Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / June 6, 2021 | Good Question - Hush, Didn't Jesus Say Not to Judge?

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June 6, 2021 | Good Question - Hush, Didn't Jesus Say Not to Judge? · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: I like that.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: First time I've seen it.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: And uh it's great.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
0:09
SPEAKER_00: Great to see you all this morning.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: So we're in the series, Good Question.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about it.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: And we have all summer to do this.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: And there are so many questions.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: So the one I chose, I had no idea I would choose on Monday, but in Tuesday's staff meeting, I mean, I had a list I'd been making of questions, good questions, and you can imagine some of them, and you can feel free to send in questions.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: And I promise you we'll try to ignore everyone that you send in.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: But no, we'll be able to cover like 10 or 12 of them in the summer.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: But in staff meeting, you know, not one but a couple of staff.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: They were just chatting about conversations they would have, they had had about some moral issue or some religious or doctrinal issue or something.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: And uh and someone had said to them, you need to be quiet.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: I mean, didn't Jesus say not to judge?
1:07
SPEAKER_00: You sound so judgmental.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: So I said, you know, that would be a really good question.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: So because uh the answer sort of uh connects with um uh last week, Connor's closing message of the last series, a message on anger.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: So um I thought we had communion.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we have communion this morning, right?
1:28
SPEAKER_00: So I noticed that when I came in.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna talk like two-thirds quicker than usual so I can get done.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: Um so here's the first question talking about some oil issue, and somebody says, Hush, didn't Jesus say not to judge?
1:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: And so that that is the question that closes off all debate, right?
1:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, immediately silence.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Boom, mic drop.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's it.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: They don't expect you to keep going because they have just, you know.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so I thought that was cool.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: So here's the verse that it comes from.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: It's the winner, by the way.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: I've done a worldwide poll.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: It's the winner of the number one most popular, most known verse in the Bible.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, 50 years ago, it used to maybe be John 3.16 or Psalm 23.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: No doubt about it that today uh you can quote John 3.16 or Psalm 23 in public, and people go, I feel like I've heard that before.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: Where's that from?
2:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm in the book of, you know, anyway.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: And and but everybody knows this verse.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: Judge not, lest G be.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: Judge Matthew 7.1, the winner of the most most popular, most quoted, most well-known verse today.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: And so you'll find when uh people are marching and so forth, especially when it has to do with a moral issue or a religious issue or a spiritual issue, that somebody's gonna be holding up a sign saying judge not, which means I can do anything I want.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Keep your mouth shut, right?
2:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh Bob Marley, uh uh title of uh one of his albums, and so forth.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: In fact, so I decided to show this because I'm a big fan of this guy right here, Charles Barkley.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of people don't like him.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: I've always liked the round mound of rebound.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: And um, this is an NBA, a rewind show, which judge me if you want.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead, judge me, but I like it.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: And this is Shaq and so they sit them on opposite sides because Shaq and Barkley, Charles Barclay, are rivals.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: They're friends, but they're also rivals.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: And so they're always going back and forth at each other.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: Now, Charles, who I really like for a number of reasons, I I feel like I feel, I don't feel this morning, I don't feel anything.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: I think.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I think, I know Charles Barclay said something stupid.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay, he said, Christians, they're not supposed to judge other people, but they're the most hypocritical judge of people.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: Should have said judges, but that's Charles.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: The most hypocritical judge of people we have in this country.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say, come on, Charles, I like you.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: I'll vote for you if you run for governor of Alabama or wherever you're talking about running for governor.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: I and I sorely wish that Shaq at that point had looked back at him and said, Charles, let me get this straight.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: You passionately judge people who judge people.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: Have I got that right?
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, but that didn't happen.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I want to talk to you this morning about judging.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and by the way, what I'm referring to there is the illegal use of a double standard by my friend Charles Barclay, quoting, judge not lest ye be judged, makes you guilty of judging someone for judging.
4:45
unknown: Okay.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: So uh let's look at do a couple things.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at these verses, the verse Matthew 7.1 in context, which nobody ever does, you know.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: And find out what Jesus really meant, and and then and then try to find a solution to this conundrum.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Do not judge this is in the Sermon on the Mount.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: Heard of the Sermon on the Mount.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: So these words are in red, so they can be believed.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: What's he saying here?
5:15
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Well, God's gonna judge you if you judge.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: All things are fair.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: For in the same way you judge others, and by the way, Paul said the same thing in Romans 2, in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
5:33
SPEAKER_00: God's gonna be fair about this.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3, why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?
5:42
SPEAKER_00: How can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when all the time there's a plank in your own eye?
5:48
SPEAKER_00: You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, then you'll see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: So, one thing he we find out that he's talking here about a specific group of people, people who hypocritically judge because they're doing things even worse, the same kinds of things, both wood, you know, plank, two by four, and a speck.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: So they're hypocritically judging.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, and it is really uh it's really a great picture, isn't it?
6:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, this is the guy he's got, and you got a speck in your eye, and he's got uh uh uh a two by four sticking out of his own.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: So this is a ridiculous picture, but it gives you a picture of what Jesus means.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying anything about, you know, uh, wow, I I've learned, I learned in my 40 years, you know, I can't say anything negative about even any other religion, whether it's Jehovah's Witnesses or whatever else.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: I can get away with criticizing Fred Phelps here, I found out.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: Nobody comes up and yells at me.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: But anything else, or even anything moral, someone's sure to come up in and say, you know, you're being kind of judgmental there.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus, just to show how inconsistent Jesus is.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, he's one of these guys that you just can't count on because the very next verse after this, he says, Do not give dogs, speaking of people, what is sacred?
7:11
SPEAKER_00: Do not throw your pearls to pigs, don't cast your pearls before swine.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: You've heard that verse.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: If you do, they may trample them under their feet and turn to tear you to pieces.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: Whoa, Jesus.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, your previous sentence.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, just in the next paragraph, watch out for false prophets.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: They come to you in sheep's clothing, and but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: Now you're calling names again, Jesus.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is clearly making judgments here.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: So I'm trying to confuse you because confusion is the mother of learning.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: And uh let's just go even further to confuse ourselves further.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: The passage that you'll oftentimes hear, Matthew 7, 1 is the favorite verse, John chapter 8, the story of the adulterous woman, you know, Jesus drawing in the sand.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: Whoever's without sin, let him cast the first stone.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: That's the story that always goes along with it, right?
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Whoever's without sin, let him cast the first stone.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: They bring a woman caught in adultery, they say, Shall we stone her or not?
8:09
SPEAKER_00: Now notice how Jesus ends this account.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: They all leave because he says, Cast the first stone, and they're humble, they walk away.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: And then he says to the woman, where are, and he says it twice, apparently, where are your accusers?
8:23
SPEAKER_00: Didn't even one of them condemn you?
8:25
SPEAKER_00: No, Lord, she says.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus then says, Neither do I.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: Period, but not full stop.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: He then goes on to ruin the whole story and say, Go and sin no more.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: Right?
8:39
SPEAKER_00: Go and sin no more, not go and be true to yourself, or go and live as you please, or go and demand that others approve your lifestyle, right?
8:50
SPEAKER_00: So we're left with a real question here.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: Do we judge or not judge?
8:56
SPEAKER_00: And what is Jesus saying?
8:57
SPEAKER_00: And the solution to this, the simple solution, is to ask and answer the question: what did Jesus mean by judge?
9:08
SPEAKER_00: And here I have to share with you just in a sentence or two something about semantics, something about words, something about vocabulary, and that is the fact that we have a huge vocabulary in America and in English.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: Hundreds of thousands of words.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: They only had 100,000 Hebrew words in their vocabulary.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: Greek vocabulary was larger, but not nearly as large as ours, and so each word had to be richer and have a broader range of meanings.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: Here's the verse in Greek.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: Do not judge, that you should not be, or lest you be judged.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: So the root of this Greek word is krin.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: K-R-I-N rhymes with grin.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Say krin.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Sounds like a germ or something.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: But that's the root.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: It's used 40 times in the New Testament, and it means judge, and it has a broad range of meaning.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: Discern, evaluate, assess, and then decide, criticize, even condemn.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: So the question is, what does Jesus mean by this word?
10:20
SPEAKER_00: And my point has been that ancient words were like three-story houses.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, three is the right number.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: Many winny words in the Bible have three distinct levels of meaning.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: The word sin in the Old Testament can mean sin, or it can mean guilt, or it can mean condemnation.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: And Crion is a three-story house.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Words that we have today, we have so many words.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: Our words are each like one-car garages.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: Each one of them means one thing.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: That's why you have books of thousands of words.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: I have a couple of them that carefully distinguish what one English word means from another, because we have a word for everything, but they didn't back then.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Their words were richer.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: So the house of judgment, their house of crin, has three stories, and the bottom level is the simplest, and it's the story of thinking and evaluating.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: And the word crin or judge is the word used in the New Testament for the simple meaning of think and evaluate.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: First story judging is whenever you think.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: It's the reason we have school, right?
11:33
SPEAKER_00: To exercise your mind so you can evaluate things, you can compare things, you can look at, you know, the backs of surial boxes, you can sit on a jury, and that's why people say, Will you sit on a jury, or will you come judge the science projects at school?
11:50
SPEAKER_00: And what they mean by will you come judge the science projects?
11:53
SPEAKER_00: So will you look at them, will you think, will you evaluate, will you sit on a jury, listen to the arguments and try to decide which ones are better than others.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: And notice God says in the New Testament dozens of times, you need to do this.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: The gift I've given you is the gift of your mind.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: The mind is a terrible thing to waste.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: No, that's not in the New Testament.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: It's just what my brother used to say to me every time I said something stupid.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: So God says, think.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: Think carefully, discern, evaluate, put ideas on trial, consider right and wrong, consider good and evil, go to school, use the mind that I've given you.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: First story judging is thinking, it's evaluating.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: And God says, those who are spiritual, evaluate all things.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: Crin.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: That's the word judge.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 2.15.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: He says, love the Lord your God, the great command, with all your mind.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: You can't love the Lord your God with all your mind if you just refuse to judge in the sense of thinking and evaluating.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: Peter and John say to the Sanhedrin, which is right in God's eyes to listen to you when you say, don't witness, or to listen to God, who says, go out and evangelize.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: You be the judges.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: And what they mean is you think about that.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: You evaluate that.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: John says, Jesus says in John 7, stop judging by mere appearance, start judging righteously.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: And what he means is that our tendency is to look at people and judge by the surface.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: The better looking people must be right.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, the people that are attractive on TV, that's why they put attractive people on TV, so that we'll believe them.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: God says, no, no, listen to them.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: Don't judge by mere appearance.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: Evaluate.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: Think.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
13:48
SPEAKER_00: Now that's the first story.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: The second story is when you, after you've thought and evaluated, you come to a decision.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: You're like an umpire.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: You're like a referee.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: You cry fair or foul.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: You're like a jury or a judge.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: You decide yes or no.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: That's right, that's wrong, guilty, innocent.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: So that's the second stage.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: And it's this is something we assume is okay in our culture.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: Here's the judge, this is Judge Judy, here's dancing with the stars, and and and always, the exciting thing is what are the ratings that people are going to get?
14:29
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's the Olympics or whether it's American Idol.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: That is, we think and evaluate, then we come to a decision, we decide whether something is good or bad, right or wrong, beautiful or not, and that's why we have cartoons that make fun of the attack on judging today.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: So I have a judge saying to the guy here, and then I thought, who am I to judge?
14:53
SPEAKER_00: Go home, little man.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: We would not countenance a judge for a minute who refused to judge.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: We would fire him.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: That's the basis of this cartoon.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: Santa Claus comes in and says, you know, I'm checking to see who's been naughty or nice.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: And the little girl says, naughty or nice, huh?
15:14
SPEAKER_00: Stop judging me.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Well, our society, until it comes to moral and religious and doctrinal issues generally, understands that deciding and ruling is important.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: And God says, do this.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: It's vital that you do this.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: It's imperative, especially in a society like ours, full of moral relativism, that you do this.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: So you decide.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: You decide biblically, you draw conclusions, render verdicts, develop convictions about right and wrong.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
15:48
SPEAKER_00: Come to your own conclusions about these things.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible has verses on it, Proverbs.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: Speak up and judge fairly.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: Defend the rights of the poor and needy.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: It's vitally important that you judge and that you decide and that you rule fairly and that you give justice to people.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 6 about arguments in the church.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: If any of you has a dispute against another, how dare you take it to court before the unrighteous and not before the saints?
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Or don't you know that the saints will judge the world?
16:20
SPEAKER_00: And elsewhere he says, and they'll judge the angels.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the trivial cases?
16:28
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about deciding, he's talking about ruling.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: And God says, this is something I want you to do.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: I do not want you to ignore this.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: G.K.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: Chesterton pointed it out in a famous quote: merely having an open mind is nothing.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: The object of opening a mind as of opening the mouth is to shut it again on something solid.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Make a decision.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: Come to a verdict.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Then we come to the third story, and that is after you've decided and ruled, you've decided that something is right or wrong, you know, that that person who you thought slandered you really didn't, or maybe they didn't, then what comes after that is really important.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: The word is used five times, 35 times in the New Testament out of the 40 times, it's used positively.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: We're told judge, judge, judge, judge.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: Five times, when it has to do with criticizing or condemning, we're told, don't do that.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: That's third story judging, that's criticizing, that's condemning, that's we know that very well, with the you're going to hell signs and God hates you and so forth.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knew it well when he was on trial, didn't he?
17:48
SPEAKER_00: This is criticizing, this is condemning.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: God says, don't do this.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: Don't point at people and hold them in contempt and dismiss them.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Don't condemn people self-righteously.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: Don't look down on, don't speak ill of, don't fault find, don't throw people under the bus.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: That's a quote from Jesus right there.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: Don't throw people under the bus.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: It just came out of my fingers, sorry.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: So this is condemning, this is fault-finding.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: Paul, stop condemning each other, he says.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about third story judging, criticizing, and condemning.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: James 4, there's only one lawgiver and judge, the one who's able to save and destroy.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: But you, who are you to judge your neighbor?
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Who are you to take the place of God and mentally send people to heaven or hell in their behavior?
18:43
SPEAKER_00: Now, uh talk about this for a second.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: I just, as I think about applying this, it seems to me, okay, this is my judgment, my second level decision or conviction.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: It seems to me that in public today, fear gets us stuck on the first story.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: That is, we see things, we watch movies, we hear the arguments on TV and in the social media, and we do not want to be one of those people who weighs in like a Christian or a fundamentalist online and gets blasted, or uh who Twitter uh kicks off for 12 hours or 24 hours or whatever.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, fear gets us stuck on the first story, refusing to come to a conclusion, especially one that we would state openly, right?
19:49
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is if we categorize the three kinds of judgment, that is, bad judging, that's the condemning and criticizing, the no judging that I've just referred to, getting stuck on the first floor, and good judging, it seems to me that to distinguish those in the first, you're saying, you're evil.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: You're pointing someone in the face and you're saying, you're evil.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, you believe in gay marriage, you're evil, okay?
20:20
SPEAKER_00: No judging says you're fine.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Whatever goes, okay?
20:25
SPEAKER_00: Come see, come sa, I'm okay, you're okay.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Good judging may say something like, that's a sin choice.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: And that sounds horrible to the no judgers, right, today.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: Even though you may be talking about something which for 99.9% of world history has been condemned by everyone around the world up until 10 years ago.
20:53
unknown: Okay.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: But then all of a sudden, that 10 years ago, there suddenly started cries, loud cries for tolerance.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: At least tolerate us.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: At least tolerate us.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: And we go, oh, oh, okay, we'll tolerate.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: But now, of course, just 10 years later, it is we demand that you approve this and approve it publicly, or we will kick you off of social media and we will ridicule you on public media.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's how, that's how it's like the very last eye blink of world history.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: And yet all of a sudden, you can you can't even you can't even decide that something biblically is a sin choice without being a repugnant person sometimes.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: So that's what you say.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Your moral standard in bad judging is oftentimes your rules, which may include biblical rules, but oftentimes include your personal rules.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: The no-judging just seems to flow with culture.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: Whatever culture says, that's the moral standard I use.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: And if tomorrow culture says that certain kinds of pedophiles.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Billy or whatever else are okay, then well, I don't think I'll go with that, but I may have to.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: Good judging says, what does God say?
22:08
SPEAKER_00: Your reputation.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: People think of you, if you're a bad judge, you're as a righteous inspector, going around constantly inspecting, you know, the specks in other people's eyes.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: No judging, you're approving, you're an approving pushover, and everybody can count on you to go thumbs up no matter what they do.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: Good judging is a straight shooter.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Now it's tough to speak out.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: It's tough to be bold when somebody asks you and says, so what do you think of my moral choice?
22:40
SPEAKER_00: And you're suddenly thinking, well, they're a family member, so I don't want to offend them.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: And I do want to be friends with them for the next 30 or 40 years because we're friends.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: And I want us to be able to go to family reunions together.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: So how can I say this right, right?
23:00
SPEAKER_00: But it's better to be counted on as a straight shooter rather than a proving pushover.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: But but this is where you buy the book, you know, critical confrontations, and you decide how you're gonna say that well.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: Your priority, if in bad judging, is I'm right, you're wrong.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm right, you're wrong, with the finger out there pointing in their face.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: For no judging, your priority is I keep my mouth shut.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: Silence is golden.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: And for good judging is I want what's best for you.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: And what's best for you is what God says is best for you.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: And what's eternal, what is best for your eternal life.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, that's just uh something I came up with.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: Now, in public, we tend to get stuck on the first level, but let's be honest.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: In private, in private, we let it all we let it all go, right?
23:50
SPEAKER_00: We live way too much on the third story.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you don't.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: It's just it's just me here.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: Is it just me?
23:58
SPEAKER_00: Is it just me?
23:59
SPEAKER_00: Criticize and condemn.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: And my hobbies include drinking coffee and judging people.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of cartoons about ourselves and how we judge, you know.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is, you know, in private we live too much on this third, on this third story.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: I love there's actually a poster that says it may help you quit smoking if you stay focused on judging people who still smoke.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: Like that one.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: I like that one as well.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: And here's a good one.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: I don't judge people, by the way, this this is perfect for my family, and some of my relatives who are sitting in this room know that this is true about my family.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: I don't judge people based on race, creed, color, or gender.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: I judge people based on spelling, grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: If you're congeding out there, yeah, it's you two.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: Perfect, exactly right.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: Embarrassing, but true.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: So uh just a summary, I'm gonna uh wrap this up soon.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: So the summary of when Jesus says judge not, it's one of the five verses where it says don't do it.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: And he, in that context, we've read, is talking about don't judge hypocritically, and then don't be like the, you know, I I hate to say this, but every five years, a megachurch preacher in our country who's preached very strongly against a certain moral sin, we find out that he's been engaged in that moral sin regularly, and it's embarrassing.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: It's embarrassing for the kingdom, for the cause of Christ, and so forth.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: And and Jesus is speaking about that.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: You know, about spec inspectors from the pulpit who then turn out to have the log in their own eye.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: And God, and Jesus says, Don't judge hypocritically.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you're doing something, shut your mouth until you get your life changed.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: Don't judge superficially, says John 7.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: Don't judge, don't judge by mere appearance.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: Don't just look at people and go, ah, you know, he must be right or she must be right.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: It's so important for parents and for teachers because you're so busy and all of a sudden he's in, eh, eh, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you and you tend to be wrong.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: I at least I did.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: Don't judge mercilessly.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: This is a huge one in the Bible.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: If you want mercy from God, then you need to be merciful when you judge.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: You need to cut people slack.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: You need to not be looking for fault.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: Instead, you need to be going, well, you know, I need to, you know, that person with their background, never having had a dad.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, is it any wonder that he's gone that direction in life?
26:32
SPEAKER_00: Should I just throw him under the bus because he's never had a good model of heterosexual or, you know, anything, you know, whatever it is, whatever it is.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: Right?
26:42
SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, uh, how can I, I mean, really, should I be so quick to criticize her for becoming a Jehovah's Witness?
26:51
SPEAKER_00: When the only person in her life as she was growing up that was kind to her was a grandmother who was a Jehovah's Witness.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: You see what I'm saying?
27:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, don't judge people mercilessly.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: So the mercy, and don't judge people hastily.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: I love this one.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: Watch out before you take somebody into court.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: Don't go into court too quickly, Proverbs 18 says, because you might find out you don't have all the information.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: You know.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: So, and then finally, don't judge proudly.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: That is self-righteously, that is looking down.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Remember the Pharisee and the publican when he goes, you know, I'm up here, you're down there.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: Don't judge people self-righteously.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we sound that way.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, folks, let's judge.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: We need to judge without hypocrisy.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: That is, get your life in order.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: Do judge insightfully, not on the surface, superficially.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: Do judge mercifully.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
27:44
SPEAKER_00: But do judge and do judge wisely with all the information.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, keep asking questions and do judge humbly, humbly.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: You're not better than that person.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: You're just not.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: You and I are objects of God's grace, and you could have done the same or worse if you were in their shoes.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: So, so so judge people humbly.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: We're all gonna be amazed that we get into heaven.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Now, uh, I need to say this is that we have a big judging problem in our culture.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: The whole judge not culture, the way our culture has gone.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: Let's acknowledge this.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: Michael Medved, you know, the movie reviewer, the Jewish movie reviewer, he says, 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 conduct.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: This is the very nature of the cultural battle before us.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: It is, at its very core, a war on standards.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: It's a war against judgment.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: The worst insult you can offer someone today is to suggest that he or she is judgmental.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: So it stifles, it stifles your movie reviews.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: You know, it stifles almost everything we do.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: Lewis Smeeds, who was a professor, psychologist, counselor, not known as a progressive, not a fundamentalist at all, professor at Fuller until he died, started a counseling center, said publicly, in a public place, I would suggest that in our day and age we need more, not less, judgment.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: Modern Americans suffer from a fear of judging.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: Passing judgment on the behavior of fellow human beings is considered an act of intolerance.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: Why?
29:24
SPEAKER_00: Why?
29:25
SPEAKER_00: Because our culture tells us we're all flawed people, and people with flaws have no right to judge other people's flaws.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: Furthermore, modern Americans do not believe that there are objective standards by which to judge.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: And when there are no standards, there's nothing by which to measure behavior.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the person who takes Jesus at all seriously does not kowtow to modern relativism.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: Judgment for Christians is an important piece of work that God calls us to do, especially in a world going morally haywire.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: And I say to Lewis Meads, a guy who I've not always agreed with, I'd say, amen.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: Amen, brother.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: Good question.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about it.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: What do you say then?
30:07
SPEAKER_00: And someone says, hush, didn't Jesus say not to judge?
30:12
SPEAKER_00: Can I get snarky for a minute?
30:15
SPEAKER_00: So come up with a half a dozen one-liners, which you could use, but probably shouldn't.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: Didn't Jesus say not to judge?
30:23
SPEAKER_00: You go, quick, somebody tell Judge Judy.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: Or, oh, so I can get out of jury duty?
30:32
SPEAKER_00: I thought these were funny.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: I work.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: So anything goes, judge not.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: Racism, bullying, sex crimes?
30:39
SPEAKER_00: Whoa.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: Hold on, are you judging me right now?
30:46
SPEAKER_00: I think I hear Jesus saying, you're taking my words out of context.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: So so uh and then to get a little more serious, say, would you like to know what Jesus meant by that?
30:58
SPEAKER_00: Or would you prefer to keep twisting his words out of context?
31:03
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus did say, judge not, right?
31:06
SPEAKER_00: says Charles.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm making all this up.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: And you say yes.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: But he didn't mean stop thinking about what's right and wrong.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: He meant don't be a hypocrite and condemn people for the same thing you're doing.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: Judge.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: Judge.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: Judge not.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, as we come to the Lord's table, we thank you for the clear guidance of your word.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who spoke boldly and offended people and finally got unfairly judged, condemned to a cross.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: But that's just what he wanted and what you wanted, so that he could die for our sins.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we can sit here with the knowledge that eternal life is ours.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: It's a guarantee.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: Because we have, in a sense, eaten his body and we have drunk his blood.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: And we memorialize, we remember that this morning as he asked us to by once again eating the bread and drinking the drinking the cup.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: God's people said.