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GREATEST OF ALL TIME | Week 8 | Sermon · Rewind

Rock Point Church

41 min

Pastor Daniel Goulding · Jun 16, 2024 · 4 min read · 41 min listen

The big idea

Judgment is a big deal, but Quoting the message: it's God who judges the world, and it's us who judges the church, end quote..

In this message

The big idea
Point 1 of 7The 'do not judge' verse has been widely misapplied, both outside and inside the church
Point 2 of 7Judgment is delegated: God judges the world, believers judge (hold accountable) the church

Point 3 of 7Context shows Jesus is confronting hypocrisy, not banning discernment
Point 4 of 7Never judge people superficially
Point 5 of 7Never judge hypocritically
Point 6 of 7Never ask non-Christians to uphold Christian standards
Point 7 of 7Always restore fallen believers
Take it into your week
Transcript

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Scripture in this message

Matthew 7:1-2
John 7
Matthew 7:3-4
John 8
Romans 2
1 Corinthians 5

Rewind AI drafted the Big Idea and some point headings shown here from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Pastor Daniel Goulding · Jun 16, 2024 · 41 min watch · 2 min read

GREATEST OF ALL TIME | Week 8 | Sermon

In this message

Big Idea
Key points
Application

Scripture in this message

Matthew 7:1-2
John 7
Matthew 7:3-4
John 8
Romans 2
1 Corinthians 5

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

Judgment is a big deal, but Quoting the message: it's God who judges the world, and it's us who judges the church, end quote..

Matthew 7's "do not judge" is one of the most misapplied verses in the Bible, but read in context it isn't a call to never hold anyone accountable. God alone judges the world outside the church, while believers do have a real responsibility to lovingly hold one another to the standard of Jesus, never superficially, never hypocritically, and always with an eye toward restoring, not destroying, one another.

Key points

1
1The 'do not judge' verse has been widely misapplied, both outside and inside the church
Pastor Daniel opens with the story of Bachelorette contestant Hannah Brown, an outspoken Christian who fired back 'who are you to judge me, the Bible is clear' after being confronted about her choices on the show. He uses this as an example of how badly the verse gets butchered and sets up the question of what Jesus actually meant.
2
2Judgment is delegated: God judges the world, believers judge (hold accountable) the church
He defines 'judge' not as gossiping or forming negative opinions but as holding someone to an objective standard, the standard of Jesus that every person will answer to. He argues it would be absurd to think no one is ever allowed to evaluate anyone, using the examples of a teacher grading a paper and a police officer issuing a ticket.
3
3Context shows Jesus is confronting hypocrisy, not banning discernment
Pastor Daniel points out that Matthew 7 follows Jesus rebuking religious leaders for hypocrisy in Matthew 6, and that later in Matthew 7 Jesus tells believers to watch for false teachers, which requires judgment. He concludes the verse is aimed at hypocrisy more than at judgment itself.
4
4Never judge people superficially
He tells the story of a friend treated with more respect after losing weight, and his own experience of being pulled into airport secondary screening only when his tattoos show. He then tells the story of a grieving couple laughed out of the president of Harvard's office, who went on to found Stanford University, to illustrate how superficial judgments can cause us to miss real blessings.
5
5Never judge hypocritically
Working through Matthew 7:3-4, he explains that Jesus condemns pointing out a speck in a friend's eye while ignoring the log in your own, but that this doesn't mean we never address sin in each other's lives. He uses the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8 and Paul's words in Romans 2 to show that our harshest judgments often expose our own hidden struggles, and we must deal with our own issues before confronting others.
6
6Never ask non-Christians to uphold Christian standards
He shares results of a social media poll where people described Christians as judgmental and hypocritical, and argues the church's job is not to make the world follow its family values but to hold the door open with grace, citing Paul's statement that it isn't his job to judge outsiders but it is the church's job to address sin inside the church.
7
7Always restore fallen believers
He tells the story of a worship leader who stole guitars and, instead of being publicly shamed and cast out, was walked through a multi-year process of repentance and restoration by his church, eventually becoming a worship pastor again. He ties this to Galatians 6, warning that anyone gently correcting a fallen believer must watch out for the same temptation themselves.

A story from life

Daniel recounts watching Hannah Brown on The Bachelorette invoke 'do not judge' to deflect a fellow Christian's question about her choices

Application

Pastor Daniel frames it as four commitments the church has to get right if it's going to handle judgment the way Jesus intended.

Stop judging people superficially
Notice when you're filling in the gaps about someone based on appearance, weight, tattoos, or a first impression, and refuse to let that define what you believe about them.
Deal with your own log first
Before addressing a friend's struggle, get honest about your own two-by-four; let people watch you own your own issues so you have a real platform to speak into theirs.
Don't hold non-Christians to Christian standards
Stop expecting people outside the family of God to live by family values they never agreed to; hold the door open with grace instead of demanding behavior change first.
Always restore fallen believers
When someone in your small group or church stumbles, commit to walking with them toward restoration rather than shaming them out the door, remembering you could be there yourself one day.
Bring what's hidden into the light
This week, go to someone in your small group and talk honestly about what you're actually dealing with instead of hiding it.

Take it into your week

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“is Jesus really saying in the sermon on the mount in Matthew seven verses one and two that we can never judge anybody for anything”
Read the whole chapter →
From the transcript
“Look at what Jesus says in John chapter seven about this exact thing. He says, stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly”
From the transcript
“Go with me to Matthew seven verses three and four. It says, and why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own”
From the transcript
“You remember the story, John chapter eight, the woman caught in adultery? Just one of the most incredible stories in the Bible to understand the heart of God”
From the transcript
“Paul tells us specifically in the book of Romans that this is something we have to watch out for, this idea of being hypocritical. Romans chapter two, look at what Paul says”
From the transcript
“Paul addresses this in first Corinthians chapter five. He says it really simply. He said, it isn't my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning”
From the transcript
“Look at what Paul says that we have to watch out for as I begin to wrap up. Galatians chapter six, he says, Dear brothers and sisters, this is insider family language”

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

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Day 1

Jesus opens Matthew 7 with words that have become one of the most quoted — and most misunderstood — lines in the entire Bible. 'Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.' Pastor Daniel made the case that Jesus is not issuing a blanket ban on discernment. He is firing a warning shot at a very specific kind of judgment: the smug, self-serving kind that religious people have always been tempted toward. The Pharisees were masters of it — sizing people up quickly, sorting them into neat categories, and walking away feeling better about themselves. That is the judgment Jesus is going after. The standard-you-use line is especially sobering. It is not just a warning about what you say about others; it is an invitation to look at the posture behind what you say. Am I speaking to help someone, or to feel superior? Am I engaging with a person, or am I managing an impression of them? Those are uncomfortable questions, but they are the right ones. Today is a good day to sit with them honestly rather than rush past them.

For reflection

When you find yourself forming a quick opinion about someone, what is usually driving it — genuine concern for them, or something else?

Pray

Pray for honest self-awareness about the moments this week when you have been quick to size someone up.

Day 2

Here is something that often gets lost when people quote 'judge not': Jesus never told us to stop thinking carefully about right and wrong. In John 7:24 He says, 'Look beneath the surface so you can judge correctly.' That is a command to judge — just to do it right. The context matters: Jesus had been accused of breaking the Sabbath, and He pushed back by calling the crowd to think more deeply rather than react to appearances. Superficial judgment is lazy. It takes the easiest available data — what someone looks like, where they came from, what you've heard about them — and calls that enough. Careful judgment does the harder work of actually knowing a person before drawing a conclusion about them. This is not a small distinction. Superficial judgment has ended friendships, fractured families, and done real damage inside churches. Pastor Daniel's first commitment was exactly this: refuse to size people up at a glance. That refusal is not naivety — it is obedience. It means slowing down, asking better questions, and treating people as more than the first impression they give you. That kind of seeing takes practice, but it starts with a decision to look beneath the surface.

For reflection

Is there someone in your life you may have judged too quickly based on appearances or second-hand information? What would it look like to look deeper?

Pray

Pray for the patience and curiosity to see people the way Jesus sees them — beneath the surface.

Day 3

The image Jesus uses here is almost funny if it weren't so convicting. A person with a wooden beam jutting out of their own eye, squinting to help a friend with a speck of sawdust — the absurdity is the point. He is not saying the speck doesn't matter. He is saying you are in no position to help with it until you have dealt with what is blocking your own vision. Pastor Daniel named this the second commitment: deal honestly with your own sin before confronting someone else's. The phrase that stands out is 'your willingness to be transparent gives you the platform to speak into a friend's life.' That reframes the whole thing. This is not about earning the right to care about your friend's struggle — it is about having the credibility and the humility to actually be useful to them. A person who has wrestled honestly with their own failures walks into a hard conversation very differently than someone who hasn't. They come with empathy rather than judgment, with a shared humanity rather than a verdict. That is the kind of friend people actually open up to. Before you go looking for specks today, spend some time with the log.

For reflection

Is there an area of your own life you have been avoiding looking at honestly, even as you feel concerned about someone else's choices?

Pray

Pray for the courage to be honest with God — and with yourself — about what needs attention in your own heart before you speak into someone else's.

Day 4

Paul's letter to the Romans takes the same thread Jesus pulls in Matthew 7 and weaves it even further. 'You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse!' He is writing to people who knew the law, who prided themselves on their moral clarity, and who were using that clarity as a weapon against others — while quietly doing the same things themselves. The punch lands in verse 4: 'Don't you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you?' The implied question is sharp: if God has extended that kind of patience toward you, what are you doing withholding it from someone else? This passage was not one Pastor Daniel unpacked at length, but it runs directly beneath everything he taught. The logic of grace is not just that we receive it — it is that we are changed by it, and that change ought to show up in how we treat people who are still in process, still struggling, still finding their way. Receiving grace without extending it is a contradiction. It suggests we may not have understood what we received.

For reflection

Where in your life are you quick to condemn in others the very things God has been patient with in you?

Pray

Pray for a fresh sense of the patience and kindness God has shown you, and ask Him to make that patience visible in how you treat others today.

Day 5

Paul asks a clarifying question that every believer needs to sit with: 'It isn't my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning.' Two things are happening in that single sentence, and both of them matter. First, the people outside the church are not our project. It is not our job to hold them to standards they have never agreed to and do not yet have the Spirit's help to live by. Pastor Daniel said it plainly: our job is to love people to Jesus — not to manage their behavior before they know Him. That is a significant relief, actually. We are freed from the exhausting and often alienating work of moral enforcement. But second — and this is the part that is easy to skip — people inside the church are accountable to one another. Loving accountability within the community of faith is not optional; it is part of what community means. The question is not whether to care about sin in the lives of people we do the faith journey with. The question is whether we do it with the gentleness, humility, and genuine love that Paul and Jesus both call for.

For reflection

How do you tend to handle the tension between loving people outside the faith without condition and caring honestly about the choices of those within your community?

Pray

Pray for wisdom to know the difference between loving accountability within the church and imposing Christian standards on those who are not yet part of it.

Day 6

This may be the most practical passage in the whole week. 'Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself.' The word 'gently' in the original carries the idea of a doctor setting a broken bone — firm, purposeful, careful not to cause more harm than necessary. This is not a picture of someone getting a lecture. It is a picture of someone being helped back to their feet by a person who remembers what it feels like to fall. Pastor Daniel's fourth commitment was this: when a brother or sister stumbles, run toward them, not away. The instinct to pull back — to protect ourselves from association, or from the discomfort of someone else's mess — is real. But Paul says carry each other's burdens, and in doing so you fulfill the law of Christ. A church that actually does this — where people know it is safer to confess than to conceal — is a church that looks like something worth paying attention to.

For reflection

Is there someone in your community right now who has stumbled and may be waiting to see whether anyone will run toward them rather than away?

Pray

Pray for the courage to move toward someone who is struggling, and ask God to give you the gentleness and humility Galatians 6 describes.

Day 7

You have spent a week with one passage and the threads that run through it. It is worth stepping back today and seeing the whole thing together. Jesus is not telling His followers to check their brains at the door and pretend nothing matters. He is describing what a community of people looks like when grace has genuinely gotten hold of them. They do not size people up at first glance. They do the harder, slower work of actually knowing someone. They deal with their own failures honestly before they try to help with anyone else's. They do not police the lives of people who have never claimed to follow Jesus — they simply love them and trust God with the rest. And when someone inside the community falls, they run toward that person with the same grace they themselves have needed. That is not a soft vision of the church. It is actually quite demanding. It requires honesty, humility, and a willingness to stay in hard conversations rather than exit them. But it is also the kind of community people are hungry for — the kind that actually changes how the world thinks about the church. Pastor Daniel said it clearly: one small group, one honest conversation, one act of grace at a time. That is where it starts — and it can start with you today.

For reflection

Looking back across this week, which of the four commitments Pastor Daniel described feels most like the next step God is inviting you into?

Pray

Pray and ask God to show you one specific, concrete way to live out this week's teaching in the next seven days — with your time, your honesty, or your presence with someone who needs it.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

Think about a time you heard someone say 'the church is so judgmental' — this message digs into what Jesus actually meant when He said 'Do not judge,' and what He's calling His people to instead.

Discussion questions

1
In Matthew 7:1-2, Jesus says, 'Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others.' Pastor Daniel pointed out that this warning lands in a context aimed at religious hypocrisy. What do you notice in the surrounding passage that helps clarify what kind of judging Jesus is targeting here?
2
In John 7:24, Jesus says, 'Look beneath the surface so you can judge correctly.' How does that command sit alongside Matthew 7:1 — and what might it look like in practice to size up a situation without sizing up a person?
3
Matthew 7:3-5 uses the image of a log in your own eye versus a speck in someone else's. According to this passage, what is the log-and-speck picture actually saying about the sequence — what has to happen first, and why does that order matter for the conversation that follows?
4
In 1 Corinthians 5:12, Paul draws a sharp line between accountability inside the church and those outside it. Pastor Daniel applied this by saying it is not our responsibility to hold people outside the faith to Christian standards — our job is to love them to Jesus. What does that distinction change about the way a community like ours engages with people who aren't yet following Christ?
5
Galatians 6:1-3 describes gently restoring someone caught in sin, with a warning to watch yourself so you aren't tempted. Pastor Daniel challenged us to be the kind of community where it is genuinely okay to not be okay, and where restoration is always the goal. What would it take — practically — for a group like this to be a place where confession feels safer than concealment?
6
Pastor Daniel closed by saying it is the grace of God that enables people to actually hear and receive the truth of God — and that how Rock Point handles judgment, one honest conversation at a time, shapes the wider reputation of the church. How do you think grace and truth work together in that process, and where do people tend to lean too hard on one at the expense of the other?

Pray together

Ask God for the humility to look honestly at ourselves before we speak into others' lives, the grace to love people outside the faith without conditions, and the courage to run toward — not away from — brothers and sisters who are struggling

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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GREATEST OF ALL TIME

Week 8 · 8 messages

Where these passages are preached

Matthew 7 John 7 John 8 Romans 2

Explore related topics

Church Accountability Grace and Truth Judging Others Religious Hypocrisy Restoring the Fallen

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