You Be the Judge?

Today the hubby and I sat through another amazing sermon by our incredibly down-to-earth pastor. We are currently doing a series about misunderstanding certain verses in the bible and today the scripture was Matthew 7:1-5. At one point or another in life everyone has heard or used the phrase "Judge not lest ye be judged..." or some form of it. The question put forth today was has the body of Christ been using this verse as a way to excuse sin? Our wise pastor claims that if we are to take this in the way it is so commonly used we would be contradicting the entire idea of accountability, evangelism, and the whole New Testament. Our belief in the context is that Christ calls for an end to condemnation without self-reflection and judgement that is passed in a hypocritical manner. As the passage goes on to read, we are are to remove the plank from our own eye so that we may see clearly to remove the speck from someone else's. The application? If we were to completely resign from any judgement we would not be answering the call for accountability within the body of Christ. We should never turn our head and allow a brother or sister to sin and not try to bring them back to the right path. As Pastor says... if you saw a toddler wander out in the street you go and grab it and bring it back to the sidewalk right? That's something to think about. Additionally, we need to be sure that we are living our lives in a way that is above reproach and reflects Christ so that when we point out error in others we are holding ourselves to those very standards. The thought here is to be sure that you are not preaching hypocritically. Always avoid being a Pharisee.