The Prevention of Judgmentalism

Jim ButlerMatthew 7:1–5

Matthew 7:1–5 forbids not all judicial discernment but the petty, fault-finding, hypocritical spirit that condemns the speck in a brother's eye while ignoring the plank in one's own. This sermon, the evening complement to a morning exposition of the same passage, turns from diagnosis to remedy, working through seven biblical means by which Christians may actively resist a censorious spirit. The prevention runs from the internal (Spirit-filling, humility, a sober doctrine of sin) to the relational (charity, esteem for the brethren, continual recourse to Christ and his gospel), and the whole is anchored in the recognition that perfection in this duty awaits glory.