and turn with me once again to the Psalms for our Old Testament reading. And that will be Psalm 112. Psalm 112, we’ll read the whole Psalm. And let’s give careful attention to this because this is the very word of God. Praise the Lord. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments.
His offspring will be mighty in the land. The generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever. Light dawns in the darkness for the upright. He is gracious, merciful, and righteous. It is well with the man who deals generously and lends, who conducts his affairs with justice. For the righteous will never be moved.
He will be remembered forever. He is not afraid of bad news. His heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady. He will not be afraid. until he looks in triumph on his adversaries. He has distributed freely. He has given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. His horn is exalted in honor. The wicked man sees it and is angry. He gnashes his teeth and melts away. The desire of the wicked will perish. And then for our New Testament reading and for the text this morning’s message, please turn to Luke’s Gospel Chapter 6. Where our text will be verses 37 and 38. Luke 6, 37 and 38.
Judge not, and you will not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
That’s the reading of God’s Word. Let’s pray for his blessing upon it now. Father in heaven, as we come to these words words. Frequently quoted. And perhaps almost as frequently misunderstood. We ask your help. We pray for your spirit. To be among us and to minister to us and to be our teacher as we open the word together now. Let Christ receive the glory. And let us be. More and more consistent. Imitators of him we ask in his name, Amen.
So judge not. You will not be judged. Verse 37 contains one of the most misunderstood. Misapplied. An abused statements in Scripture. There are many others. As I was thinking through some other verses of God’s word that people have a tendency to like to toss out or to use out of context and in ways that don’t convey the spirit or the meaning of the text itself.
I thought of Philippians 4.13. Partly because I read that passage in my own devotions just this very morning. You know the passage. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
And God didn’t write those verses. He didn’t record those verses. The Spirit didn’t breathe out those verses so you could claim them as a promise from God that you’re going to win the track meet. or that your team is going to prevail in the championships, or even get to the championships, or that you’re going to pass that exam, which maybe you didn’t really study for as diligently as you ought to have. But you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, and you believe he’ll bless you and help you to pass the test. Now, those are all abuses of that verse. And the verse for our consideration this morning has been similarly abused.
In fact, as we go through Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, and in the same way Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, Christ’s Sermon on the Mount recorded in Matthew, we frequently have to grapple with, well, how do we properly, how do we correctly understand these words? Because on the surface, they may seem to say one thing, but how easily we can misappropriate them and misapply them. So how is it when we come to any passage of scripture, really, how do we get at the correct interpretation? How do we find out the real meaning and how do we properly apply it?
Well, there are three basic rules of scripture interpretation. And if you hang on to these three, you won’t frequently go astray when you’re looking at any passage of God’s word. Number one, you have to consider the context. Number two, consider the context. And number three, consider the context. Context, context, context. That’s what we were taught. And so on. I say that a little bit tongue in cheek, but only a little bit. Because context is all important. In terms of our study of God’s word and seeking to determine what it means, seeking to determine how it applies. The threefold use of context could also be a little bit more substantial than that, because we always have to interpret scripture in its immediate context.
What do the verses that immediately precede anything that we’re studying or reading? What do those verses say? What do the verses that immediately follow? So the immediate context of any verse or passage is very important. And then zooming out a little bit, the context of that particular book of the Bible in which those words occur is also important. So you have to interpret a passage of scripture within the book that it’s written. Because we cannot and do not and must not interpret a phrase from the Psalms in exactly the same way we might seek to interpret a phrase from one of the, from historical narrative, for example. And then zoom out one, one level further, all scripture has to be interpreted in the context of all other scripture. And I remember when someone first laid that on me, I thought, wow, that’s, that’s a lot. So I’ve really got to know the whole scriptures to understand scripture fully. Yeah. Yeah, you do.
And that’s why we’re lifelong students of God’s Word. Context, that’s how we understand how to properly interpret and apply God’s Word. Now these verses that we’re looking at this morning come in the context of what we call the Sermon on the Plain. And what we see in this sermon is that Christ’s instructions often stand in stark contrast with human wisdom. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount even says over and over, you have heard that it was said, but I say unto you, and that’s the way he teaches so much of the time. And he teaches things that are counterintuitive to us, that are in opposition to our natural inclinations.
Things like, love your enemies. Things like, do good to those who hate you. Pray for those who abuse you and spitefully use you. And so as we come to these words, which are also counterintuitive, judge not and you will not be judged, condemn not and you will not be condemned.
Once again, the words speak about judgment, but they have less to do with judging and they have more to do with God’s lavish goodness to those who by grace live in humble and obedient imitation of him. So there is emphasis on being judgmental, but it really all culminates in and points to and kind of revolves around the generosity of God to us who don’t deserve anything good from him.
And because we’ve been recipients of his lavish goodness, we ought to reflect his character. by being kind and patient, gracious and forgiving with others. So these verses teach us really that the recipients of God’s abundant goodness and mercy reflect his grace by being charitable to others. That’s the message of these two verses. The recipients of God’s abundant goodness and mercy reflect his grace by being charitable to others.
And we’ll look at this under three points. First of all, we are gonna need to take some time to consider popular misinterpretations of Christ’s words. Popular misinterpretations of these words in particular. Secondly, we’ll see what the text has to say to us about the spiritual principle of sowing and reaping. And finally, we’ll see what it says to us about our Heavenly Father’s bountiful generosity. So, to begin with, there are popular misinterpretations of Christ’s words. Because these words occur in context, because they flow out of the words that preceded, that we looked at previously, and they flow into what follows, it would be very easy to take these words, these two verses, and include them in a sermon on the passage that preceded or maybe lump them in with the following verses. But because there’s such a widespread misuse, particularly of those first words in verse 37, it’s worthwhile for us to dedicate some time to undoing the popular misinterpretations.
Judge not. There’s some of the most widely known verses in the Holy Scripture and some of the most widely quoted words in Holy Scripture. And they’re among some of the best loved words of people who don’t like you getting in their grill and telling you that what they’re doing is wrong. People think they can use these words, judge not, as kind of a repellent. You spray Luke 637 and then all the Christians will leave you alone because they’re not supposed to judge you, right?
So when people are being challenged regarding the morality of their actions or their practices, anybody, especially non-Christians, can play this card. laid on the table, and it’s just like if you’re watching the World Cup, you know, if a player does something really bad and the ref comes up and he holds up that red card, he has to leave the field. Or in American football, real football, you know, when the flag is on the play, a yellow flag drops on the field, the play stops and the referee has to come out and people use this verse that way. Judge not is taken to mean don’t you tell me what’s right or wrong. And so it’s very, very important that we understand that these words, judge not, and you will not be judged, are not a prohibition against moral discernment. They are not a prohibition against making moral distinctions.
How do we know that? Maybe you’ve had somebody throw those words in your face, and you’re thinking, how do I respond? What do I say? I can’t deny what scripture says. I love God’s word. I embrace it. It’s all true, but this person’s using these words, judge not, against me when I say, hey, look, you shouldn’t be doing this or that. What do I do? Where do I find in God’s word clarification about how to apply those words.
And the answer is, you can look many, many places. In fact, you can look almost anywhere to help demonstrate that those words are not just a categorical get out of jail free card for somebody who’s doing something they shouldn’t be doing. And over the years, I’ve made the observation, it’s occurred to me, that a lot of times when we come to these passages in God’s Word that are problematic, that are difficult, the challenging places where we want to find answers, and we know we find the answers in Scripture, we know we find them in God’s Word, and it’s a matter of looking and seeing where other parts of God’s Word that speak more clearly speak to that issue. I’ve discovered that in the majority of cases, maybe the Greater majority of cases, answers to those difficult questions are found in the immediate context. I’m surprised, again and again, how often that seems to be the case. Just very nearby, in preceding or following verses, Whatever that problematic phrase or expression might be is answered and it’s spoken to. So I encourage you as you wrestle with things to look in the immediate context right away. Let that be where you start. So what do we find in the immediate context of this passage? What do we find nearby?
Well, if you glance up to verse 27, which we looked at some weeks ago, Jesus says, but I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. In order to discern what good is, you have to exercise discernment, don’t you? If judge not is a blanket prohibition against judgment, then it renders verse 27 meaningless. Because there’s good and there’s evil. And Jesus is saying you have to do what’s good. to those who hate you.
Or glance ahead to verse 43 of Luke six. When Jesus is talking about a tree and its fruit, and he’s not talking about horticulture here, he’s talking about people. He’s talking about men and women and even children and their actions. And how their actions can be evaluated, or we might say judged. No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its fruit. That’s all meaningless unless we exercise sound judgment. You see. Jesus calls us. He commands us to discern and to judge the quality of fruit in people’s lives. We could go on.
I don’t want to labor the point too much, but but consider if if Judge not and you will not be judged means what the world really wants it to mean. We’d have to rewrite a lot of the New Testament, wouldn’t we? Think about Matthew 18, where Jesus gives directions about exercising church discipline. If we’re not to judge, there can’t be church discipline in the first place.
But think about what he says there. If your brother sins against you, Ignore it because you’re not supposed to judge him. That’s not what it says, is it? Or keep your finger in Luke and turn with me for a moment to Galatians chapter six. Galatians six verse one brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual, will certainly not judge him. It’s not what it says. You who are spiritual restore such a one which necessarily involves confronting a person about his sin or her sin.
So verse 37 cannot mean, cannot mean that we must never call sin what it is and that we are prohibited to rebuke Sin. Furthermore, verse 37 does not and cannot teach salvation by works. As if to say that if I restrain and refrain from judging other people, then God won’t judge me. That’s not what it teaches. It can’t teach that it doesn’t teach it.
Leon Morris commentating on this, making the same point, says, this is not salvation by merit. Rather, the thought is that the true disciple is not judgmental. When God accepts people’s grace, when God accepts people, God’s grace changes them. A forgiving spirit is evidence that the person has been forgiven. So how should we understand verse 37? How should we interpret it?
Well, I want to point out there’s this triad of statements. There are actually four imperatives here, three in the negative, don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this. But then there’s a more positive statement, do this. And in this triad of prohibitions, these three, judge not, condemn not, I’m sorry, there’s two positive, two negative. But in these three, in verse 37, that third one especially brings to mind something that we’re getting ready to consider during our catechism time before Sunday school, the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer. What is the fifth petition?
It’s forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And that does not teach, and we know this, it doesn’t mean that if we forgive, God will forgive. It means, of course, if we compare scripture with scripture, that we who have been forgiven and have received forgiveness from God for our sins will be eager and ready to joyfully and freely forgive those who sin against us. And the fact that we do that is the outward evidence that we’ve received forgiveness from the Lord. And we can apply that same principle to the others.
Judge not and you will not be judged. You who are in Christ Jesus know that you will not face God’s wrath in the day of judgment. You’ve passed out of judgment into life. And because you have, you’re not going to have a censorious and judgmental spirit towards others.
We’ll come back to that. But remember, We’re all prone to that censorious spirit, aren’t we? Calvin himself pointed that out. Commenting on this same passage, he said, which of us, which of us is there who does not examine too severely the actions of others, who does not manifest undue rage against slight offenses, or who does not peevishly censure what is in itself indifferent? And what is this but deliberately to provoke God as our avenger to treat us in the same manner?
So remember here in Luke 6, Jesus is speaking to his followers. He’s speaking to his disciples. He’s speaking to you and me, and he’s commanding that we be gracious. We are to be discerning. We need to know the difference between good and evil. We need to be able to draw those lines. for ourselves and also when we see patterns of sin in others. So we are to be discerning, but we’re to use righteous judgment. To be discriminating and critical is necessary. To be hypercritical is wrong. That’s from William Hendrickson.
So Christ means to keep us back. He’s pulling the reins when he says these things to his disciples. He’s meaning to keep us back from rigor toward others and to encourage us to be kind and to be gracious, just as he himself is kind and gracious to us. So hopefully that helps at least a little bit clear up some popular misinterpretations of these words of Christ.
But that takes us to our second point, Because again, Christ has been gracious to us. And we are to follow suit, we’re to imitate him in that. And in point number two, we’ll consider the spiritual principle that we see many places in God’s word, that spiritual principle of sowing and reaping. You see how it’s spelled out, how it’s, how it’s lined out for us in these verses, forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you.
Again, on the subject of misinterpretation or misunderstanding, we have to acknowledge that it’s clear from God’s Word that God does not forgive us because we have forgiven. We don’t earn his forgiveness through our forgiveness of others. We know that. Rather, we forgive as a reflection of his forgiveness. We forgive in response to his forgiveness of us.
Can you see God’s forgiveness? Is it visible to our eye? Statistically speaking I’d like to think that everyone here in this room is in a state of grace, is in union with Christ and has received forgiveness for Him. But statistically speaking there may very well be people in this room, there will definitely be people who hear this recording later perhaps who are not yet in a state of grace. If we were all to stand in one big line would somebody be able to tell just by looking at our faces which ones have been forgiven and which ones have not? Is forgiveness visible? In one sense, no, it’s not visible because it’s a spiritual transaction. It takes place in the heart. It takes place in the soul. It transpires in God’s courtroom. It’s not something that the human eye can see.
That’s why when Jesus was getting ready to heal that paralytic that his friends brought to Jesus, and the first thing he said, my son, your sins are forgiven. And the scribes and Pharisees criticized him. And Jesus says, which is easier? To say to this man, your sins are forgiven, or to say, rise, take up your bed, and walk?
And from a human perspective, the answer is, oh, it’s much easier to say your sins are forgiven, because nobody will know whether it was true or not, whether you’ve misspoken, because we can’t see it. We can see a man get up, take his bed home, and walk, but we can’t see forgiveness of sins.
But on the other hand, Doesn’t God’s grace have fruit? Doesn’t it produce fruit in our lives that can be seen? Fruit that’s tangible. Fruit that is visible to the human eye. And the fruit, as it grows in our lives, is the fact that forgiven people forgive.
Forgiven people forgive. And although we love because He first loved us and we forgive because He has forgiven us, that’s the actual spiritual sequence of events there. From the world’s perspective it’s different. The world sees it the way Jesus puts it right here. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Because what does the watching world see?
They see you being gracious to your enemies. They see you forgiving those who have sinned against you. And in the last day, when you stand before the throne of judgment, they’re gonna see you be openly acquitted and acknowledged by your Savior. So in that sense, your forgiveness to the world’s perspective does proceed. this grand forgiveness in the last day that we’re going to receive. In the same way, as we move on to verse 38, if you give, you will receive. That’s what verse 38 is all about.
God commands us to be generous, to be gracious, to give. Back in verse 30 of Luke 6, Jesus said, give to everyone who begs from you. Later in verse 35 he said, love your enemies, do good, and lend expecting nothing in return. So there’s this commandment that we receive from our Savior to give, to be generous, to help those who are in need. And here Christ is promising, here in verse 38, he’s promising that our giving will be rewarded. Or as Paul put it in Ephesians 6, 8, Whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord.
And what exactly do we get back? Well, as you well know, sometimes we get we get a down payment on that in this present age. Sometimes God himself rewards our kindness, our generosity to others by blessing us in return with things that we can enjoy in this life. Sometimes it’s like that, but not necessarily always, but we can be sure.
We can be absolutely sure that in God’s economy, that real blessing, that real reward will come in the end, come in the last day, will come in eternity because Jesus, when he was talking to his disciples about giving to those, especially giving to those who can’t repay you, giving to those from whom you probably won’t receive back what you gave, Jesus says, you do that. If you do that, he says in Luke 14, 14, you will be blessed because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. Or as Matthew Henry put it, full and exact retributions are reserved for another world.
It’s coming later. And then as far as this idea, this spiritual principle of sowing and reaping, I also want to say this as a spiritual law. Yeah, there’s these four imperatives. I was a little bit tempted to call this portion or this point for spiritual laws, but I thought that would be a little snarky. No, but there is this spiritual law and the law is that we reap.
We reap in kind. And we reap by God’s grace. We reap in abundance. First of all, we reap in kind. Galatians 6 verses 7 and 8. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. So we reap in kind, but we also reap in abundance.
That’s what verse 38 is all about. Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. This is Christ’s pledge to you. that those who demonstrate and practice the kind of love that’s been described for us in this sermon will receive the same from God and more. And that brings us to our third and final point. It’s our Heavenly Father’s bountiful generosity. Look with me again at verse 38. Give and it will be given to you. Well, what will be given to you? What’s the it? What’s the antecedent of that pronoun it there? Well, there’s a general application. And that general application tends to find expression even in our human interactions.
Because don’t people tend to be generous to someone who’s been generous? whether they’ve been generous to themselves or they’ve seen generosity being exhibited to others. So yes, generous people tend to be treated with generosity. According to that old adage, which can be taken in a negative or a positive sense, what goes around comes around.
But that’s not ultimately what this verse is telling us. It’s ultimately and most importantly, speaking of God’s divine, gracious generosity to us. No one can out give God, they say. And his rewards to us always surpass our good works. He calls us to good works, he calls us to give, he calls us to be generous, and he rewards us, but he always rewards us far more than what we gave or good works that we did. Albert Stein wrote, the issue is not that human generosity is accorded the same generosity, no more, no less, but from God that Excuse me. The issue is not that human generosity is accorded the same generosity from God, but that human generosity is rewarded with divine generosity, which is far greater. See, God gives in far greater proportion than what we give.
This relates back to those imperatives that we’ve been looking at in this passage. To judge not, to condemn not, to forgive and to give. Here’s how God’s bountiful generosity plays out for us in the life of faith. We, towards others, exercise the judgment of charity, put the best construction on the things people do and say.
If we judge with charity, we will not come into judgment. And our sins will be pardoned. If we are people who, by God’s grace, don’t condemn, we don’t have a condemning, judgmental spirit, what we’ll find is that there won’t be any condemnation for us in the last day.
In fact, if you’re in Christ and you’re exercising that spirit that isn’t quick to condemn, Romans 8.1 says there already isn’t any condemnation for you. There is presently. No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. If you forgive, all your trespasses will be forgiven.
Colossians 3.13 said, as the Lord has forgiven you, see, that’s what came first. As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And I refer you once again to that fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. That’s, in a way that’s saying, I’m willing to forgive because I’ve been forgiven. In fact, I’m willing to ask God to forgive me to the extent that I forgive others.
And then there’s this vivid language of what God gives to us. Good measure, that’s why I titled the sermon Good Measure, because I don’t think the sermon, I don’t think these two verses in aggregate are really mostly about judging. I think they’re mostly about God and his generosity to us. Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. You have those expressions used to describe God’s bounty to us.
I think, Distributors of breakfast cereals and potato chips have changed their practices. But I distinctly remember years ago, seeing on the box of cereal, it says something along the lines of, packed by weight and not by volume. Right? Because you open up your box of Cheerios, and the box is this big, and the Cheerios only come up to here. And you’re like, what gives? It’s because it’s packed by weight, not by volume. And it’ll say something like, well, contents may have settled in shipment. But that’s not how God deals with us.
I used to, we used to have this jar, this ceiling jar, and we would put our coffee into it. So you buy a bag of fresh coffee, you dump it into the jar, and sometimes the bags of coffee that I would get, there would still be coffee in the bag before the jar was full. But what did I do? I take the jar and I hold the lid real carefully, and I shake it like this, and the coffee goes down, so there’s room to put the rest of the coffee into the jar.
And that’s a picture of God’s bounty to us. He doesn’t just pour some coffee and say, here kid. No, he shakes it down. He presses it. And even after all that, it overflows. His goodness to you overflows because he’s such a generous God. All of his blessings are packed to the gills, we might say. So, we who are God’s children, we who are Christ’s followers, are clearly commanded to be imitators of our Savior. We’re to reflect the character of our Heavenly Father. And we’re to be led and empowered by the Holy Spirit to do all these things. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Has that statement ever puzzled you? What does that mean, the measure you use? Here’s what it means.
Say you go to the ice cream shop and you’re looking at all the different flavors that are available, and you see one that looks good, but you’re not so sure. They’ll give you a little tiny spoon so you can have a taste. And if you like it, you can order some of it, pay for it. Now, in the measure that you use in giving to others, Is it like that little tasting spoon in the donut shop or the ice cream shop? Or do you use like a full teaspoon or a full tablespoon or a scoop? That’s what this reference to measure is. As you’re giving to others, is your heart more inclined to give them maybe a cup or do you give them a pint or a gallon? The measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Scripture says, our Father in heaven uses good measure with us, and we should do the same.
So this text is not a formula for finding favor with God. It’s not a set of steps in order to attain salvation or to circumvent God’s judgment. What we have in the teachings of this text is an expression of God’s lavish generosity to his children. He loves you so much and he gives so freely and so abundantly to you. And the kind of gracious, loving, and forgiving disposition of heart he is forming in each of us. who have been redeemed by his grace. So let us be imitators of him. Let’s pray. Father in heaven, how thankful we are. That all those who have put their. Trust in you. Do not come into judgment. But it passed from death to life.
Thank you that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Thank you for the forgiveness of sins. Thank you for giving us your inexpressible gift and showering us with countless others day by day, moment by moment. May we who’ve been recipients of such bounty express that in our relations with one another and with the world that needs to hear of our savior. We pray all this in his name. Amen.