What do you do when someone says you are wrong? Do you cry out stop judging me? What happens if they are right and you are
wrong? Do you have the Christian
freedom, the right, to say, “stop judging me.”? Is it wrong for them to speak words of
judgment against you, or have you simply been misguided into a false belief
that no one is allowed to issue a statement of judgment against you besides
God?
Here’s the simple truth:
when God's Word says you are wrong and have sinned and someone has told
you what God's Word says, that person is not being judgmental. That person
loved you enough to know that you may hate him/her for telling you God's
truth. We live in a society where it is
unacceptable to say someone is wrong. So then we grab hold of clichés like, God
said, “Judge not lest you be judged.”
“Don’t pull the sliver from my eye when you should be worry about the
log in your eye!” And we say, “See! Don’t tell me I’m wrong! Only God can tell me I’m wrong.”
Unfortunately there are multiple problems with such
defensive statements. When you use these
passages, you use them out of context and without the knowledge of the whole
scripture. How are you going to know you
are wrong? How are you going to know you
have been doing it wrong (maybe all your life) if someone doesn’t say it? Does God say that his voice from heaven will
call down to you and say, “You are wrong,”?
The obvious answer is that there are certain people that your heavenly
Father has placed into your lives to tell you what is right and wrong, who in
fact are to “judge” you.
First and foremost, you have your parents. They are given to you as God’s authorities
and that authority doesn’t end at a certain magical number. Parents have a difficult job because they
want their children to grow and learn, but they also have to say, “Son, you are
wrong.” When we listen to our parents it
is to our advantage, so that we may live long on this earth. Also, don’t begin to think that just because
you are an adult that your parents should no longer tell you when you have
erred. Maybe, even more than ever, we
need our parents then because they will continue to instruct us and all the
more must tell us when we have failed as adults.
Also included in these authorities are the government. They are there to uphold the laws and keep
you doing what is right and to punish you when you are wrong. This is the very point of judges. They do not exist to create right and wrong, but
to use the laws to declare you right or wrong.
One also cannot forget our pastors. Our pastors are called to say God’s word
which is not just speaking the Gospel. It begins with the Law. The Law convicts you and that is what makes
you feel judged. Pastors are here for
the salvation of your souls. Pastors are
not judges, rather they are called as dispensers of forgiveness. The pastor must diagnose the problem in order
for the healing balm of the Gospel to be applied. When there is no admittance of the disease,
how can the salve of the gospel be applied?
One may think that the pastor benefits from pointing out sin, but is not
a work that he relishes. One could call
it his alien work for he would rather simply be the absolver. He would much rather let the sick come to him
so that he may give them the cure.
Unfortunately, his charges are more like sheep who have gone astray,
wandered off, gotten injured and can’t get back. The shepherd does not say the sheep can
figure it out. Rather he judges the
sheep as wrong and carries it back to the flock to be healed. So also the Pastor points out sin and carries
his hurting member back to the meals of healing and forgiveness.
There is one more group: your friends or let us call them
your neighbors. They are certainly here
to love you. In fact, that is exactly
what they do when they tell you that you are wrong, they love you. When you love your neighbor as yourself you
are holding yourself to the same standard—God’s standard. This is the difficulty that we have because
when someone tells me I’m wrong, we think, “Who is he to say I’m wrong?” The answer is: if he is truly acting as
neighbor, who loves the Lord, his God, he has my best interests at heart. To put it simply: he is the one who should
tell me I’m wrong.
His focus is not on being able to point out sin, but on his
love for his fellow neighbor. Our true
neighbor loves us completely when he points our sin, so that we may go running
back to the church and receive the means of grace. Your neighbor doesn’t want to see you suffer
in your sin, but rather that you be incorporated back into the church! For God is using neighbor to point out your
sin.
Can someone be judgmental?
Yes, definitely, if they point out sin out of a desire to feel superior
to someone else or if they do it for the fun of being able to point out wrong. There is then no love in pointing out the
sin. When Jesus tells us to remove the
log from your own eye before removing the sliver from someone else’s he is
pointing out the need for all of us to be repentant. When he says, “judge not lest you be judged,”
he is saying repent of your sin, before you point out someone else’s sin.
The point is that a truly loving person is not judgmental,
he is loving. He wants to save you, and
the only way he knows how to do that is to diagnose the sin and draw your
attention to it so that the Holy Spirit may lead you to repent and receive forgiveness. To decry someone as judgmental is in fact,
judging. Worse yet, your cry of judgment
can most certainly be an additional sin because what your loving neighbor is
trying to do is save your soul!
Finally, when sin is pointed out by a fellow brother or
sister in Christ, or even by someone who is in authority, they are not judging
you, God is judging you. In fact God has
already judged that action, and declared you guilty. What that person does for you is he begins to
deliver your soul. He speaks not his
word to you, but God’s Word to you. That
person’s desire is to save your soul, not laud your sin over you.
It is ok to be judged, because in that judgment God wants to
give you the gift of forgiveness. It is ok to be told you have done wrong,
because you also know that where God is feared there is also forgiveness. That is what we fear. When we cry out, stop
judging me, we are really saying, stop saying I’m not good enough. Stop telling me I deserve death. That is precisely what we need to hear, we’re
not good enough. We’re not good at
all. It is only God who is good.
God is so good, he desires to deliver to you forgiveness. He sent his perfect, good son into this world
to be judged on our behalf. The only man
ever to be not guilty is declared guilty.
The only man who could never be judged was judged and he was sentenced
to death. That is the good news! He was truly not guilty and because he truly
could not be judged of any wrong doing, death could not hold him. In fact he
destroyed the gates of hell and freed the prisoners who were held captive, who
waited on and hoped in Christ.
This is why you need not fear judgment, because you are
called to trust in Christ alone who delivers you out of the accuser’s
hands. Yes, you have been freed from the
devil’s accusing grip and placed into your good shepherds hands who has bound
your wounds and declared you not guilty.
Jesus paid the judgment of your sins, so you don’t have to.
No sin you have committed is to great, confess that
sin. Admit to the one who holds you
accountable and say, you are right. I
was wrong. I sinned against my Lord and
Savior. Thank him, profusely you. You are forgiven. Your sin will be expunged and you will be set
free. Being judged is a good thing. Trust the Word of the Lord, for with him
there is always forgiveness.
