Judge not. Two words that get quoted constantly and misread just as often. In “How to See Clearly” Pastor Carey continues the Sermon on the Mount series with Matthew 7:1-6, a passage he compared to a warning from a police officer.
He was driving his kids to a trampoline park in Virginia Beach when the lights came up right behind him. Fear moved through him like electricity. A five-year-old and a four-year-old started asking questions he was in no mood to answer. He already knew the problem, an old decal on his license, and he was right. The officer gave him a warning.
This passage does the same thing. We judge books by the cover like we know how the story ends. We write people off like we have the final verdict. Jesus hands us a citation notice instead.
What Does Jesus Mean by Judge Not?
Verse 1 says judge not, that you be not judged. Jesus is not telling us to put up a mental filter that blocks every judgment. He is talking about judging arrogantly, the judge, jury, and executioner routine. Being judgmental, as Pastor Carey defined it, is being quick to criticize or make harsh negative moral judgments without knowing all the facts.
Look at who does the judging in that verse. It is not a lowercase who. It is God. Do not make arrogant judgment calls, because you are accountable to Him. God knows about the skeletons we keep in the closet, the calls we make while acting like nobody sees. He is aware, and He is not pleased.
Jesus cautions us here because He has our backs. We are not on an island trying to discern alone. Bring the question to Him. Sometimes the answer is more patience. Sometimes it is getting help.
Verse 2 raises the stakes. With the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Jesus is not saying a bad judgment call costs you your salvation. He is saying you will answer for it. The standard we use on other people is also the one we turn on ourselves, which is how self-talk goes negative.
Why Do We Miss the Log in Our Own Eye?
Why not just trust our gut, our feelings, our past experience? Jesus answers with two questions.
Verse 3. Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye? A speck is something genuinely wrong in someone else that you can see. A brother is someone in your spiritual family. A log is something genuinely wrong in you that you are failing to see.
Picture a plane at 30,000 feet with the oxygen masks down. Everyone knows the rule. Put your own mask on first. Now picture one man turning to the guy beside him to tell him his breathing technique is off and his mask needs to be tighter. Absurd, because both men have their own problem to handle.
The answer to Jesus’s question is tunnel vision, laser focus on another person’s faults with our own out of frame. Tunnel vision becomes distorted vision, where their speck starts looking like a tree and we treat their situation like they need to call 911. Verse 4 asks how you can offer to take the speck out of your brother’s eye with a log in your own. That is distorted judgment. A bus full of problems helping somebody with a bike full.
Pastor Carey turned it into self-diagnosis. At what point did the speck grow into a log? Why did we let it? How comfortable have we gotten carrying it? A log is not a one-man job. It sounds like a Holy Spirit job and a community job.
What Happens When Jesus Calls Us Hypocrites?
Verse 5 is where it gets spicy. You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. That you is plural. Y’all.
Imagine the feeling in that crowd. Guilt, like being caught red-handed. Defensiveness, because we protect ourselves from words that hurt. Pastor Carey called it divinity detection. It is God’s holiness brightening a room full of darkness, His truth exposing the flaw in the heart. Jesus points out the log because we cannot see it ourselves, which is also why He is qualified to take it out.
The first step is acknowledging it. Not sweeping it under the rug, not deciding it is 2026 and we will get to it in 2027. That delay is exactly how a speck grows into a log. Pastor Carey put himself first in line and called himself a recovering judgmentalist. A few years back in Florida he had his judgment calls down and nobody could tell him otherwise, until the Word of God started rubbing him the wrong way and he saw that he was off.
The second step is taking action, with Jesus rather than alone. He is not calling us out to leave us high and dry, and He is not sending us home to take a chainsaw to it by ourselves. Follow Him, do what He says, and this starts to clear up. You follow first and understand later.
None of that means avoiding judgment altogether while a brother or sister struggles. There is a conversation to have, in the right place at the right time, with gentleness and kindness. Maybe Jesus wants to use you as the scalpel. The goal is restoration, not condemnation.
When Is the Wrong Time to Share the Truth?
Verse 6 says do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs. Today dogs ride in strollers and get pedicures. Back then they were beasts, and pigs ranked lower still. Pearls were rare and treated as precious, which is what this teaching is, and what Jesus Himself is.
There is a wrong time and a wrong place to share a biblical truth. Not everything worth saying is worth saying right then.
Most of us know the first scenario. A conversation about godly things, you are trying to win the other person over, and the room gets hot without the temperature changing. You hit the pivot point where you can pause or press in, and you press in. It is exhausting, and it rarely gets anywhere. Sometimes the Lord handed you that truth for you.
The other side looks different. The conversation is winding down, everything in you says let it go, and the Holy Spirit tells you without a shadow of a doubt that this person needs to hear the truth. That is discernment too. Staying in the middle comes from growing in your relationship with the Lord.
Pastor Carey pointed to a guy he watches on YouTube who tows cars for a living. People belittle him, curse at him, square up to fight him, and they are the ones in the wrong. He stays respectful, even compassionate, and he still does his job. We can be tempted toward judgmental. We can also treat people with dignity when they are wrong, instead of reducing them to their worst moment.
How to See Clearly, Step by Step
Matthew 7:1-6 calls us toward caution in how we judge others, honesty in how we judge ourselves, and discernment in when we speak. Pastor Carey’s last word on it was simple. God is available 24/7.
Plan your visit or find a life group and take that next step with people who will walk with you.