Call ‘em Like You See ‘em

Judgment Calls

I have shared stories of my athletic prowess before. Some of us are ‘has-beens’ and some of us are ‘never-wases’.

I am certainly of the latter variety more than the former.

When I was in 9th grade I ran track for the school team. I was part of the 4x400 relay team. Our city schools were divided into 2 regions, east and west. At the end of the season both regions had meets where the athletes tried to qualify for the big city meet where the medals were awarded to the winners.

My school was on the east side. The top 3 finishers from each region qualified for city. My relay team finished 4th. So, we didn’t qualify. Okay.

But, there was rule that no athlete could compete in more than 3 track events. It’s 9th grade. They want to encourage participation. If a school had a phenomenal athlete he could have dominated multiple events.

Anyway, one of the teams that finished ahead of us, had an athlete that participated in too many events. It’s a rule. They violated it. They were DQ’d. And we were given the chance to go the city meet.

We ended up finishing 5th at the city meet, out of the medals. But we got to go. They had a rule for a good reason, a school violated that rule, there was not subjectivity, it was obviously objective.

Races in a track meet are easy to determine who wins. Everyone plays by the rules, starts when the gun goes off, and the first 3 across the finish line get medals. Simple.

The summer olympics are in Paris this year. We got to go the Olympics in Atlanta years ago. It was fun. We spent some time watching races on the track. Easy to determine who wins.

Unlike gymnastics, or equestrian events, that are judged. And ice skating in the winter games. Judgment calls. Most of us are probably not going to sit down and watch a track meet, a gymnastics meet, or ice skating event, unless it’s the Olympics.

We are all USA fans. We are emotionally invested in our country’s reps performing well and medaling.

It is exhilarating when our team is judged to be the best, and angering when they are not, especially when they are clearly better than the competition.

Will the Russian judge favor their own athletes. Will they downgrade our athletes just b/c of the country the rep. They want to make us mad? We might throw things at the TV if we see that happen.

When you are emotionally invested, you want the judgment calls to be right. There are rules. Good reasons for the rules. And, we want the rules to be kept so the competition is fair.

Recently, in the NCAA women’s basketball semifinals, the refs made a foul call w/ 5 seconds left in the game. Connecticut was behind, but had the ball with the chance to score to win the game. But the refs called a foul against them, allowing Iowa to run out the clock and win.

Everyone had an opinion about that call. It was obviously a foul. But some said that the ref should not have called it and allowed the UConn players to determine the outcome by making or missing a shot.

It was a foul, but it is the judgment of the ref whether or not to call it. And if they hadn’t, and UConn gone on to win, then Iowa would have had a fit.

Depending on which school you were rooting for, probably effects how you feel about that foul call. Should the ref have let the UConn player get away w/ it? There is an unwritten rule that refs should allow the players to determine the outcome of the game. What about that rule? It’s way subjective. And, it provokes strong emotions.

They have rules for good reasons. And sometimes it comes down to judgment calls.

Umpires in MLB games. Now, all the televised games have the square that indicates the strike zone for each hitter that is determined by rules. Top of the knees to the middle of the chest and over the plate. But, each pitch is a judgment call by the ump.

If the D-backs are batting, and the Dodger pitcher throws a pitch the catcher catches outside the box, and the ump still calls it a strike, that makes us mad. We get emotional.

Or, if it’s inside the box and the ump calls it a ball. Then the Dodgers are mad.

Or, if there’s a spot where the ump consistently was wrong, but wrong all the time, then suddenly, at the end of the game, calls it right, now everybody is mad.

If you’re going to be wrong, at least be wrong all the time consistently.

These calls effect the outcome of the game, who wins and who loses. Rules are made for good reasons. And judgment calls are made my officials that determine the outcome of the competition.

When we see a judgment call made in a situ where we have a vested interest, and it’s wrong, we get emotional. And nobody wants to make everyone mad.

Sometimes, we see a judgment call made right, like a foul in a basketball game, or a strike out in a baseball game, or a better performance on the ice, and still it makes ppl mad. B/C the judgment call went against someone we have invested in emotionally. USA, D-backs, Iowa basketball.

A Jr. High track team broke a rule. Should they still get all the benefits as they didn’t? You know there were some mad athletes and mad parents and coaches on the other side of that call.

Nobody wants to make ppl mad. But, there are rules for good reasons and judgment calls need t/b made.

Jesus and the church are similar. Jesus has a few rules. He has them for good reasons. And, there are judgment calls that need to be made. Sometimes, we mistake who the Judge is supposed to be and what is supposed t/b judged.

And, we can get emotional when these things are discussed and decided.

I’m going to bring up some potentially emotional things today. They are in the bible, this is the next passage in the series I’ve been teaching thru. I will do my best to represent Jesus the way He intended to be represented.

The reason why we may get emotional is b/c we have a vested interest in the ppl it may effect.

Here’s the deal.

If you want everything Jesus offers, but you want it on your own terms, it doesn’t work that way. Jesus wants you to get everything He offers, but He will call you out where you are living your life on your own terms, preventing you from maximizing what He provides.

He is the judge. He makes the judgment calls. Not us. Jesus came to save us, not condemn us. Still, the judgment calls need t/b made.

We can recognize when one of His rules, that He has for good reason, is broken. And we can call sin, sin.

Yes, ppl may get hurt when we do this. But, these are His terms, not ours.

All of us must be willing to give up everything we want, whether it it within his rules or not, to receive from Him everything He offers.

Let’s get into it. It’s a familiar story, often quoted. It comes from John 7 and into chapter 8.

The Jewish leadership set a trap for Jesus. And, this trap can catch us, too. We have an enemy that wants to divide us and will use this to cause all kinds of problems in the church.

The Trap is Set

John 7:53–8:6 NIV

Then they all went home, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.

This happened right after the Festival of Tabernacles. It was a celebration. People were feeling good and partying all over town. Some, no doubt, who were less concerned about their behavior, crossed lines that should not have been crossed. Reveling, partying, having a good time, and poor life choices were made.

Jesus came to the temple to teach. There was still a crowd around that the festival had attracted to town. He was an attraction Himself.

What would He say to tick off the arrogant leadership? What would He do that would defy physics and natural explanation? Would the leadership catch Him in a contradiction that would discredit Him and prove He’s not who He says He is?

You could cut the anticipation w/ a knife.

Here came this woman. Forced to be there, drug in. The trap was baited.

Where’s the man? It takes to to Tango!

This was as male-dominated, authoritarian society, where women took the brunt of male dominant abuse and arrogance. It was an accepted practice. Men could get away w/ doing bad things to women and the other men would not hold them accountable b/c they were doing the same things.

That’s the catch here.

She was caught in the act. We don’t know how. We just know she was guilty of adultery. She was not innocent. But she was alone.

It was an emotionally charged situ, on an emotionally charged day, where Jesus’ opposition hoped to have reason to charge Him and dismiss Him from making their lives miserable.

The woman was a pawn.

The attention of the ppl quickly left her and they focused squarely on Jesus. The merits of their case against her were almost irrelevant. They wanted Jesus to make an emotional mistake here.

Adultery. Adultery involves sex w/ anyone you are not married to. Regardless of whether or not you are married or single.

In the sermon on the Mount, in Mt. 5, Jesus raised the bar back to where it was intended to be from the beginning. He said, if you even look at a woman w/ lust in your eye you’ve committed adultery. The ‘want-to’ gets you in trouble. Fantasizing about it.

He had just said if you murder someone you’ve sinned. But also, if you hate someone so bad that you wish they were dead, fantasize about their death, you are just as guilty as if you did the deed yourself.

Adultery is the act, and the desire, to have sex w/ anyone you are not married to. 1-night stand or ongoing affair or actual lifestyle.

The law that God gave Moses and Moses gave the ppl said that everyone caught in adultery should be stoned to death, both the woman and the man.

The Jewish leadership has eased this rule over time, and their oral tradition was not nearly as severe in punishment as the law was written.

Why did God include this in the law that was given to Israel 1500 years earlier? Why was this a rule? Was there a good reason for it?

Israel had just come out of 200 years of slaver to the Egyptians. They were treated like animals and they acted like animals. They had no rules nor rights. So, the took advantage of whatever opportunities they had to pursue pleasure in whatever form it took. And, just like the ads in Las Vegas, often it took a sexual form.

Then, God redeemed them out of slavery, was leading them to their PL where He would tell them if they would live there lives there faithfully and obediently then He would protect them and provide for them and they would stay there forever until He established his heavenly kingdom.

So, God had to teach them what it meant to have faith in Him and be obedient to Him. One of His few rules to obey was no adultery.

Why?

He needed for them to maintain the sanctity of marriage the marriage bed. Intimacy between a husband and wife is a vital part of their relationship and contributes to the emotional bond between the two.

It must be protected and honored. These facets of the relationship must not be shared w/ any other.

This emotional bond is established w/ everyone a person is intimate w/. If more than one bond is established w/ different ppl, it weakens each bond, therefore the marriage bond would be weaker and subject to break under pressure. And we all know how pressure can build w/in a marriage.

Second, the marriage relationship is a model, an example of our relationship w/ God. He is perfect. He never changes. He always does what is best for us. It requires no grace on our part to keep this relationship.

We, however, are imperfect. We mess up. We are selfish by nature. We change over time. We, at times do not do what is best for the relationship. So, it requires a great deal of grace for Him to keep this relationship w/ us.

So, a marriage between 2 imperfect, selfish, changing ppl, requires double the grace. We must be gracious w/ our spouse if the rel is going to survive till death do us part.

And God is our example to follow as He is gracious w/ us. We must be as gracious w/ ea other as He is w/ us. He would never ask us to do anything for Him that He has not already done for us.

If we are unfaithful to our spouse. It demonstrates our lack of appreciation for His grace for us. This would call into question whether or not we have received grace by receiving Jesus as our Savior. So, being unfaithful to our spouse is also demonstrating being a lack of faith in God.

Israel was unfaithful to God. They bounced from idols, to false gods, to Baal, and back several times and were severely punished for it.

In order to teach this and reinforce this, God established this rule and a severe punishment for breaking it.

Third, when God created us, He knew the negative effects of a promiscuous lifestyle. When I was born in 1960, there were 2 STDs. Today, there are too many to count. There are no cures. They are manageable, treatable, and spreadable.

We could eliminate every STD in one generation if the world would adopt the godly principle of only being intimate w/ your spouse and staying married until death do you part.

Back to the trap they set for Jesus. They were not interested in justice regarding the woman. They were interested in entrapping Him for how He would handle this situ.

The law req’d capital punishment for this. It was not that it was carried out very often, if at all, in c.1. So, they baited the trap, waited and watched to see what Jesus would do. How would He apply the law?

If Jesus disregarded the law of Moses entirely, then they would discredit Him and point out how He was a fraud, not really from God, doing God’s work.

If He strictly kept the law, and ordered her to be stoned, the emotional outcry would be intense. Yes, she was guilty. But, she was also being used as a pawn in this deadly game by the male leadership. Where was the man she was involved w/? This would have been an extremely unpopular decision.

Yes, she was guilty of sin. But was it really a punishment that fit this crime to put her to death? 1500 years prior it was. But, this was a different time, different culture, different societal acceptances. A lot had changed. Had God’s word and His intent changed, too?

The Jewish leadership, in their oral tradition, had drastically eased the punishment for this violation. Couldn’t come to synagogue for a while. They hoped to show the harshness of the law, and come out looking like the compassionate, forgiving, gracious group that Jesus claimed t/b, but failed to demonstrate if He presented her to be executed.

They thought they had Him. But their collective IQ didn’t touch Jesus’. He turned the tables on them. They hoped to entrap Him. But then they got caught in their own trap.

The Trap Backfired

John 8:6–11 NIV

They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Jesus knelt and wrote in the dirt with his finger. We have no idea what He wrote. There are several OT verses that would be a good guess. But, there is no indication here what it may have been.

The emotions were heightening. The questions were continuing. What are you going to do, huh?

Okay, the law required an execution, in fact, two. But the law also required the witnesses to the violation to cast the first stone, unless they were guilty of the same sin.

Jesus does not mean here that only perfect ppl could throw a rock. No one, but Him, would meet that criteria. The law prohibited hypocritical behavior.

Why had the Jewish leadership eased the punishment for this crime? B/C they were all guilty of the same thing.

At best, they lusted, and talked among themselves about how they would enjoy a session w/ one, or more of, the local working women. And, the beautiful daughters of their colleagues were often the subject of their sophomoric, locker room, boy’s talk.

At worst, some of them had their own activity on the side. It was not uncommon for them to lead double lives. They would teach and speak against immorality. But then sneak off for a tryst w/ their own other woman.

It had become an acceptable sin for a man in that culture to lead a double life. Rather than confront ea other on the specifics of the law, they just changed the intent of the law and its consequence to suit their behavior.

If you don’t like what the bible says, then just tear out that page. Or, throw the whole thing out. But understand what you’re saying if you do that. You want God and everything He offers on your terms, not His.

Everyone of these ppl who drug this woman out before Jesus were shamed b/c they knew they were just as guilty as she was.

Then, Jesus addressed her. “Woman”… This was a respectful term. He was not being derogatory. He used the same term addressing Mary, his mother, at the wedding feast in Cana when they ran out of wind. And, Jesus was deeply respectful of His mother.

Jesus respected this woman. She received from Him, what few other men gave her. In fact what they gave her was grief and a horrible time.

No one was there to condemn her. And Jesus has said, recorded in John 3:17, that He did not come to condemn anyone. He came to save everyone. He offered the same opportunity.

Romans 8:1 NIV

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

Those who believe in Jesus and are saved are no longer condemned. We are not perfect. We mess up. We may commit adultery or other sins. But they will not result in our condemnation.

What does it mean to be condemned? You’ve been found guilty and sentenced to death.

In the following context, I’ll get to it later, Jesus addresses judgment.

We are quick to say we should not judge each other. True.

What does the bible mean, or Jesus mean, when He refers to judgment? It means the person being judged has been found guilty and sentenced to death. Condemned.

But only God, Jesus, can do that. It is based on the condition of the person’s heart. Do they have faith in Him to be saved. If they do, then their heart reflects that. And only Jesus can see the condition of a person’s heart.

If we were to judge ea other, we would be saying that the person we are judging is going to Hell.

That said, we can call a spade, a spade. We must call sinful behavior a sin, even at risk of offending the offender. This woman was guilty of adultery. She had to own that and deal w/ it.

If you saw me come stumbling drunk out of a topless bar, it might be wise to come and ask me what I was doing there, but if the obvious became obvious, then you would be on solid biblical ground to accuse me of sinning and I should repent. I should repent to God, and apologize to my wife.

Sin is still sin. It creates a distance between Jesus and us. It limits the effectiveness of the fruit, gifts, and resources He gives us when we come to faith. The farther away from Jesus we are, the less patient, less peaceful, less self-controlled, more anxious, more fearful, less capable of standing up to do right things in tough times.

These are His terms. If we expect to gain access to everything He offers at their greatest potential in our life, but at the same time insist on continuing to live a sinful lifestyle, we are kidding ourselves. It doesn’t work that way.

The woman came to faith, maybe earlier, maybe right there. Jesus did not condemn her to Hell. She was a saved woman. No more guilt for any life choice she has ever made nor would ever make.

The language Jesus used here indicates this was no one-night-stand. She may have have been a working girl, or in an affair, or just living a promiscuous lifestyle. She was a regular adulterer.

So, He commanded her, as a child of faith now, to leave her lifestyle of sin.

Jesus did what the law could not do which was remove the guilt from her life. She was no longer responsible to pay the price for her own sin. Jesus offered, she accepted, the weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She needed Jesus b/c she was a sinner. She would have admitted that. He would have accepted before she ever realized her need of Him.

Grace.

Applications

Don’t Judge

First, remember what it means, and doesn’t mean to judge someone.

If you judge them, you are condemning them. You are declaring them guilty and sentencing them to death in Hell.

But only Jesus can do that. Let Him handle who’s in and who’s out.

What it does not mean is, you can call a sin a sin when you see it. In fact, we should. Be sensitive. Be kind. Be loving. But friends don’t let friends sin w/out talking to them about it.

Don’t judge. But call a spade a spade and a sin a sin.

Remember, too. You’re guilty as well. Don’t let that stop you from helping your friends. But do let it stop you from doing so arrogantly.

Don’t Sin

Behavior matters. Belief determines where you will spend eternity when you die. God alone makes that judgment. How we act is based on what we believe.

God still takes your behavior seriously. It’s the reason Jesus had to die. We didn’t stop sinning when we started believing.

We’ve still got to take responsibility for our behavior.

But God is gracious and merciful. He will forgive. Don’t take this for granted.

If we continue to sin, we cheapen Jesus’ life and death.

Appreciate what Jesus did for you and keep it valuable.

Get More

Your behavior determines how close you are to God. The closer you are to God, the greater the benefits.

Just like my children. They will always be my children. I will always love them. But, their behavior will determine how close we are and how much I do for them.

With God, He asks us to be willing to give up everything we want, good and bad, to get everything He offers. Yes, we want to get more. But what God needs to see is us give up more.

You want more patience, peace, joy, love, kindness, self-control, courage, strength; then don’t sin.

You’ll still get into Heaven, but you bring more Hell into your life while you’re here.

Give up more of what you want, and get more of what He offers.

God has a few rules. He has good reasons for those rules. We may not realize the harm we are bring into our life by breaking them.

Judgment calls need to be made. When Jesus is the Judge, the calls are always right even when they don’t go our way.

If you want everything Jesus offers, but you want it on your own terms, it doesn’t work that way. Jesus wants you to get everything He offers, but He will call you out where you are living your life on your own terms, preventing you from maximizing what He provides.