Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / June 25, 2017 | Really? - Good Christians Don't Judge

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June 25, 2017 | Really? - Good Christians Don't Judge · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: I love that bumper.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: That's so cute.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: So we're in a series called Really?
0:08
SPEAKER_00: Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: Have you had your coffee this morning?
0:14
SPEAKER_00: Drink coffee.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: Do stupid things faster with more energy.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: I just say that because even good Christians can do stupid things and think stupid things.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm testimony.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: I'll have a little more coffee.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: And I can do them faster with more energy when I have my coffee.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: So um great to see you this morning.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful day.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm a little loose.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: My wife's out of town.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: So who knows what's gonna happen.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: Now, we're in the fourth week of this series, and uh last week Jeremiah Divine did a terrific job on forgiveness.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: Forgiving means forgetting.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: Dumb.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: Now, this morning, good Christians don't judge.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: Good Christians don't judge.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: And of course, we're talking about what has become the single best known verse in the entire Bible.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh, better more known today than Psalm 23 or John 3.16.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you ever want to hear your non-Christian friends or co-workers quote the Bible, it's just fun, call something sin right in front of them.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: And bingo, you can guarantee, judge not.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said it.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Back in the days when Larry King had a regular TV show.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: This was his, whenever a religious person came on, we got the director of Jews for Jesus coming here to speak, a friend of mine about a month, David Brickner.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: He was on Larry King.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's just consistent.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Larry would go, so you think some people are gonna go to hell?
1:50
SPEAKER_00: And then out would come.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: And Larry is also a Jew, like David Brickner, a Jewish man.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: He'd go, judge not that ye be not judged.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: Or Oprah, and she knew this verse really well.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: So this is a famous, famous person, and frankly, you know, I have mixed feelings about it.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm really glad Jesus said it.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: Makes me happy.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: And hi Dick, you make me happy too.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Um good to see you.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: So um, I told you I'm really, really a little flaky today.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: So if Melody was in town, she'd be going and she'd be in the back, going like that.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: She sits right back there.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: So um I'm happy because you know, I'm not I'm glad that Jesus is this kind of a person.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: That, you know, he's uh he's a kind person and he's a gentle person.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: He says, don't judge, because all of us have felt.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean, haven't you ever felt piled on?
2:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you remember when you were in school and people dumped on you and they criticized you and you just felt judged, judged, judged?
2:53
SPEAKER_00: You you never, you guys were always the ones piling on me.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: So you're glad that Jesus said this, and you're kind of happy because on the other hand, you uh this this makes you a little bit probably confused because you find that this is the favorite verse, you know, of people who strongly support things that that you think that Jesus actually spoke against, you know, and and and by the way, that's Lady Gaga on the bottom left, if if you don't know your culture, um don't judge me and judge not, and and and you're a little confused because you hear this as sort of the mantra line of people who are doing things that you're not sure quite right.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: And you're also confused because you go, now why don't what if we applied judge not, you know, across the board?
3:40
SPEAKER_00: Naughty or nice, uh little girl says to Santa Claus.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Stop judging me.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: And and and and so, I mean, where where does this stop?
3:49
SPEAKER_00: I mean, do you have the judges go?
3:50
SPEAKER_00: And then I thought, who am I to judge?
3:52
SPEAKER_00: Go home, little man.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: And uh, I mean, do do we do we shut down uh everybody's favorite TV program, Judge Judy, she rules the airwaves, baby.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, are we gonna get get I mean, what do we do with Judge Not?
4:05
SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes, when people quote that, they quote next a story out of John chapter 8 about the adulterous woman, you know, where this woman caught in adultery and they bring her to Jesus and say, Moses said stone her, which is super hypocritical, because by that time we know historically they'd stopped stoning, long since stopped stoning people for adultery.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, they were trying, the Pharisees trying to embarrass Jesus.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: And so remember, he leans down, he writes in the sand, and basically, and he says, Let him who's without sin among you cast the first stone.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: And and so then they all go away.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: And then we know the story well.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: He says, Women, woman, where are they?
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Has no one condemned you?
4:50
SPEAKER_00: No one, sir, she said, then neither do I condemn you, Jesus declared.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: And so then we are soberly informed by people who only know these two verses in Scripture that we should not judge at all, we should not criticize, and so forth.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: But we're confused because if you open the passage, we see that the very next thing Jesus says to the woman, neither do I condemn you, is go and sin no more, which is a little judgmental, right?
5:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I mean, clearly he's evaluating her adultery as being wrong.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say go and make your sin your lifestyle, or define yourself by your sin, or what you've done is not really sin but love, or go out and be proud of your sin, or teach others that your sin is not really sin, or insist that others embrace your sin.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: None of that.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: So how can he say, don't judge, but you know, then judge?
5:52
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if if you just read the very same paragraph, Matthew 7, 1 through 5, it's in the Sermon of the Mount, you find you find that the paragraph ends with Jesus.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus saying, Do not give dogs what is sacred, don't throw your pearls to pigs.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: If you do, they may trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: And really, he's not talking here about bark bark dogs or oink-oink pigs.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about doggy people and piggy people.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: And uh so uh he's clearly judging.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, Jesus is categorizing in some way.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: So how can he start a paragraph, don't judge, and then he himself.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: So we're confused, right?
6:39
SPEAKER_00: And so the question I want to answer this morning is to judge, or not to judge, I mean, how do you resolve this?
6:48
SPEAKER_00: Now, the way to resolve this, and I don't want to get seminary-ish on you for a moment, but but but you can understand, I'm sure you can understand this, is to understand that the word judge has in it, there's a there's a key root.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: There are four letters in Greek, K-R-I-N, it rhymes with grin.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: Say it with me.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Krin.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: So there this word judge in Greek, krin, used about three and a half dozen times in the New Testament, has always, if you ever see a Greek word, even in older Greek than the New Testament Greek, but if you ever see a Greek word and it has these four letters next to each other, K-R-I-N, then you know it's a word that's in the semantic, in the verbal field of judging, which is a really wide field, which is a really broad field.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: It has a broad range of meanings.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: And so this word, crin, in the New Testament, can mean discern or criticize or grade.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: You know what a teacher does?
7:41
SPEAKER_00: She's she or he grades, you know, she discerns and rates and judges, compare, judge, distinguish, evaluate, decide, assess, rule.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: It's that broad.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: All right?
7:54
SPEAKER_00: And there's the verse, uh 7-1.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: May krinnet, do not judge.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Hena may crisita, that you should not be judged.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: So so anyway, here's here's my conclusion.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: I won't rest on this a long time, but I think you can understand it, even though it's seminary type level stuff.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: So here's my house of crin.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm gonna call it.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: The house of judgment, New Testament or in or in Greek.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: It has three stories: a lower story, a second story, and a third story.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: All right?
8:23
SPEAKER_00: And the first story is down at the level of thinking and evaluating, but the word is also used for coming to a decision and ruling and all the way up to criticizing and condemning.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about those for just a minute.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: I'll show you where they are in the New Testament.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you which ones are right and which ones are wrong.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: Now, the first story is that this word judge is used both in English and in Greek for something at the level of thinking carefully, evaluating, discerning, comparing things, right?
8:54
SPEAKER_00: It's what you do anytime you think carefully.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: It is the it is part of what makes you human, that God gave you the in his image is uh the ability to reason, to sift, to distinguish.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: It's the basis of logic, it's the basis of mathematics.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: A does not equal B.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, so that's that's what we're talking about, and it's something you need to do.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: It's when you go to the store and you compare two products.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what you're doing.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: You are judging in between them.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: Yesterday, when the leader of the travelers, PGA, there's a golf thing going on this weekend, and 23-year-old Jordan Speeth is leading it, and yesterday he kept taking more and more time as he was waiting to hit a 150-yard shot to the green.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: He eventually hit it within a couple feet of the flag.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: And and the commentator yesterday said, Jordan Speeth is judging the wind.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: He is.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: How mean.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: Why would he do such a thing?
9:47
SPEAKER_00: No.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: Well, what thing, man?
9:48
SPEAKER_00: Of course, he's evaluating, he he was he was he was discerning the wind, right?
9:55
SPEAKER_00: And and and that's what we do, that's what you need to do.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in fact, many times in the New Testament, that's how the word judge is used.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Peter and John reply to the Sanhedrin after they'd been arrested for witnessing, judge for yourselves, they said.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's right in God's sight to obey you rather than God.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: He's told us to witness, you're telling us not to witness.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: You evaluate, you discern, you think carefully, you figure it out, judge for yourselves.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: Jesus himself told you and me, don't judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: And at least one of those three uses of judge simply means to think carefully, to evaluate.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: Don't look in a mirror and think you're a king if you're only a pawn.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, that kind of a thing.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: Paul said the same thing in Romans.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: So, uh, and in fact, maybe the key verse for this in the New Testament is that Paul distinguishes mature Christians from immature Christians, grown-up Christians, spiritual Christians from carnal Christians, and he says, spiritual persons can, your translation in 1 Corinthians 2 probably says judge.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: The New Living translation I like, translates crin here as evaluate.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: Can he evaluate everything yet he himself cannot be evaluated by anyone?
11:18
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
11:18
SPEAKER_00: It means that when you come out of your quiet time, having spent some time with the Lord in the Word of God and with prayer, you have been trafficking in mysterious, high heavenly realities.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: You've been in touch with the Holy Spirit of God, you go out into the world, the world cannot figure you out.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: You are a mysterious person way too deep for the average Joe to understand.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, you have the mind of Christ.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: You can evaluate things around you, but you yourself cannot be evaluated in the word used, crin or judge.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: Strive to be that kind of a judging person.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: Spiritually mature, deep, because you spend time with God.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: So that's the first story, thinking and evaluating.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: But then eventually you hopefully move to the second story, which is that you make a decision.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: You come to convictions about what you've been thinking.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: You decide or you rule.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: This is what we think of when we think of what judges do, the Supreme Court of the United States judges.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: Because she judges, and this is a good thing.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: We want people to rule and cast a verdict or to decide.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: And um, and I'm happiest when in dancing with the stars, the four judges give everyone a 10, but they usually don't.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: So there's judging that goes on in the Olympics.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: Teachers judge their pupils and give them grades.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: And eventually, if you go shopping, you choose between the 381 brands of cereal and you decide.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: You rule, right?
13:10
SPEAKER_00: And the New Testament has a number of verses that tell us this is something we need to do.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: G.K.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: Chesterton 100 years ago put it so well.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: When he made fun of people who are always praising having an open mind.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: And he said, merely having an open mind is nothing.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: So you need to come to a decision and not keep your brain open all the time, otherwise it'll just fall out.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: And and in the Bible, you have a lot of verses like this.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 31, 9.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: Speak up and judge fairly.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: Defend the rights of the poor and needy.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: Make a decision that you are going to side with those who need someone to side with them and are taken advantage of by the powerful and rich.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 31.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: You're deciding or ruling, or in the church, he says, why in the world, when two of you have a great dispute, would you sue each other in a public court?
14:17
SPEAKER_00: Why would you go to law, he says, 1 Corinthians 6, 1, before the unrighteous, not before the saints?
14:23
SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that the saints one day will judge the world?
14:28
SPEAKER_00: And if the world's judged by you, are you unworthy to judge smallest?
14:31
SPEAKER_00: So now we're commanded to judge, that is, to evaluate, and then pass verdict in difficult situations in the church.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: So that's the second story.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: And then we come to the third story, and now we move to this narrow area of making a conclusion.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: You evaluate, you decide, but then you move from that to criticizing and condemning.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: Now, we have in Topeka, Kansas, the best example of that that anybody has ever seen.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: I am so happy that before third service, between services every Sunday, we have Westboro Baptist Church outside.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: I've had four college kids, I don't know if they're in this service, staying with me this weekend.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: And I'm so excited that they get to see this because it's just they're for they're from around the world, and they can see something here.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: They can see a sign that says your preacher is going to hell.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: And they can't see that at any other church in the world.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, so sorry, I told you I'm really, really loose this morning.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Um so anyway, that's a great example.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: And right, and uh the crucify him, uh the the the the Sanhedrin always judging, this is this is this whole thing, and this is this is being judgmental, this is being censorious, this is this is an this is this is what Jesus is condemning.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: There's only one lawgiver.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: James says this, Jesus' brother, the one who's able to save and destroy.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: But you, who are you to judge your neighbor?
16:08
SPEAKER_00: And what he's talking about is this this criticism, this carping, critical attitude that just lands on somebody.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: And in Romans 14, this is this is a real theme.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: In Romans, there's two passages in the New Testament where you have gray areas, things the Bible doesn't talk about.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: We would we'd think of maybe tattoos today, maybe you know, drinking.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: The Bible talks about that a little bit, doesn't preach abstinence and so forth.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: And so you have divisions.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: In Paul's day, it was, shall we eat that meat?
16:40
SPEAKER_00: It's been offered to idols, you know.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: And and and uh and we had a debate in this church here in the last month or two about Christian yoga.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: And and again, it's that part of that gray area, and and so Paul says, let's stop judging, is the word probably used in your translation, Romans 14, 13.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: I like the New Living Translation, let's stop condemning each other.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Decide instead to live in such a way that you won't cause another believer to stumble and fall.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: So don't sit there and condemn someone else because they their worship music style is different than yours, or their manner, they like certain kind of preaching, or or um, or because the pastor wears a bright pink shirt or whatever it is.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, don't don't pick on on certain things and condemn each other.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: So so that's that's third story judging, and that's what Jesus meant when he said, judge not, that you be not judged.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: Now let me back up for just a second.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: This is making us all feel really good right now, because none of us wants to be a fundamentalist who judges people.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: In our culture, to really understand the New Testament teaching on judging, we have to recognize that we have two equal and opposite errors, the one that Jesus is mentioning and one that we can find in another passage.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: And I want to show you, I've come up with a little graph, this will be real quick, just to show you where I think God would want us to come down.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: So I have three categories.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: On the sort of narrow side, I've called him uh on the loose side, I have loose Larry.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: He never judges.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: He believes that the greatest words in the English language today are tolerance and diversity.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: And by tolerance, I no longer mean what tolerance, I don't mean what tolerance used to mean.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Tolerance used to mean that that you would allow someone to disagree with you or behave differently from you, but you could criticize it.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: You would think that it was wrong, you could say that that religion was wrong or that behavior was wrong.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Tolerance today in the last five years has shifted, so tolerance now means approval.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: You can no longer even criticize.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: So there's a change.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: So loose Larry is over here.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: No judging, no even evaluating critically, okay?
19:04
SPEAKER_00: And then there's on the other side, strict Steve, I'm calling it.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: This is the wrong judging.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: This is Matthew 7, 1.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: And then I'm, we'll call him wise willy, uh, right judging in the middle.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
19:15
SPEAKER_00: And now here's the distinction in all of these, just so you sort of get a feel for where the New Testament is.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: The favorite virtue for Luce Larry is tolerance.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: For Strict Steve, it's righteousness and discipline.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: For wise Willie, it's truth and love.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: Luce Larry's heart is neutral.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: He's indifferent.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: Hey, whatever.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: Strict Steve's heart is hard, he's merciless.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: Wise Willie's heart is soft, he's merciful.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: How about rope and slack?
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Sorry about that category, but that's what I'm gonna call it.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Luce Larry goes, what rope?
19:44
SPEAKER_00: Total slack, whatever you want, man.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: Strict Steve's short rope, no slack.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: Wise Willie?
19:49
SPEAKER_00: Long rope, lots of slack.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: Because his God is long suffering.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: And the action Luce Larry takes, he's silent.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: He never confronts people.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: The action Strick Steve takes is condemnation.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Wise Willie will occasionally confront.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: The standard of judgment for Luce Larry is my heart, my feelings.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: For Strick Steve, it's the law and rules.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: Wise Willie, it's the Bible.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: The message for Luce Larry is hey, whatever, man.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: Strict Steve, it's you're bad.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Wise Willie, may I help you?
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Your goal if you're Luce Larry is to avoid conflict.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: Strick Steve is you change, I win.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: Wise Willie, it's help.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, that's to sort of position us in the middle.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: I hope you I hope I hope at this point you're saying now, which one do I, if I fall off one side of the horse, is it toward looseness or toward strictness?
20:43
SPEAKER_00: Am I a little more like Larry, a little more like Steve?
20:46
SPEAKER_00: Is there a way I should climb back on the horse so that I'm more biblical?
20:51
SPEAKER_00: Well, let me ask uh question, and that would be in the how and when should I judge?
21:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh based upon Matthew 7, 1 through 5.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: And first you can tell what Jesus is saying is, do not judge harshly but gently.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: Even if your judgment is correct, he says in the very next verse, you're going to be judged in the same way you judge.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: And blessed, he says earlier in this sermon, blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Judge gently, not harshly.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: And that's why it's so important, by the way, that you're open with your friends.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: That you are the one who confronts them and talks to them about their behavior, which is endangering, let's say, their marriage or their job or whatever.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: Because you can't because they're your friend, and so you're going to be gentle and not harsh.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 27 better is open rebuke than love that will not speak.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: And a few verses later, his iron shield.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: Some of us need to take responsibility or accountability for confronting one of our best friends who we know, but we're afraid to tell them, who we know is heading down a wrong trail.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: Because we're among the few people who can do it gently, not harshly, because they're friends.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, how and when to judge number two, not hypocritically, but with integrity.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: And these are the next three verses, Matthew 7, 3 through 5.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: He said, Why?
22:32
SPEAKER_00: How come you're pointing out the speck in somebody else's eye and judging them for it when the truth is you have a log in your own eye?
22:38
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus is sort of making a joke here.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: But we, you know how the tendency is, oh Addie used to have a close friend, and he's passed on to be the Lord, but he'd been an alcoholic, he'd been all this stuff, you know, he'd really had problems with alcohol for years.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, bang, comes to Christ, and then God delivers him totally.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: And to his dying day, I was having to tell him, why are you so critical of that person who's struggling with alcohol?
23:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, after all, you were there for decades, except for a miracle of God.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: And that, but that's our tendency, isn't it?
23:16
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we have a tendency to criticize people for the very thing that we're doing wrong.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: As Jesus said, He who's without sin among you.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, you know, you you feel that hypocrisy coming when someone judges you for judging.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, the people sometimes that quote, that quote Matthew 7.1 to you are engaging in the illegal use of a double standard, quoting, judge not lest you be judged, makes you guilty of judging someone for judging.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, uh hypocrisy is all over the place here.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: Third, don't judge prematurely but accurately.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: It's the problem I have.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: I tend to, you know, just to save time, jump to conclusions, you know, and judge people.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: Get it out of the way quickly, you know.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh but the first person to speak always seems right until someone comes and asks the right questions.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: We can tend to judge inaccurately, we can tend to judge ignorantly, unless we wait a while and we find out why that person is the way or acts the way that they do.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: Don't judge superficially, but insightfully, John 7.20, where Jesus says, you know, tennis is you judge people by appearances, by what's on the outside, by the tattoos, by the haircut, by the whatever, by how they dress, right?
24:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he had this situation with Simon the Pharisee, and the women, the woman comes in.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: Simon the Pharisee invites Jesus to dinner, and she comes in, and then she's inappropriately, you know, crying and wiping his feet and pouring perfume and so forth.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: And Simon, you know, is really nasty toward her.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Get her out.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: How come you allow her to do this?
24:51
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus reply is, you know, you don't know her heart.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: You're judging her so superficially.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: She actually is doing more for me than you are right now.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Ouch.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, and now uh I'll I'll get by this really quickly.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: Some of you will know what I'm talking about, but I mentioned before these gray areas, these things that we argue about that aren't in the Bible.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: And there's a really big emphasis on the New Testament.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: Do not judge people by your personal convictions.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: I call them percos, but judge by biblical convictions.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: Be able to show from the Bible why you're right.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, don't judge people based upon, you know, the kind of worship style or the kind of clothing style or the kind of stuff you grew up with.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: It's just traditional or the stuff you're used to because you live, you know, in Kansas or in a certain part of the world.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: Except the one who's weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions, Paul says, Romans 14, 1.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: And finally, a judge, don't judge emotionally, but judge objectively.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: Now, what I mean by this is a lot of articles written lately on the fact that standards in America have disappeared and people now simply make decisions or judgments, sometimes really sharp, condemn, condemning judgment, simply based on feelings.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: You see it all the time on social media, right?
26:14
SPEAKER_00: You ever been on Facebook and then had to get off because it was just so nasty, and people were throwing people under other people under the bus, and I mean, and you know, you've probably had to, some of you, like some of us, have had to unfriend people in your own extended family, you know, because it just gets so sharp and so nasty.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: So the thing is, if you stay objective instead of emotional, 1 Thessalonians 5, 21 and 22, Paul, examine everything carefully, hold fast to that which is good.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: And this is a huge problem today.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh I love the book Hollywood versus America by Michael Medved, a film critic, uh talk show host, and so forth.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: He talks about how in a review he did back in some years ago of a movie that was pretty filthy, the cook, the thief, her wife and her lover, something like that.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, he included a paragraph close to the end.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: He said, I never do this, but I just felt like I had to.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: This movie is so full of filth, and then he listed some awesomely awful stuff that was in the film.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: I need to tell you that this is not a not only not a family film, but this is just this is just gross.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, he was criticizing a film which, of course, because it was so avant-garde and cutting-edge and nasty, had been super praised by Richard Corless of Time and all of the variety magazines and so forth, of course.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, he got absolutely pulverized publicly, even though he was one of the best-known film critics in America, for making such a judgment.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: And he writes, it was fine for me to talk about a film being out of focus.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Michael Medved is uh one of the Jews in Hollywood.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: He used to be a screenwriter.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: It was fine for me to talk about a film being out of focus, about sloppy editing, about bad acting, but heaven for Finn that I should address its moral content.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: This is the very nature of the cultural battle before us.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: It is at its very core a war on standards.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: It is a war against what?
28:22
SPEAKER_00: Judgment.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: The worst insult you can offer someone today is to suggest that he or she is judgmental.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: So as we sort of, as I sort of wrap this message up, on the one hand, I'm saying, you know, we need to be, we have to speak up and be, shall we say, judgmental.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: The famous Lutheran theologian, World War II, said, first they came for the Jews, but I did nothing because I'm not a Jew.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: Then they came for the socialists, but I did nothing because I'm not a socialist.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: Then they came for the Catholics, but I did nothing because I'm not a Catholic.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: Finally, they came for me, but by then there was no one left to help me.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: It's essential that you and I speak up, that we judge righteously.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: And finally, judge not self-righteously, but humbly.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Even if you are completely right and correct and accurate in your judgment, you mustn't judge self-righteously like that Pharisee who stood by himself, remember, looked over at the tax collector and said, God, I thank you that I'm not like other people, thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: No, we need to remember that we just commit different kinds of sins, right?
29:39
SPEAKER_00: Thomas Akempus and the imitation of Christ, you will never be an inwardly religious and devout man or woman unless you pass over in silence the shortcomings of your fellow men and diligently examine your own weaknesses.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: And that I think is where Jesus was going with judge not, that ye be not judged.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: Let me apply this.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: Um think about yourself for a moment and ask yourself if you are sort of stuck on one story or residing on one story.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: There's a number of people who today would say that they're sort of stuck on the first story.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: They evaluate and they think deeply, but they don't come to convictions or decisions about things.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: They're sort of afraid to in this world.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible would say you must come to decisions and come to convictions.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: You cannot simply, for example, juggle all the religions of the world up in the air and decide you're going to wait indefinitely before you decide yay or nay for Jesus.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: You must judge, decide that this is the Son of God who came to die for the sins, as judgmental as it may sound, for the sins of the world.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: You have to leave the first story, move to the second story, trust Jesus as your Savior, and then come to convictions about the important things in life.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: How about if you find yourself residing too often on the third story?
31:14
SPEAKER_00: Oh, not me, you say.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: Ask your kids.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: Ask, ask, ask your wife or your husband.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Say, I don't live up there a lot, do I?
31:29
SPEAKER_00: And then if if they have to go outside to laugh for a while, then go, you know, well, how could I how could I balance, you know, how could I move back down?
31:40
SPEAKER_00: Well, how about that Thomas Akempis quote?
31:43
SPEAKER_00: That humility of realizing that I should maybe keep my mouth shut more often, even though I know what they really need to hear, you know.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: And it's not just that kind.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, uh we get together and we judge people that way all the time.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: Let's go somewhere and judge people.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: My hobbies include drinking coffee and judging people.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: I l I love that coaster.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: Or I don't judge people based on race, creed, color, or gender.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: I love that card.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: I judge people based on spelling, grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: This this would be a Congden one right there.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: Or or the one on the right.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: If you it may help you quit smoking if you stay focused on judging people who still smoke.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: So, so so so if you find yourself residing on the third floor too often, get off the third floor.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: Close your mouth more often.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: Get an accountability partner.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: Ask your wife or husband to help you.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: One of the most famous college football coaches in America some years back was Woody Hayes.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: He was the elite of the elite, won national titles, coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes, and his entire career collapsed around him in a moment on national television one Saturday afternoon.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: In a tight game, it was really close.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: A defensive back from the other team intercepted an Ohio State pass in the last minute or two, began returning it to the goal line, and Woody, irate that his team was going to lose, stepped out and, as you can see, slugged the guy in the face masked.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: Didn't hurt the guy very bad.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: Might have hurt Woody's hand, but what hurt far worse is that by doing that publicly, by losing his temper publicly like that, Woody was fired.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: Not only was Woody fired, Woody was pillaged publicly.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: The press went back to former players back 10 and 20 years and found some who would say, well, Will, well, you know, Coach Hayes hit me during practice or he yelled at me or he cussed at me or whatever.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: And by the end of this, uh, Woody Hayes was uh not invited anymore.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, from being the elite of the elite, he was no longer invited to any parties, he was no longer invited anywhere, his name was, he couldn't hardly go out of his house.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: About a year later, there was a national banquet, football banquet, college football, NFL football to honor the best coaches of the year, the best players of the year, the coaches both in the NFL, pros, and college.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: Of course, Tom Lange of the Dallas Cowboys, one of the greatest coaches in America, was going to be honored.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: And so he came to the event, but the place fell silent when they saw that he had brought Woody Hayes as his companion.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: And they walked in, and Woody and Tom sat down.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: Somebody motioned Tom to come away and said, What are you doing?
35:05
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing bringing Woody Hayes to a public banquet like that?
35:12
SPEAKER_00: And Tom's answer was this.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: He said, Not because I think what he did was okay.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: I I think what he did was wrong.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: But I think that we have judged him excessively, hypocritically, and self-righteously.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: And that I think is what Jesus was saying when he said, judge not, that ye be not judged.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord, for the wisdom of your son that somehow can balance all of these uh competing interests, but then tell us in a convicting word that some of what we do when we gossip, some of what we do on social media, some of the ways we think are not heavenly ways, and not your ways.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, you'd you'd really like us to be shrewder and wiser and more mature, to be able to think clearly and evaluate, to read and mentor and be mentored, think wisely and carefully about issues of the day and speak up and help people.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: We pray, however, that most of all you'll turn us into people like your son Jesus, who said, judge not.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: For it's in his name that we pray.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for coming.