When I attended seminary, one of our classes was called Discipleship Lab which was a sophisticated way to label a class geared for discipleship.  Most of the students were born and raised in America but we were also intermixed with international students, one of whom was Yerigan.  Yerigan was from Germany and he was a very good student, but did not have full mastery of the English language and especially its colloquialisms.  In this class our professor went around our table of 10 students asking each of us to used one word to describe ourselves.  I remember one young man said he was passionate.  I said, I was relational.  Others gave standard answers but when it came to Yerigan, he said with a heavy German accent, “I am critical.” 

We all just stared at him, wondering what we all just heard.  For the most part someone saying that means they are judgmental; someone weighing everything people are doing or saying.  Our professor, also a vice-president of the seminary, wisely assessed what Yerigan truly meant.  Yerigan’s self-description was not a confession of having a critical spirit but an affirmation of possessing a gift.  Our professor graciously counseled Yerigan to clarify what he meant to say, by saying, “I am a critical thinker” or “I discern things well” or that “I am precise.”  All which were true of him.  To my knowledge he was not a critic or negative at all. 

This story illustrates the very wide difference between someone who is critical and someone who is discerning.  A critical person is dangerously divisive to a community while a discerning person is vital to the unification of a community.  A critical person finds and exploits other’s weaknesses to tear people down and rip people apart while a discerning person finds ways to build others up and tie people together.  A critical person is a negative person while a discerning person brims with optimism. 

Do not misunderstand me when I say, a discerning person is optimistic over sin and its effects.  To discern is to both recognize and deal with sin with appropriate confrontation, while at the same time seeing the solution based in the atoning work of Christ.  Grace.  Optimism, in no way, ignores sin’s gravity or its ill effects on a Christian community.  By contrast, a critical person will likewise recognize sin and its effects within a Christian community, however, instead of moving toward a grace-filled solution, a critical person will keep the focus on what it is going wrong as an end unto itself.  Critical people actually enjoy this kind of dead-end street.  Staying in a tailspin. 

Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount is rounding the homestretch as he moves into Matthew 7:1. This final chapter in his sermon strikes a serious chord.  

^ESV  Matthew 7:1 “Judge not, that you be not judged.       

The word “judge” is krino in the original Greek language, can be applied in a bad way or good way depending on the context of how the term is being used.  Here it is applied in a bad way.  Jesus is giving the warning of warnings.  First, the command is, “Judge not” which simply means that you are never to presume to take the position of Lord (as if you could) and look down on someone else for their sins.  We all see other people’s sins, but we must avoid putting ourselves on the pedestal of our own self-righteousness; where we cast judgement on people, rendering them hopeless.  Jesus tells us why judging like this is to be avoided at all cost with what he says in the second half of the verse: “…that you be not judged.”  This severe warning says, if you allow yourself to give over to being a critical and negative person then your heart will dangerously fall prey to the Lord’s judgment!  I think it is important to understand that this warning is not merely temporal or moral, as if Jesus is warning against having bad outcomes or bad days because you are living a negative life.  No.  This is Jesus saying, that being a true Christian means that you will be caught up short in your heart if you are being judgmental towards others.  Yes, you might fall into having a critical spirit toward someone, but Jesus is saying that true believers will come to their senses and repent of it. 

Last night when my younger boys fell into a spat where one brother was tearing down another, Judy intervened.  One of the boys had whispered a mean thing to the other, exploiting his weakness as only a family member could do, leaving the brother tucked in the corner quietly crying.  Judy wisely confronted the one boy who was being critical, successfully bringing him to repentance.  She then turned to the other child, appealing for him to forgive his brother.  Now the attention had moved from the first brother who had done damage to the second brother who had been damaged.  The first brother softened and now the second brother still need to soften.  The first now owning his sin and seeking forgiveness and the second brother feeling hurt, still hardening his heart, and now needing to likewise soften.  Judy appealed to the second brother by saying true Christians forgive others based on the fact that they have been forgiven of so much by the Lord Jesus.  A true Christian will not stay critical, judgmental, and hardened against someone who has sinned against them.  Why?  Simply because a true Christian comes to grips with the reality of grace.  Jesus’ grace has showered over all our sins!  Especially, the sin of being critical.  At this, the second brother melted and forgave the first brother.  Why?  He remembered Jesus.  True Christians know they will not be judged (cf. Rom. 8:1 “no condemnation”).  False Christians, sadly stay hardened in their hearts toward others.  The warnings Jesus gave in Matthew 7:1 should not be understated.