A few weeks ago I gave a sermon titled “Living With His People”. You can listen to the whole sermon on our podcast, but the summary of the message dealt with confronting other Christ-followers. Part of living as God people is having the courage to confront others with gentleness and love for the good of their soul.
A few days later I received an e-mail. Here is an excerpt of that e-mail:
I completely agree with what you were saying, I was just wondering how that relates to Matthew 7:4-5 which says, “How can you think of saying, ‘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 from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.” I don’t know about anyone else, but for me I guess I always used that as an excuse to keep quiet about the sin in other people’s lives because I know I’m nowhere near perfect. But what you said makes sense, who is anyways? I just wanted to know what you thought about it because I’m trying to figure it out.
Here was my response. I hope you all find it helpful:
Hey *********, thank you so much for your e-mail. This is a great question and I love the sincerity of your heart. Here are a few thoughts for you as process through the balance of what we see in scripture. In scripture we see that we are to encourage/exhort, and spur one another on in our walk with Christ. We also see Jesus saying in Matthew 7 (as you have pointed out):
1″Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
So how do we balance out these passages that are both true? Is Jesus saying that we should never confront? While yet in other places in scripture we are called to steadfastly encourage each other in our faith. Well, here are my thoughts that I hope will help you process through this tension.
The whole chapter of Matthew 7 is dealing with judgment. We see in verse 1-5 Judgment of ourselves, in verses 6-20 judgment of others and then in verses 21-29 God’s Judgment of us. So judgment is clearly the theme of the chapter. Jesus is hitting on a topic that the Pharisees and scribes knew quite well. The Pharisees and scribes were known for their judgmental attitude. They had a false judgment about themselves, about others and even God. But how does all this relate to us as Christ-followers helping one another to be rooted firmly in Christ. Here are a few principles top think about:
1. Consider the Motive:
Anytime we are confronting or encouraging other Christ-followers we must consider our motive. Is our motive to edify and serve that person by drawing them closer to Christ or is it to merely stand in judgment. We know that the motive of the Pharisees at the time was to merely stand in judgment. Not a good motive.
2. Sober Judgment of our own lives:
Jesus is clearly telling us in this passage, that before we can judge others, we must have sober judgment about our own lives and our own sin. Paul tells us in Romans 12: “3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment…” So as Christ-followers we should always strive to be in a state of humility, always looking at our own lives and sin with sober judgment. This idea of “sober” quite simply means to think of us exactly the way we are. Not just thinking too highly of ourselves but also not thinking too negatively about ourselves either. So the first step in confronting others, is soberly knowing that I am sinner too. I am not perfect. When we see the failures of our own lives - it is very humbling.
3. Sober Judgment Allows Us to help others:
Jesus uses an interesting word picture in Matthew 7. A person with a plank in their eye makes it hard to see obviously. So what Jesus is saying is that for us to truly serve others by encouraging them, we have to be able to clearly see. We do not have sober judgment about our own sin and lives, then not only do we have a distorted view of ourselves but also we will also always have a distorted view of others. When we don’t first examine ourselves not only does it hurt our own spiritual walk but it also is hurtful to others. The ultimate purpose of confronting others is not to condemn - that is how the Pharisees would confront. But our purposes in confronting others are to serve others and love them (Ephesians 4:15).
4. Take great care
Lastly I do like how Jesus uses the illustration of an eye because of the great care that must be done when nursing an eye. I have only had a few eye exams in my life (thankfully I have never had any type of major damage to my eyes) and each time the doctor shows great care. I think we can appreciate the parallel that Jesus brings to light — that we must show great care, tenderness and love when we do confront.
So in summation: we know from scripture that is part of our duties as Christ-followers to confront others who are in sin - it is for their good. However in doing so we also see principles on how that should take place… We should 1) Consider our Motives 2) Look at ourselves 3) be humble and 4) Show great care.
Hope this helps.
denny