10.13.2013 Judge Not...

Judge Not... from Grace Summit on Vimeo.

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Lord, thank You that we can worship You – You are altogether beautiful. Thank You that we can gather together to worship You. We love You – we ask that You would help me to speak effectively – that we could hear Your wisdom and instruction. Thank You for this day – we pray in Your name.
Mike teaching – Judge Not, lest you too be judged…
We need to learn to judge effectively – judging – to take facts and make some sort of decision about those facts. Too often, we have an idea about something and then try to gather the facts to support it.
Envy – wanting something someone else has.
I think sometimes, I might not have wanted it until I see someone else who has it. Covetousness is one of the ten commandments.
Pride
Romans 12: 3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. – don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought.
We sometimes reach a point where we are ‘self-sufficient’ – and feel like we don’t need God.
On the flipside, we should not think more lowly than we ought – that is insecurity.
All these feelings stem from a misunderstanding of Who God IS and who we are.
Sometimes we think God is interfering, stern, impatient – we think we are the only one who will care about number one.
Last week, Mike finished the talk on Jonah. He was an interesting guy – but he didn’t understand God’s grace. I thought about it – if I were on that boat, it is all about me, throw me in the water.
Jonah 4:2 – I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents in the face of calamity.
1 Tim. 6: 17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
Ephesians 1: 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
I’m not supposed to use extreme words like always, never, etc – but those are the only words to describe God – He is always the same; He never changes. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
That doesn’t mean we always get everything we want - I’ve always wanted a ’62 Cobra (car) – my wife gave me the Matchbox model of it.
We have every spiritual blessing – that is the God we serve.
Who am I? I was pausing – think of that – my first thought – I am God’s beloved. I am not worthy of that title. Even though God has blessed us with all these things – sometimes it is easy to see something we want and to be covetous of it.
If we truly believed we had everything we needed, why would we ever judge someone else?
Dennis Knable used to say – we are in a battle, and we are warriors in that battle. If we are not battling and warring against the enemy, we often are warring against each other.
The problem is, there are differences between people. The natural thing – I look at the person to see how we are different. Does his different make him better than me? Or am I better than him? There are 6 Billion people in the world, and each is unique – that would be a lot of judging to do.
John – what about this guy or that guy – Jesus basically said, consider yourself. Don’t worry about him.
We need to learn to accept these differences.
I was thinking of Peyton Manning. If all of the football players were like him – every set of downs would be 4 and out – if there are only passers and no receivers…
The goal is not to make everyone like you. I like who I am and where I am – and if someone doesn’t wear the same baggy pants or drive the same car as me, there must be something wrong with them! We can be different in speech, music choices, food, etc.
1 Sam. 16: 6 When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed stands here before the Lord.” 7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
– Saul was the king – head and shoulders above everyone else. But it didn’t turn out right – he was self-centered and God told Samuel to find a replacement. Then he went to Jesse’s house – and the first son comes out and Samuel thinks – certainly this is the one – but God says no… - Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.
What I saw of this – it was a rebuke!
There is a story – I have a couple stories – I had a job with a big company – 200 people, 2 floors – I felt it was my mission field – I will find some similar people who are ready to hear the gospel – and I had it planned out. Everyone said to me – Watch out for Doug Lamb, he is bad news. I was making lunch and someone behind me said, I hear you preach at Ohio State – not me – I heard you were the pastor of your church… - Nope, not me. It was Doug Lamb. So I invited him to Bible Study – I thought that would quiet him up – and he came! As he walks in the door – Blankety blank it is cold outside!
I came to know Doug – he had tons of hurt – injury and scars – he was a mess! He would call me up late at night and we would chat – and he ended up getting saved! If I had followed those others’ opinions of him, I would have never spoken to him. He was the most ready to hear, and I thought he was the least ready to hear – I had judged him wrongly.
Everyone was telling their stories of how they came to Christ – One guy – tripped at the park – his Bible went one way, his beer and cigarettes another way – and he decided he had some choices to make.
I don’t have a great testimony – I thought I had it all – I had all these goals that I reached by the age of 25 – but I was still the same person inside.
Love joy peace – God wants to give me these internal things.
I had another friend – the things we judge others on - speech, dress, activities, food, music – there was a Mennonite gal who joined our church – this was in the hippie age, bell bottoms – tie-dyed shirts – she comes in a long skirt and head covering. But once you get to know her, she was something! She eventually started wearing jeans to be able to better reach people.
I don’t watch R-rated movies. I think I’m something – but then I meet someone who doesn’t watch movies at all. We can’t judge ourselves.
When it comes down to it – these aren’t biblical things, they are opinions. Country music? I like it; others don’t. I have good taste; others don’t. that is the essence of what we are saying when we judge others.
We often soften our speech so we can judge people and make it not sound so offensive.
There is a guy at work – Kidding! Just kidding! – You’ve got a big nose – Kidding! Just Kidding! – My daughter lived in Texas for a while – Someone might say - She is a large woman, bless her heart! Like that makes it okay to say.
Sue and I were involved in a pregnancy support group. There were couples who had had abortions and they were grieving. One of the unusual things – the hurt they had received was from other Christians. A lady got kicked out of her church because she was pregnant. So she should get an abortion so she can go back to church. Think of a picture of a young girl – and a picture of a young girl with a baby. You would judge the young girl with the baby – but the other is the one who looks okay on the outside, but had an abortion…
What we say matters – Prov. 21:18 – the tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit…
The tongue has a lot of power – we can give comfort or distress – we can make them happy or sad! I’ve been guilty of many things.
In Mike’s teaching – I’ll start over – We should take some time to think about – times when they had judged someone. I have found – there are so many ways we do this – without even realizing we do it. Mike had five categories – Race and Politics – those are global issues – the others were more personal. I tend to personally judge.
4 things that have helped me – I have had a lot of experience with these. Think about the times we judge – and then deal with it. If we realize we do it, we can deal with it.
1) Realize the forgiveness God has given us. Everyone needs it.
We all have every right to be judged by God – but He has forgiven us – and has forgotten. Until we understand God’s forgiveness to that degree, we can’t grow in it.

2 Peter 1:5-11 5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.
Peter goes through this list – how to grow as Christians – this section is really good – you can read it. For if these qualities are yours and increasing…
He who lacks these qualities is shortsighted and blind, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.
Until we remember our forgiveness – we will tend to judge.
Ephesians 1:7-8 - 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us.
God lavishes His grace upon us.
2) I pray for them – the worship leader was, well, okay. I thought I was better. It was obvious that I wasn’t going to become the worship leader there. So I made a habit to pray for Jim. I noticed – sometimes he would mention a need, and I would meet it. He broke a string, I gave him one. Prayer is an amazing thing. He got better. I was amazed – he got so much better – but actually – it was my attitude that changed.
3) Take time to find out – Luke 6:6 – The synagogue was a busy place – but Jesus noticed the man whose hand was withered. It takes time to meet needs – but He saw him and met that need.
We have a passel of kids – I took Sue out to dinner – and another family comes in and the kids were terrible – then I realized it wasn’t the kids, it was the parents – then they left – I went to pay our bill – Sue went outside – and met up with the mom. I just imagined how Sue was letting her have it… - but Sue called me over as I walked by – they had planned to go to Sea World that day – and one of their kids had gotten hurt and they spent the day at the hospital instead. No wonder everyone was so disappointed.
4) THRPLGEW! Philippians 4:8 - 8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. – Can I think of things that are true and worthy of praise about that person?

Let’s pray…