Judgment: For Better or Worse

Matthew 7:1 is probably the most misquoted, wrongly interpreted verse in all of the Bible.  "Judge not, that ye be not judged."  It is often quoted to avoid facing the impact of wrong actions or to divert the attention from an ungodly lifestyle by asserting that anyone who would point out sin, is an intolerant hypocrite.  To be honest, Jesus was warning against hypocrisy and judgmentalism and a critical spirit, but He was not prohibiting all judgment or condemning loving warnings of the consequences of sin.  If you continue on in the passage, you will see that what He was calling for was compassion, self-reflection, and love in our evaluation of the actions of others.  The passage really warns about three kinds of judgment:
Harsh judgment - we often expect much more out of others than we ourselves are willing to give.  Jesus warned that you will be judged by the same criteria that you use to judge others.  One of the most important characteristics of Jesus that our lives should reflect is that of compassion for the sinner.  His words on the cross are the best example of all, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." 
We are all a product of our generation and of our "raisin's," as the old folks used to say. I was recently reminded of a conversation that I had with my grandfather when I was about ten years old.  I was raised in the late 60's and early 70's in Racine, Wisconsin, about half way between Chicago and Milwaukee.  It was the era of the Civil Rights Movement and racial tensions were high.  Bussing students from one part of town to another to insure racial integration in our schools was a part of my late elementary and Junior High School life.  I had learned to be cautious and sensitive to the feelings of those around me, especially when it came to relating to those of a different race.
In the middle of that turmoil, I went to visit my grandparents for Christmas in 1969.  They were good, kind, and loving people from East Texas, but the culture in which they had been raised was very different from the one that I was growing up in.  I can never remember my grandfather saying an angry, mean or judgmental word about anyone in my entire life.  But the conversation that I am thinking of reflected his upbringing.  He spoke in glowing terms of a co-worker at the plywood mill who happened to be black.  He said, "You'd never even know he was a n*****, he is just like a white person."  It shocked me a little, growing up where I was growing up and being in the middle of the fray where the use of that term would have most certainly started a fight and maybe even a riot.  To hear it come from my grandfather's mouth was startling.  But through the years, I have come to realize that it was not uttered in anger, malice, or condescension, it was just part of his vocabulary that had a more benign meaning than I realized.
I believe that we need to consider the person when we interpret the words of others. We need to seek to know them for who they are and where they have been before we judge them too harshly.
Hasty judgment - Jesus was also condemning hasty judgment.  In James we are told to be "quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath." We must beware making a judgment before all of the facts are in.  We should be anxious to hear the explanation of the actions of others, and we should allow our thoughts to be filtered through the principles of Scripture and the fruit of the Spirit before we speak them. Avoiding hasty judgments will protect us against having to eat our words later.
Holier-than-thou judgment - The most obvious warning in this passage is about pointing out the faults in others without dealing with our own faults first.  This passage doesn't teach that if you are a sinner, you have no right to warn someone else of the consequences of their sin.  It does, however, teach that if you are not willing to deal with the sin in your own life, you won't be equipped, nor qualified to deal with sin in the lives of others.  It speaks of spiritual blindness when it comes to our own sin while seeking to point out the smallest infractions in the life of another.
As a Pastor, I am often called upon to confront people with the impact of their sin.  Sadly, many people will not listen.  Often, they become defensive and angry that anyone would "judge them."  It is even sadder when a parent gets angry when their child is reprimanded and quickly comes to the defense of the child rather than dealing with the problem itself.  I recently had a long conversation with a mother who told me that her daughter's personal life was none of the business of anyone else in our youth group.  Another girl had spoken to her about something in her life that she saw as a danger to her spiritually.  The mother railed about the hypocrisy of the one who would dare to tell her daughter that what she was doing was wrong.  I told the mother that, at her request, I would instruct the other girl not to intrude any further into her daughter's life.  Then I told her that what she was asking, would effectively remove the strongest safeguard available in the life of her daughter.  There is no stronger deterrent to sin in the life of a teenager than the supportive admonition and exhortation of their peers.  Accountability sometimes pinches, but if it didn't it wouldn't be accountability.  Jesus, most certainly, was not prohibiting us from warning those that we love about the consequences of the sin in their life.  He was simply asking that when we do so, we do it with love and compassion