Sermon preached on Sunday, March 18, 2012 at Garden Valley Chapel during our morning worship service based on Matthew 7:5b-6.

Take your Bible if you will and open it to the seventh chapter of the book of Matthew where today we conclude our study on verses 1 to 6.

I invite you stand in the reading of God´s Word. Read Matthew 7:1-6.

For weeks now we have been addressing the topic of Criticism.

Criticism is a part of living life. For people are by nature critical and condemning. It is endemic to man´s nature.

This was true among the scribes and Pharisees in Jesus´ day. They had become oppressively judgmental, looking down on everyone who was not a part of their elite system.

They were unmerciful, unforgiving, unkind, and totally lacking in compassion and grace.

You would think things be different now for those in "the church of God," for those "saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours" (1 Cor 1:2). But they are not.

The church at Corinth reveals that divisions and factions do exist and they can exist largely because we have this tendency to despise one another and sit as condemning, critical judges of other people.

Perhaps for you, you realize the real danger and temptation that exists in your own heart to be hypercritical and unduly condemn others for their faults and failings.

For this reason, knowing the human propensity, our Lord gives us three reasons why unrighteous and unmerciful judgment is sinful: it reveals a...
1. A WRONG VIEW OF GOD (V. 1)
2. A WRONG VIEW OF OTHERS (V. 2)
3. A WRONG VIEW OF OURSELVES (VV. 3-5A)

But before the pendulum goes to one extreme, our Lord reminds us of...
4. A RIGHT BALANCE (VV. 5B-6)

CONTENT

It is this right balance that our Lord teaches that we want to listen to and be instructed with today as we conclude our series titled, "Stop Criticizing."

The danger is that we may not deal with sin in the church as we ought to and the danger is that we may lack discerning as we ought to in the Christian life. It is for this reason that our Lord gives us a right balance.