Be Generous, Not Critical

Matthew 7:1-12

Immanuel – 3/3/23

In 4:19 Jesus declared that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Then going up some height, He delivers the Sermon on the Mount to His disciples. Again, the Sermon on the Mount is for the disciples of Jesus. Others hear it, others can benefit from it, but this whole wonderful discourse is life and light for those who believe.

First, there are the Beatitudes, blessings for all who trust in Jesus and follow Him. Then there is the blessed effect of following Jesus: You are the salt of the earth and light of the world. Such realities are the law of the kingdom of God.

Then, in verse 17 Jesus begins to show how the law of the kingdom of heaven is a greater law than the Law of Moses, with a righteousness that is given rather than a righteousness that is earned. Jesus draws out the differences of these two laws to anger, lust, divorce, oaths, retaliation, and love.

In chapter 6 Jesus begins instructing His disciples how they ought to live within the present kingdom of heaven. He teaches them about three important spiritual disciplines: charity, prayer, and fasting. Any true practice of these disciplines must not be about outward appearances, they are expressions of the heart. They are things you can do with your body that draw the heart to treasure the kingdom of God more rightly.

Which is exactly why Jesus next speaks about what you treasure in your heart: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

After this, Jesus chose four dispositions to help His disciples discern the state of their hearts. Two are negative and two are positive: the anxious heart (we looked at this last week), the critical heart and the generous heart (we’ll see these two today), and finally the obedient heart.

Purpose

Every time I get up here to preach, know that I speak about things above myself. I am just as broken and sinful as anyone here. Even still, there are times when I come before God’s word and my wretchedness is exposed in an especially poignant way. Today’s passage does just that. Know that I am preaching to myself today as much as anyone else. I have perfected none of this.

Read vs 1

The Critical Heart

To understand this teaching, we need to know what king of judgment Jesus is talking about. Jesus is not talking about judgment in an ultimate sense, like judgment over life or death. The context of verses 1-5 makes it clear that Jesus is talking about being critical. He’s addressing a fault-finding mentality, a disposition of disapproval.

A critical heart has little forgiveness for weaknesses or imperfections. You can be critical towards someone’s driving, critical towards someone’s parenting, critical towards someone’s appearance, critical towards someone’s behavior, work ethic, intelligence, musical choices, the way your neighbor keeps their yard, and on and on. There are almost endless ways to be critical of others.

Jesus says don’t be judgmental like this, lest you be judged.

Read vs 2

If you judge others, you will be judged; and the degree to which you judge others, that same measure of judgment will be returned to you. In other words, if you frequently critique the little faults in people, the things that annoy you, the things that frustrate you, the things that you just don’t understand; then your faults and failings become magnified to those around you.

Echoing Jesus’ words, Paul writes:

You have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.

-Romans 2:1

So, when I’m critical of somebody’s bad attitude, then I’m grumpy, I look like a complete hypocrite. Indeed, in verse 5 “hypocrite” is what Jesus calls it when we do this. And people do not tolerate hypocrites. Neither will God tolerate hypocrites. Elsewhere in Matthew, Jesus says:

“I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” -Matthew 12:36-37

Let’s say a person never learns about the law of God, that person will be judged by the words he speaks – every critical word. If you set a standard for other people to live by, then not only will people hold you to that same standard, but God will hold you to that standard.

And isn’t this right? If you look down your nose at MarySue because she is a gossip, and then you indulge in a little gossip, you condemn yourself.

(Parenthesis)

If you’ve ever wondered how God can judge unreached people that have never heard of His standards, here is your answer.

(Close Parenthesis)

Jesus then dives into a hyperbolic and very potent illustration.

Read vs 3-5

Look at the questions in verse 3. Jesus is essentially saying, why do you do that? Why are you so critical? As we saw with anxiety, Jesus assumes that all of His disciples are judgmental on some level. We all struggle with being critical of others.

That’s because we are all rife with self-righteousness. We’re all proud, and pride conflicts with pride. We’ve all got something in our eye.

You can’t help but think that Jesus’ time in a carpenter’s workshop influenced His illustration. Have you ever gotten a speck of sawdust in your eye? Not only is it painful, but it’s obvious to everyone around you. You’re blinking like crazy; your eye is watering.

Back in my 20s when I worked on a framing crew, there was this one guy that left the jobsite and went home because he got something in his eye – he did this more than once.

Where’s his fortitude? What kind of man does that? He couldn’t work, but he could drive? You can imagine how this gets talked about on a construction site. It was hard not to be critical of him: I mean, who goes home because they’ve got something in their eye?

But the truth is – even if he wasn’t making excuses – I’ve made up excuses to go home early, or to not work at all. Condemned. I’m a critical hypocrite. Even if he was impaired by the sawdust in his eye, I’ve been walking around with this giant log sticking out of my own.

Of course, Jesus is speaking hyperbolically, and I think quite humorously, when he talks about a plank in the eye. But notice two things about what it means to have a log in your eye. First, if a speck is obvious in someone else’s eye, how much more noticeable is a log? Second, if there is a log in your eye, can you even see? Wouldn’t both eyes be blocked by such an overwhelming obtrusion?

That’s what it’s like with faults. If someone else’s faults appear more obvious than your own, then you are blind! This is called a lack of self-awareness. Do you want to know if you lack self-awareness? If you listen to this and you cannot tell that something is in your eye. If you sit here and think that someone else really needs to hear this message.

Just like a fool does not know he is a fool, a person who lacks self-awareness does not comprehend that they lack self-awareness. Everyone else has the problems. Everyone else needs correcting. Meanwhile, we’re all bobbing and weaving as you walk around this church with a tree hanging from your face.

Back to the first implication of having a log in our eye. If someone else’s faults are obvious to you, your faults are even more obvious to others – especially to our Holy God.

And that’s the main point here. It’s not that if you pass judgment on another, you are a worse sinner than the one you criticize. The point is that such a fault is a tiny speck compared to the monstrous accumulated sin that God sees in you. The accumulated weight of your sin is immeasurably vast; so vast that sinners are condemned to an eternal hell to pay for it.

How amazing it is then that such a hell was swallowed up in Christ’s death and resurrection. Now for all who repent and believe, there is no longer any condemnation. You are forgiven and free. Forever, God chooses to look past all that accumulated weight of sin you have accrued. He will never turn a judgmental eye towards you, never a shred of criticism. Only love. Only favor. Your heavenly father chooses to look on you only with generosity.

Now, that doesn’t mean that God is ignorant of your sins and faults. He is aware. And the implication of Jesus’ parable is that both logs and specks need to be removed from eyes.

It is the living waters of the gospel that removes both logs and specks. Make sure you are washing yourself in the gospel, applying it to all the hidden and hard to reach parts of your heart. There’s a lot of dirt that needs cleaning. When you realize that, then you can think about helping someone with their faults.

For in this way we can recognize faults without being critical of them. Being aware of faults is a very different thing than being critical of faults as Jesus’ next words indicate.

Read vs 6

Holy items before dogs and pearls before swine; both of these have to do with treating treasures as if they are cheap. To understand what Jesus is talking about, and how it relates to the rest of Jesus’ message, we need to do a little unpacking.

So far in the Sermon on the Mount, what is it that Christ has indicated is a valuable treasure? In 6:20 He talks about treasures in heaven, and the greatest treasure in heaven is God Himself. And the greatest thing that you and I possess that brings us to God is the message of the Gospel.

Jesus is teaching us not to continually offer the gospel to people who don’t want it, like it doesn’t matter, like the gospel of the glory of God’s grace is cheap. Such obstinate people are like pigs trampling precious pearls into the muck. In Luke 10, Jesus says that if a person does not receive you and your message, shake the dust off your sandals and move on (Luke 10:10-11). At a certain point, if we continue, we are the fools. Don’t be surprised if those people turn against you.

Now, here’s how this relates to the verses about judging, and it is incredibly important. Verse 6 functions as a counterbalance.

Jesus is telling us to make judgments. Trying to discern if a person is trampling the gospel or treasuring it means that you must make a moral judgment. Moral judgments are good. If you know something is wrong, you have made a judgment. If you see sin in someone, you have made a judgment. Those things are ok. In fact, making moral judgments like this is a protection. Moral judgments protect us from offering precious things to obstinate people, and moral judgments protect us from getting ourselves into dangerous situations.

So, we are to judge, but here’s the difference: We are to think critically, not be critical of heart. Don’t judge does not mean don’t think.

Thinking critically means being discerning of the world around you. We ought to know what is right and wrong, and when a person is doing good or evil. As possessors of the word of God, we strive to think critically about these things.

It’s like Jesus says in chapter 10:

“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” -Matthew 10:16

To be wise as a serpent is to see the world as it is. Jesus does not call us to a blind faith and neither does He call us to live with a blindfold on.

This is so important to understand in a world that doesn’t want us to think critically. Whatever a person believes about their gender, we’re all supposed to agree with. If the politicians tell us something is good, then we’re all expected to just go along with it. If the movies show it to be acceptable, then we all need to accept it. This world is working with a twisted morality and trying to get us to do the same.

But with God’s word imbedded within our hearts, we shall not conform. The King has commanded us to proclaim the gospel and work to untwist this twisted up world: And so we shall!

“Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

-John 7:24

Again, think critically; don’t have a critical heart.

Read vs 7-8

The Generous Heart

Ask, seek, knock: all actions, all having to do with prayer. We learned much about asking when we studied the Lord’s Prayer. Knocking is about persistence. Knock until that door is open, don’t give up.

Seeking is perhaps the most interesting of the three. It harkens back to last week’s passage: Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you (6:33). Additionally, seeking is not the same as asking, as if Jesus were saying, “Ask, ask, knock.” No, seeking means something different than asking.

I believe the connotation may be that sometimes we don’t know exactly what it is we should be praying for, we just come to our Father earnestly seeking what He knows is best. He knows what is good, and often times we do not, so we seek His will and His way.

Either way, whether asking, seeking, or knocking; Jesus promises that if we come to God for our needs, He will generously give. It’s another balm for our anxious hearts. In no uncertain terms, Jesus wants us to know that prayer is powerfully effective.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

-James 5:16

And prayer is effective because God generously gives good things. Again, to emphasize this point, Jesus goes to an illustration.

Read vs 9-11

(Parenthesis)

In many places the Bible teaches us that we are all sinful; or like we read here, evil. Yes, Jesus calls His disciples evil. Of course, He is referring to the state we were born into, and all the sinful things we’ve done with our lives. But for all that repent and trust in Him, that evil has been entirely forgiven. None-the-less, evil is still hardwired into us. Isn’t that why He has to tell us not to be critical of others?

(Close Parenthesis)

Even we, born of this sinful race, even we know how to give good gifts. How much more does God – the supremely perfect, the infinitely wealthy, the fountain of all goodness, the overwhelming generous – yes, our Heavenly Father knows how to give good gifts!

It should stun us that Jesus places absolutely no conditions on God’s generosity. Ask, seek, knock in faith; and the Father will give – despite the fact that we are evil. That is the very definition of generosity. The Father gives to those who ask Him.

Of course, this does not mean that the Father will give you whatever you ask for. God is no genie that’s just going to grant your every wish. But God – knowing what is best – will give what’s best. Perhaps the best is on the other side of pain. Perhaps it is not giving you what you want. Perhaps it is making you wait. You don’t know, but He does; and He promises to give you His very best!

All we must do is ask.

You do not have, because you do not ask. -James 4:2

Read vs 12

The golden rule. Jesus derives the golden from what He’ll later call the second greatest commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). Do you hear the similarity? “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.” Of course, the essence of the golden rule is love. We all want love. We want people to treat us with love. As you want to be loved, so should you love. Love your neighbor as yourself.

If you love like this, Scripture is fulfilled. Turn the page back to Matthew 5:17. Remember what Jesus said there?

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

How has Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets? Love, generous love. All that He did was in love. It was love that took Him to the cross. It was love that caused the Father to raise His Son. It is love that God generously gives to all who believe.

I hope you can see that to be a disciple of Jesus Christ is to fight at every turn against selfishness, for there is no room for selfishness in love. There’s no room for a critical heart in love. In fact, if you love, doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, all the Law and the Prophets will be fulfilled.

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. -Romans 13:8

Indeed, a generous heart swallows up a critical heart. You cannot just say I will no longer be critical. You need some tool to remove that evil log. It is love, and love is generous.

When God had every right to be critical of you, He chose instead to be generous. He did not immediately snuff out your life, though you rebelled against Him, but He sustains you. He feeds you and clothes you. And with a generosity that overwhelms the soul, He sent His beloved Son to take your punishment and die in your place, that you might be forgiven. What generosity!

And He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with [Jesus] graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32) God’s generosity knows no limits. And we have been given His heart. Live in that generosity. Fight your critical spirit with love; and do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Instead of finding fault, find things to praise.

Instead of seeing things to judge, seek ways to offer grace.

Instead of being a source of discouragement, be a beaming source of encouragement.

As Christ has done for you, so do for others. For the measure you use, it will be measured to you.