say that phrase. Because of Matthew chapter 7 verse 1. Because of this one verse that's misapplied. We need to evaluate what is right. We need to declare what is right. We need to evaluate what is wrong and harmful so that others are protected from it and liberated and set free from it. And that's all a part of the subject of judgment. Now the point of judgment is to remove that which hinders love. The point of judgment isn't to get into a critical spirit where you have a vendetta against somebody who bothers you. And that's the thing you don't want to do. And that's what she really meant. I don't want to have a kind of just an annoyance and a vendetta and get back or with somebody win an argument and have a critical spirit and judge them in that sense. And we got around to that and I said well that's right. You don't want to do that. But judgment from a biblical point of view is a far bigger subject than just having a vendetta with somebody with a critical spirit. Now again the purpose of judgment is to remove the things that hinder love. To affirm what is right. To expose and remove what is wrong and harmful. Judgment is actually an expression of the mercy of God. It's an expression of the character of God. Now in the Old Testament and the New Testament equally. There are many examples. I want to say again in the Old Testament but equally in the New Testament. There are many examples where God's blessing is released when God's people were faithful to judge. Or the opposite where there was trouble and God's displeasure because God's people refused to judge. They neglected it. When they judged biblically in a biblical way, blessing came. When they refused to judge, trouble came. And there's many examples in the Old and the New Testament. Now a verse we're going to look at in just a moment. We have it in the notes but I'm giving it ahead of time. It's John 7 verse 24. It's John 7 24 and that's one of those verses you want to know as well as Matthew 7 1. The verse we're looking at now. Because it sheds great light on the command, judge not lest you be judged. John 7 24, Jesus commanded us to judge but to judge with righteous judgment. Not according to just human opinion or according to human facades. He says don't judge according to human appearance, all the facades and the spin and all that goes along with people making presentations of things that aren't true. But He goes, but do judge, just do it with righteous judgment. That's what He commanded us to do. Now when righteous judgment is neglected, sin increases. When righteous judgment is neglected in the family, in the church, in the marketplace among believers, in society at large where the church is to be salt and light and be a voice of truth, a faithful witness to truth. When judgment is neglected, which is the rhetoric of society to neglect it, sin increases and the devil has more opportunity to destroy human life. Now in Jesus' day, it was well established that it was biblical to bring judgments on negative behavior, on people that were wrong, activities that were wrong. It was well established. There was no debate in Jesus' day. So as Jesus approaches this part of the sermon, Matthew 7 verse 1, the presupposition is already in place that judgment is biblical. It is biblical to judge one another. What He's saying is He's prohibiting judging with the wrong spirit, judging with wrong information, and judging in a wrong process. That's what He was against. He was in no way saying don't judge again. You have to read the passage in context with what Jesus said about judgment and then the other passages because the scripture is what interprets the scripture and that's how we gain the right interpretation of it. Now it's important to note that as we're looking at chapter 7 verse 1 to 6 and then we'll look at two more sessions in the weeks to come, and again they're about the relational dynamics related to judging, related to pressing in to seeking the kingdom first and to seeking to live a life of righteousness. But in these six verses, it's important to understand they all go together. The verses are connected purposely by Jesus. By the words and, and the words or, verse 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 are all connected together. Here's my point. You can't take verse 1 separate from verse 2 to 6 and understand verse 1. Because in verse 2 to 6 He affirms the need for judgment. And He doesn't contradict Himself. He's making a point of, again, not in any way undermining the value of judgment, but undermining the wrong use of judgment, judging in a wrong spirit. Let's look at paragraph 8. Now again, remove the chapter break, chapter 7. That was not put there until a couple hundred years, you know, after Jesus said these words. So remove the chapter 7 break there and you'll find that judge not follows right after seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. When we earnestly endeavor to do this, it creates challenges in our life. There's all kinds of challenges. And, and, and what Jesus is wanting to do, paragraph B here, He doesn't want us hindered in our pursuit of the kingdom as our top priority or the pursuit of righteousness. He's really fighting for our hearts right here. Because what He's going to describe in verse 3 to 5, He's going to say, if you get caught up in criticizing people less committed than you, you're going to get distracted from pursuing the kingdom. So verse 3 to 5, the first point He makes is don't get caught up in criticizing people that apparently are less dedicated than you. Because that's a normal temptation when somebody is freshly committed to seek the kingdom, they find out all the people around them aren't as committed as they are. Jesus said, don't go there. Then in verse 6, He goes the opposite direction. He goes, don't get distracted or preoccupied by the people criticizing your commitment. He talks about, don't throw to the dogs the things that are holy. And He's talking about these people who persecute the righteous like wild dogs attacking them. He goes, don't criticize people that are less committed, according to your view, and don't be distracted by people who criticize your commitment, but stay focused. Seek first the King and His kingdom. Seek first righteousness. Because being distracted with the critical spirit, having one, or somebody attacking you with the critical spirit, will preoccupy us and get us off track. And that's really one of the primary things Jesus is addressing here in chapter 7, verse 1-6. Again, He's fighting for our hearts. That's one of the main things He's doing here. He's saying, you're going to lose your way if you criticize or get distracted by criticism. You're going to lose your way if you get distracted by either one of those. Paragraph D. Now, to judge means to evaluate. You have to evaluate. If you don't evaluate, great harm will come into your life and family, into your sphere of influence. To judge or to evaluate basically means, again, I'm just saying it again, affirm what is right and what is good from God's definition, and expose and remove what is wrong or what is harmful. That is from God's definition. What God defines as good or what God defines as harmful. Now here's the verse, John 7, verse 24. Jesus says, don't judge according to human appearance. There's all kinds of spin and facades. There's all kinds of ways where men can present themselves in ways that aren't true. And there's even your own motives can get in the way when you're annoyed at somebody. He says, rather take a step back, take the time that it's necessary to engage in righteous judgment. He didn't say don't have righteous judgment. He's saying judge with righteous judgment. Judge the right way. Now you'll notice in this very context, Jesus is saying in verse 5, he says, remove the speck from your brother's eye. Now what he's criticizing is removing the speck from your brother's eye in a wrong way. That's what he criticizes in verse 3 and 4. But then in verse 5 he says, but go ahead and remove it. Identify the fault and help your brother through the fault. That implies or requires evaluation or judgment. You have to make judgments to help a person's fault. Then he goes ahead and he talks about the dogs and the swine, those that persecute the righteous. That's pretty strong language. He's calling them dogs and swine. I mean, I'm not used to Jesus calling a real human being a dog. It's like, whoa, that's pretty intense, Jesus, and did you really mean to say that or did you get carried away? Well, I think he really meant to say it. Then he goes on later in verse 15 and talks about false prophets. In order to beware of false prophets, you have to judge a person who claims to have the truth to be false. That's a judgment. Without the judging of false prophets, great harm will come unto the body of Christ. My point is right here in Matthew 7, on these occasions right here, he affirms the value and necessity of judging people and character and words and behavior. And again, when you take it in context of his larger body of teaching, there is no question what he's saying here in this passage. Let's look at paragraph F. Scripture is clear about the responsibility to bring scandalous sin or to bring, I mean major areas, not minor faults in people's lives, or to bring major errors, to bring them into the light, which means we have to identify them, which means we have to judge them. We have to evaluate them. Leaders that don't do this are charged by God with unfaithfulness. Rather than, well I don't want to judge, rather it's I want to judge faithfully is the right biblical confession. Because if we neglect judging, we are displeasing to the Lord. If we judge wrongly, we are displeasing to the Lord. So if we judge in a wrong spirit, the Lord says that's wrong. But if we neglect to judge, we swing the pen on the other side, that's wrong too. You can look at these passages, there's quite a number of them, where the, not the need, but the command to judge is in the New Testament and it's strong. So don't buy into the rhetoric of society, I don't want to judge. Buy into the biblical value, I don't want to judge in a wrong way. But I want to judge with righteous judgment because I love truth, I love people, and I want to see good increase and I want to see harm decrease, therefore, yes, I agree with Jesus and His judgments. Now in Revelation chapter 2, I'm just going to add these verses in, I've got them later in the notes, three times in Revelation chapter 2. Jesus appears, He appeared in His resurrected body to John the Apostle on the island of Patmos and three, and He's talking to the seven churches of Asia in the book of Revelation. And in Revelation 2, on three occasions, He addresses the issue of leaders judging or not judging. He says to the church at Ephesus in chapter 2 verse 2, He says, you know, you've done a lot of good things and one thing you really do I like, you expose false apostles for what they are. Now these are guys in the church that are preaching the gospel or they're preaching part of the gospel or some version of the gospel, whatever, and the leaders of the church, they expose them as not being genuine. Beloved, Jesus said, that's good that you're protecting my church by exposing those false ministries. That's judgment. And Jesus affirmed them for judgment. Well in the same chapter, Revelation 2 verse 14, He goes the opposite direction. To the church at Pergamos, He says, I like these things about what you're doing, but here's what I don't like. I have this against you. You don't judge the people in your congregation that are teaching the doctrine of Balaam that leads to immorality. He goes, I like these things, and He lists them in Revelation 2, but in verse 14, He says, I have this against you. I love you, but I'm against you on this point. You neglect to judge. Wake up, stand up, be faithful, and protect the church from the encroachment of this false doctrine and its immorality that comes with it. Well then He goes on to the church at Thyatira in Revelation 2, same chapter. Now we're up to verse 20. He says the same thing to the church at Thyatira that He just said to the church at Pergamos that I just mentioned. But here, it's not the doctrine of Balaam. It's the teaching and the ministry of this woman named Jezebel. He says in Revelation 2 verse 20, He says, I like a lot of things about what you're doing, but you, I have this against you just like that other church. You are neglecting to judge the ministries in your city that your own people are participating in. You're not judging them. You're not calling them out and exposing the harm they're bringing to the body of Christ, and I have this against you. So anybody that says Jesus doesn't want us to judge, they have not understood the Bible. And if you're going to quote one verse, Matthew chapter 7 verse 1, you would have to quote it out of its context to suit another agenda that is in our society because Jesus wants His church to judge tenderly, motivated by love, with right information and a right spirit for the right reasons, but it's critical to bring judgment. So don't ever say, well, I don't want to judge, say I don't want to judge with the wrong spirit, with the wrong information. Now that, if you add that, then you're making a biblical statement. Let's go to paragraph G. Now Jesus moves on. Now He gives the motive. He gives it one motive to obey this, this command in verse 1, judge not lest you be judged, which really translates, don't judge in a wrong spirit and in a wrong way. That's really what He's saying in verse 1. That's what the command is. Don't judge in a wrong way. Now verse 2, He gives us the motivation to obey verse 1. He says, know this, whatever judgment you judge with, now here He's affirming that people are going to judge, right here, the very next verse. He said, whatever judgment you use, because you need to use a standard of judgment, you better pick the right standard of judgment. You better pick the right measure or standard, you could use the words interchangeably, because whatever measure you pick to judge other people with, you will be judged by that measure. And what Jesus is saying in this context is don't be harsh, don't have a critical spirit, but judge with mercy, but still you need to judge. Now the warning that He's giving here, the motivation to obey verse 1, He's giving them a motivation in verse 2, it's the reaping and sowing principle. That we sow seed and we reap a harvest. Whatever we sow, we reap. The consequences of our actions come back to us is what He's saying. Now He says, if you are harsh in your judgments, and you have a critical spirit in them, then other people will rise up and they will judge you harshly with a critical spirit. He goes, you will be judged that way by people. And Jesus was saying this as a deterrent, so they would go, whoa, He goes, I'm telling you, you will. You will be judged harshly if you judge harshly. Now don't take this promise or this spiritual principle to a wrong conclusion. Because Jesus judged nobody harshly, but still people judged Him harshly. He's not saying you'll be immune to people persecuting you and accusing you if you do it right. If you're tender, everybody will be tender to you. Well there was nobody more tender and loving than Jesus, and no one had more enemies than Jesus. So He's not promising all will go well if you are merciful, but He's saying if you are merciful, you will reap merciful judgment. It will come back to you. But it doesn't end with just men responding in this age with merciful evaluations of us. Even in the age to come, when we stand before the Lord, if we have harshly judged people when we stand before the Lord on the last day and He evaluates the work of our life, because our salvation is free, but at the judgment seat of Christ, the quality of our life work is evaluated. And if we've judged people harshly as a pattern of life, that's the quality of our love is low, and Jesus will factor that into how He evaluates our life. So He's saying there's actually going to be an eternal dimension to this as well as a temporal dimension. It's critical you judge with a tender spirit, with patience, and in a minute we're going to give you just a one, two, three, four on the attitudes. If we do it, it will go far better for us in this age, though we'll still have persecution if we're faithful to the truth. But in the age to come, when God evaluates our life, He sees very little harsh judgment. I mean, there's inevitably going to be some just because we're carnal human beings, but He sees that we contested it, we contended against it, we resisted it, and there He evaluates our life as that we were fighting for a higher quality of love. Now it's very easy to judge quickly and harshly because people trouble us and they annoy us and they bother us, and so it's easy just to respond in a judgment, and Jesus says that's what He's prohibiting here. He says, don't go there, restrain yourself. It's better not to go there because there are consequences. It does matter, not just to the person you're judging, but it also matters to how people will respond to you, and even it will factor into how your life is evaluated for rewards in the age to come. Let's look at page two. Now Jesus is now, in verse three to five, He's going to tell us how to respond to faults in our brother. Now it's interesting that the phrase, your brother, is used three times. In verse three to five. So it's talking about close relationships, close enough that you could consider them a brother in the physical or in the spiritual sense, so it's not talking about a remote distant relationship here, it's talking about somebody you're involved in their life on an ongoing way, that's who He's talking to. He mentions it three times. He says now, this issue of you see a speck in your brother's eye, you see a fault. Now remember the context, the verse before this passage, seek ye first the kingdom of God, because we're going hard for God, so you're going hard for God, but you look at your brother, and you say, well you know, he has compromises, and I'm just really troubled by his compromises. And Jesus is saying, now be careful, that very attitude can actually get you off track from seeking God first and His kingdom and righteousness. There's other dimensions that are on his mind too, but that's the one I want to focus on here. He's saying, if you get into that critical spirit, because your brother seemingly is less committed than you, you're going to get actually into a distraction in your walk with God, and you will actually end up less committed too, though you may not ever define it. Now what He's going to tell them in verse five, you know the passage well, He says, remove the log, or this translation says the plank from your eye. We're familiar with the log in the eye, and that's the King James language here in Matthew seven verse five. He says, now you've seen the speck in your brother's eye, you've seen the fault, it's a real fault, but you're overlooking the bigger issue in your own life. Now the issue is, the brother that you want to go help probably doesn't even know about that big issue in your life. You've hidden it from him, he's not even aware of it. But you and the Lord are aware of it. And the Lord says, hey, don't be more zealous to help your brother on a smaller issue than you are zealous to confront this in your relationship with me. If you're more zealous to help a little area in your brother than you are a big area that nobody knows about, just between you and me, the Lord says, He goes, that's hypocrisy. Because the guy says, why are you being so hard on that guy over there? He goes, well, I love him so much, and I just love righteousness so much, and I just want to confront it because it's not right what he's doing. And Jesus said, well, if you're that zealous for godliness, then let's talk about this issue of behavior or attitude you have. You're not dealing with it. So there's hypocrisy. You're pretending to be zealous for righteousness in the area of your brother's small fault, but you're not more zealous for righteousness in your own life in a big area. He goes, let's readjust your focus. Let's read verse 5. He says, hypocrite, remove the plank, the log from your eye. Then you will see clearly to remove the speck, the smaller fault from your brother. Now notice, we are still called to remove the speck from our brother. He did not absolve us from that responsibility. We are our brother's keeper. Genesis 4, which means we have responsibility in relationships to speak truth and to care about their spiritual well-being. That's what it means to be your brother's keeper. We do have responsibility to say the truth to our brothers that we're in relationship with. So he's not absolving us from this responsibility. Right here in the passage after he says, judge not, he goes, but identify that speck and remove it, but just do it in the right sequence. First be zealous about the log in your eye. Now he says, if you do that, you will see clearly. That's a key phrase. Look at number 4 down here. If we, the processes that we engage in to remove the big areas of compromise or weakness in our life, when we're diligent about it, it might be pride. It might be bitterness. It might be lost. It might be greed. It might be rejection, dishonesty, defensiveness, all kinds of things. Maybe a couple of them. But when I go hard after dealing with those issues in my private life, something happens inside of me that's very powerful. It makes me more tender with my brother when I'm confronting my own failure and weakness in a real face-to-face way. I don't go to my brother in a smug way with superiority and self-righteousness and say, that attitude of yours is bad and God wants you to deal with it. I go with him and think, wow, I've got like two or three way bigger issues than that. By the way, the brother probably does too in his private life. That's not the issue as to what he's dealing with in other issues. The issue is, if I deal with mine, I'm far more tender. I'm far more patient when I'm dealing with my brother. But more than that, I'm more insightful. When I confront lust, when I confront pride, when I confront defensiveness, dishonesty, and I overcome those in my own life, my own journey is my primary seminary class to help my brother. The Lord's saying, don't just read a book and tell him what to do. Tell him what you did to get free. Use your own journey as your seminary course. Speak out of your own experience and you will have tenderness and gentleness in it. And then your brother will go, wow, that's so helpful. Then you can help judge or remove or evaluate that issue that's in his life. But he goes, if you skip that step, you will end up just giving hard, cold advice. You won't have tenderness in it. It won't be insightful. It will be judgmental. It will be condescending. He goes, and your brother won't accept it. And it's all hypocrisy. He goes, it's not even genuine. Because you only want to help your brother if you're zealous for righteousness. Back in Matthew chapter 6, verse 33, the passage before. And if you're zealous for righteousness, then be zealous in your own heart. That's the point he's making. Okay, let's go on to paragraph I, verse 6. Now he's changed his subject. The subject he's been looking at in verse 3 to 5, you get distracted, I get distracted with a critical spirit to people less committed, or at least seemingly less committed. Now verse 6 is the opposite direction. We can get distracted by somebody critical of our dedication. They don't like our dedication to the Lord. It convicts them. It bothers them. For 10 reasons, it just infuriates them. Who are you that you think you are so close to God, and I know you think I'm not, and I know you think it even though you don't say it. So I mean, there's all these kind of feelings that are behind the person who attacks the dedicated believer. He says in verse 6, don't give what is holy to dogs. Don't cast your values, your valuable pearls, your valuable truths before swine, a herd of pigs. Because the swine, the herd of pigs will trample them under their feet. And the dogs, now he switches back over to dogs, you try to feed a pack of wild dogs, they will turn on you and they will devour you. They will tear you to pieces. He's not talking about a domesticated dog, little pet rover, or little Fifi, or whoever that guy is. That's not who he's talking about. He's talking about what was common in Israel, a pack of wild dogs, and even if in kindness you offer them food, they'll bite your hand off. And Jesus is using this word picture that was actually quite familiar in the Old Testament culture, and even in the Old Testament, that the dogs were men that persecuted the righteous. And Jesus, again, we don't picture Jesus calling human beings dogs and pigs, but He is. I mean, this is a major judgment He's making on these people. Jesus is judging them right here by this exposure of their nature. Of course, He's doing it because really highly committed people, especially if they're new, they're naive and they just give everything to everybody, their pearls, the things, the deep things that are precious to them in their walk with God. And these men persecute them and mock them and ridicule them and make fun of them and put them down and they're a little disoriented. They're saying, wow, what's, and they get real distracted by it. And Jesus is saying, don't be naive. They really will do that. But even more, don't be distracted when they do it. Stay focused on seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Don't get distracted by being critical to others or by being criticized by others. Don't be distracted by either direction. That's what He's saying here. Now, notice that initially these, this herd of pigs, they will trample pearls. You give a string of pearls to a herd of pigs, they won't take the pearls, go to the market and get them evaluated and turn them into, to a, to a money. Pigs they, we don't even know what they are. We can't eat them and they stomp on them and they get lost in the mud and nobody can find them again. I mean, when a herd of pigs comes through, those pearls are way down in the mud. They're lost. That's the idea. Well first, men will trample on your truth, the truth that you're standing for. But then it will escalate from trampling on what you say, then they will be like the wild dogs. They will seek to tear you to pieces, to hurt your reputation, to discredit you and harm you personally. And that's what Jesus is telling them. He's saying, and unless you're a very mature believer, you're going to get real distracted by that. So be careful, be prepared and stay focused on me, the king, stay focused on my kingdom, being salt and light to increase it, and stay focused on growing in righteousness. Don't get lost in criticizing those that are less committed or being criticized by those that are less committed. Don't get lost in either one of those. Top of page three. The Bible commands us to judge. There is no question at all about this. Don't sacrifice truth for love or love for truth because they are two sides of one coin. Says here in Ephesians 4 verse 15, speak the truth in love. Now the truth is more than accurate information. There's a man who is the truth. His name is Jesus. And he is much more than accurate information. He's accurate information about God, but in a spirit of love. So you can't separate the two. And the reason that we bring judgment is to give people opportunity for freedom and liberty. It's Christ-like to judge. You know, you'll hear out in the community dialogues among unbelievers, sometimes even among believers, why don't you just be like Jesus? That's what we're doing. We are being like Jesus because Jesus is the judge. Now that again, you can only say that if you're judging with tenderness, you're judging with a motive for love, you're judging to restore the person or to help and deliver them. You're not judging as a vendetta because they bother you or you're trying to get even with them. Jesus judging is parallel to a doctor judging cancer. The doctor discovers the cancer and he deals with it to remove it. And we could use the concept he's evaluating to remove. He's judging cancer while there's still time to save the life of the patient. That's the idea. He's judging the cancer. And to not judge that cancer while there's time to save the life of the patient would be malpractice. It's called love to expose and remove and address that cancer. Now in our society, there's a lot of rhetoric in our society, a lot of tolerance rhetoric. And most of it is a double standard, illogical, it's exaggerated, it's not genuine. And here's what I mean. And not all of the term tolerance is this rhetoric, but most of it is. Here's what people do. They take two very different values. The value of human dignity and their value to be free to sin with no restraint. They have two values. The freedom to sin with no restraints whatsoever and human dignity and in an illegal way they combine those two together. So if you tell them they're not free to sin in any way, they go, you don't value human dignity. They can't combine those together in truth. Those are very separate points, but it's very ingenious, very crafty to make them two points of one term. And the reason I say this is that they detest moral standards, absolute moral standards, the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage, the sanctity of sex, things like that as just examples. And again, there's different groups that detest different things. But here's the reason I'm mentioning it, only one reason. Many believers under this judge not confusion, because they don't understand what the Bible says about it, they get intimidated. And they're thinking, oh no, I don't want to judge. No, you don't want to judge with the wrong spirit in the wrong way. You do want to judge to be faithful to the Word. Say that different. Oh, OK, OK. Well, they said that I'm not tolerant. What they're trying to say is you don't have dignity of human life because you're not giving liberty to any morality that they want to promote. Beloved, there is nobody who loves the dignity of life more than people influenced by the Holy Spirit. And the reason that we judge immoral standards, because it hurts the dignity of life, it destroys human life, because we stand with Jesus and expose it. And that's where Jesus wants His church. OK, let's turn to paragraph F at the bottom of the page. Now He said right here, He says now, here's a fundamental principle, that when you judge, go to your brother in private. We can't skip the step of going to our brother in private. Our temptation is to tell somebody else to vent. If we're telling somebody else probably the brother's fault is an argument we're having or a vendetta or they annoy us, it's not because we're zealous for righteousness. It's critical we go to the brother first in private. Now the good news is Jesus comes to us in private when we sin. It's called the spirit of conviction. He comes to us in private. And sometimes if we don't obey and He comes a number of times, He comes with two or three. That means He tells it prophetically to somebody else, but that's another story for another day. Number two, tell the brother the fault in the face-to-face. Here's why. Because when we're away from the brother, we're imagining that we're troubled by his compromise and, you know, I'm just disturbed by him. But when we get face-to-face with him, we end up, the spirit is present, because wherever two or three gather, the spirit is present, we end up having a surprising affection that we didn't think we'd have. We have a new insight. We have a new angle on it. When we get face-to-face and the spirit is there, even a little bit of His active presence touching us, we see a tear in the brother's eye. Things become very different when we're face-to-face, and Jesus knew that. Top of page four. So, now page four, I'm just going to mostly just leave it to you to read on your own. It's quite self-explanatory. I'll just make a comment or two. A, A summarizes the whole page, and again, the page is self-explanatory, that we're going to judge in the biblical way, the right way, here's what we have to do, the right process. Which means, we take the plank out of our eye, we deal with our own issue, and we go to the brother in private. We have to do it in that process. Then we use the right information, and by meeting with the brother, he even gets to adjust the information we think is so clear, but sometimes is wrong, or it's part wrong. And we have to do it in a right spirit. But by looking at our own failure, we approach it with tenderness and gentleness, if we really do take the plank out of our eye first. Now one point about taking the plank out of the eye that someone brought up last night in a discussion, is that she said, well I have all these unsettled issues, so that means I've got to wait until I'm free from all of them. No, that's not what Jesus is saying. You need to be dealing with all of them honestly and aggressively. But if we have to wait until we're totally free of everything, we will never ever help each other with truth, because we're not going to be totally free of everything on this side of the resurrection. And so if you're dealing with it honestly and aggressively, you are prepared to go to your brother, because you have tenderness because of your own failure and weakness. You have humility, you have patience. So B, go in humility. C, take time to get the accurate information. Go with accuracy. D, go with gentleness, but with the, also the goal to restore. Not the goal to win an argument, the goal to restore. E, go patiently. This one's an important one, to go patient. Jesus said about that woman in the book of Revelation, Jezebel, at the church at Thyatira, who was teaching false doctrine and promoting immorality, this is remarkable. I gave her time to repent. What? You gave Jezebel time to repent? And the Lord wants us to be patient in the process. Someone says, how patient is patient? Well, only the Lord will have to direct you, because every situation is different. Give them time to grasp the gravity of the situation of their sin. Now one guy says, well, I went to him, and you know what? He didn't repent. Well, give him a little more time. I mean, you went to him, he kicked into damage control mode, you know, he was like deer in the headlights, he lost his bearings, he's insecure, afraid, feels defensive, doesn't trust you, and spinning around, just waffling about, stumbling over everything. Don't count that as you went to him and he failed the test, so now you can drop the hammer on him. Well, I went, he didn't repent, I'm going public now. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, give the guy a chance. I mean, he was again, he was all in that kind of mode, just go again. And share your own weakness and go a third time to him and see where this thing's at, be patient. And finally, confidentiality is critical, totally critical. If the person is not a part of the solution, they cannot share this information, it's illegal. Look what it says in 1 Peter 4, 8, above all, have love. Love covers, it covers, protects a multitudes of sins. Now these are sins that are repented of, by the way. One guy says, well, if I have love, I'll let the guy keep sinning. No, no, no, it's sins that have been addressed, but they're repented of, cover them, they're under the blood, never ever expose a sin of yesterday that's covered under the blood just to get back or to have a penalty dimension to it. Now if talking about that sin is part of the restoration of the man's heart, then, you know, there's a place to talk about it in depth. But if it's a point of just penalizing him or getting back or you get mad at him in a couple years and you want to bring it up because he trusted you years ago and told you everything, love covers and never, never bring up a sin that's been repented of for the sake of just exposing it and for the sake of penalty. Proverbs 17, 9 will end with this. He that covers a sin seeks love. I mean the person who doesn't tell it to anybody, completely private, take it to your grave. It's under the blood of Jesus. For he who repeats a matter, they will separate even the best of friends. They say, let me tell you what that guy did. It will separate even the best of friends. Well, amen and amen.