Latest / The Daily Word / March 19 – God Alone is Judge
Transcript
- Cory Barnes: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good wee hours of the night, whatever time you're joining us, welcome to the Daily Word podcast from Lakeshore Christian Fellowship. My name is Corey and it is my pleasure, my privilege to serve our Catawba campus. And I'm excited to sit down with you for another episode of the Daily Word. Now, if you're new here on this show, on this podcast, we're just every day sitting down. And we're looking at the new Testament portion of our church Bible reading plan from the life journal. And we're just doing a devotion together. We're seeing what scripture stands out to us, what our observation about that scripture is, how we can apply it to our lives. And then we're just taking all that and wrapping it up into a prayer to ask the Lord to help us to apply it to our lives. So today is March the 19th and we are looking at 1 Corinthians 4. And the verses that stood out to me today come from verses 3 through 5. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I know of nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this. But he who judges me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of his hearts. Then each one's praise will come from God. All right, so what's going on here is that roughly five years earlier, Paul had left Corinth. He spent about a year and a half there building the church, planting the church. It's been about five years, and in Paul's absence, people have crept in and they want to start changing things. They want to start making the church look like what they think the church should look like. And to do that, they're kind of attacking Paul. They're attacking his character. They're probably saying things like he's prideful or he thinks he knows more than he should. He's a blowhard. Like there's things that Paul says in letters to kind of allude to what... criticism against him were. So Paul is kind of responding to this, to the fact that people are coming in and accusing him. And that's where he's saying, for me, it's not a big deal that these guys are judging me. It's not a big deal if I'm judged in any human court. In fact, I don't even judge myself. See, when we judge people, See, all we ever get access to when we're looking at other people's lives is what they say and what they do. We don't have access to what is going on in their heart. We don't get to see the motivations and why people do what they do. Unless the Lord supernaturally reveals that to us in some way or another, we never get to see why people are doing what they do. So these people that are judging Paul are judging him based on what they think he thinks. So Paul is saying ⁓ I have the perspective into what's going on in my own thought life. I know why I said that. I know why I did that. And for me, I don't see anything wrong. I don't see anything amiss, but I am not justified by that. That does not proclaim anything. I don't get to judge myself based on the fact that I don't see anything amiss because I'm not justified by what I see. I'm not justified. based on the fact that I think that I'm spotless, that I don't see a problem, I'm justified by what Jesus did. And by the way, me judging myself wouldn't work because it's the Lord who judges me. And then Paul said, therefore judge nothing before it's time until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsel of the heart. So what Paul's then saying is, Don't judge. Don't judge yourself. Don't judge others. Let the Lord be the judge because there is coming a time when the Lord is going to come and he is going to take the things that are done in darkness. He is going to bring them to light. And all those motives that were swirling around, all those things that are going on in people's heart that made them do what they do. Yeah, the Lord is going to start revealing those things. The Lord is going to start displaying those things. The Lord is going to start showing those things. And then the Lord will be the one to pronounce judgment. And then it says, then each one's praise will come from God. So what Paul is saying here is I don't judge myself. I think based on me looking at my own life that I am righteous and I am good to go. but I'm not justified by that. One day he will come and he will examine me. And if there's anything praise worthy in me, if I actually am in the state that I think I'm in, if I actually am blameless, the Lord will be the one to praise me in front of all. And I don't have to do that for myself. So based on what we're seeing here, I think our application for today's text is pretty, pretty sp- self-explanatory, it's pretty easy to see. First off, we want to ask the Lord, have a conversation with him. Is there anyone that I am standing in judgment over? Am I judging anyone else? That's a dangerous place to be. Jesus said, judge not lest you be judged, for what measure you give, it will be given back to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. He's saying that when we judge other people, we open ourselves to receive judgment. And that is dangerous. As is the fact that when we judge other people, we're kind of taking on God's role. We're basically putting on his robes, sitting in his chair, picking up his gavel. And we are presuming to pronounce people guilty when we don't have the full picture of what is going on. So first, am I judging anybody else? And if I am, I gotta stop. I need you to help me, Lord. I repent, forgive me, I lay down that judgment. Second, this one is, ⁓ I ⁓ carrying the weight of other people's judgments? Paul said it's a very small thing to me if I'm judged by these people or by any human court. Lord, you are my judge. Am I carrying judgments placed on me by others? Am I letting that weigh me down? If so, Lord, I want to give those to you because they aren't valuable. They don't matter. They don't hold weight. Only your opinion holds weight. And then third, am I judging myself? Now, this one is the one that we have to recognize that we are not good based on our own merits. What makes us good is the blood of Jesus Christ. That is what we rely on for righteousness, not our own actions. not our own merits, and even when we are blameless in an area, we don't get to stand and proclaim our and judge our own selves as being righteous. Only God gets to do that. Only His righteousness imputed to us, poured out on us, transferred to us, does that. We don't even get to judge ourselves. but there is coming a day when the Lord will examine us. And if we truly are righteous, the way we think we are, he will praise us. Let's pray. Father God, I thank you that every time we sit down and we open your word, every time that we come and we talk to you, you start showing us things, you start lighting up the scripture, you start opening our eyes to see your truths and your goodness. And I thank you Lord that you walk. with us and you are shepherding us on the path of righteousness. praise you and we thank you Lord. In this area of judgment, I pray that you would help us help us to not judge others, help us to not carry the weight of others judgments and help us not even to judge ourselves, but to fully rely on Jesus, fully rely on his blood, his worth, his sacrifice, the value that he places on. us and the value he places on others so that in the area of judgment we can truly walk spotless before you. And when that day comes, when what's done in dark is brought to light, when you reveal the councils of all of our hearts and you display that, our hearts will be found pure and we will get to hear your praise. We will get to hear your appreciation. We will get to hear how pleased You are with us, Lord. That is our goal, to hear you say, well done, good and faithful servant. I thank you for leading us on path. We will hear that in the area of judgments. We love you, Jesus. Amen.