Our Harshest Critic

Introduction

Good to be back - haven’t spoken here in quite a while.

I know we’ve been back from Japan for a couple of weeks now but I do want to say that we missed you guys and thought of you often. It’s always good to be home.

How good is the new building progress? We’re expecting next door to be ready to use in just a couple of weeks; continue to pray and please fulfil your pledge if you haven’t done so already.

It’s exciting church - 2026 is going to be a new season for HFTC; pray that you enjoy the last part of this season that we’ve been in. God has been good in our last season - but I believe He is going to do wonders in our new season.

We’re currently going through our final culture pillar - Journey, not Judgment. We’ve gone through the 5 culture pillars: 1) The sweetest smelling church 2) House of Peace 3) EgoLESS 4) MeaningFULL 5) Journey not judgement.

And when it comes to talking about judgement, or not judging - we often instinctively think about judging others, which is natural - because many of us have been the victim of someone judging us, or have known when we have overstepped and become judgemental ourselves.

But there’s a blindspot that we can develop when we talk about this topic - which is that we often don’t pay attention to what happens when we judge ourselves.

I think we are often very aware of the way people treat us (the way our bosses, friends, family) treat us; but how often do we actually pay close attention to how we treat ourselves?

In pastoral ministry - I’m genuinely quite surprised by the amount of people that struggle with self-judgement, or as we otherwise know it, self-condemnation, that can’t seem to realise that they themselves are actually the source of judgement.

ILLUSTRATION: My self-condemnation story.

I’ve actually shared with you guys quite recently a season that I went through where I really failed in this area. When we were looking for the building - my biggest task as a new lead pastor of this campus; and every single option was just falling through - we couldn’t secure deals, we couldn’t find the right places, people were rejecting our offers. My mind started to slip from the mentality of “that’s ok, it’s just not God’s will” down to “you failed in the first task that the board gave you.” “how can you lead this church spiritually if you can’t even provide for it physically?” It was almost like my own heart was condemning me for my failures.

And perhaps this sounds familiar to some people here - sometimes we fail in life; it may be a relationship failure, it may be a mistake that you made, a sin that you committed, and you don’t realise it but you become your harshest critic. You start to judge yourself, you allow voices of self judgement, self condemnation in to your life.

Perhaps we think that judging ourselves may even be a good thing, we deserve it, maybe we even think that it makes us a better person.

In some cases we sometimes we even convince ourselves that we deserve it.

And just like that - like what Dan’s been speaking about over the last few weeks; we actually sit in the judge’s seat; but it’s not over someone else this time - it’s actually over ourselves. We presume that our judgement is more accurate than God’s, that we are a better judge of ourselves than God is. We Judge.

So I believe this morning God wants to set some people free of that inner voice that continues to judge and condemn them. Let’s pray.

Pray

Segment 1: When my heart is my harshest critic

1 John 3:20–21 “20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God;”

1 John is a book, as we know that is written largely to confront a specific heresy growing within the church, and John does this by writing largely about assurance of faith; how does a believer KNOW that they are saved? What assurances do we have of salvation - and so this is the context of which this passage comes to pass.

The wider context of this passage is John actually talking about being a Child of God and what it means to be a child of God - he talks about loving one another and fleeing from sin; in other words - and this is important to note; he’s talking to real believers here.

He’s talking to people here who are Christians - these are people who are trying to follow Christ, they’re trying to know how they can be assured of their faith, how they can walk closer with God.

He’s not talking to people who aren’t of God, He’s not talking to the public here.

And I think this is important to note: This self-condemnation comes EVEN in the context of the church; it attacks believers. Believers who are seeking to live Godly lives, believers who want to identify as Children of God - these are the people whos hearts are condemning them.

In other words, it’s you and it’s me - we are the people that John is talking to. So no you’re not strange if you find yourself doing it - Christians have been doing it since the beginning.

And so right here we’re introduced to this reference “when our heart condemns us”. John is talking about the internal voices, the internal talk that may serve to steal that assurance of salvation, that assurance of worth and relationship with God from us.

I want you to notice at this point that John doesn’t specify whether the heart is right or wrong in judging us. He doesn’t say anything about whether the self-judgment is deserved or not.

What I mean by that is sometimes we may feel that the judgment is justified. That our hearts are right to condemn us. Perhaps we have made a mistake in the past that we are holding on to, a sin that we are committing that we judge ourselves by, perhaps there is brokenness in our past that we believe justifies separation from God - whatever it is; we can sometimes take those reasons and use them to condemn ourselves. And then we pass it off as justifiable.

I have seen so many cases of an individual allowing self-condemnation to occur in their lives unchecked - convinced that they are correctly judging themselves, convinced that it is not a bad thing, only for the enemy to come in and use it as a weapon to tear apart their lives and strip their calling from them.

Segment 2: We have an enemy

And I do want to talk just for a second here about something related to this which has been weighing on my heart heavily in prayer recently.

I want to talk about the fact that we actually have an active enemy out there - who wants to get to us, and will do anything that he can to get to us. An enemy who is willing to use our self-judgment and condemnation to break us down. An enemy who will take any opportunity to speak lies to us that WE can choose to inernalise and buy in to, and as a result - begin to use as fuel for self judgment and condemnation.

Scripture says in 2 Corinthians 10:3 “3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.”

We are even reminded in 1 Peter 5:8 “8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

And I think Christians genuinely forget this, we live our lives so off-guard sometimes as if the devil is not actively seeking a way into our lives, into our families, our churches, our ministries.

We often risk such separation from God into our lives in the name of convenience or busyness or even just laziness - and are surprised when the enemy gains a foothold in our lives and begins to do what he does best; steal, kill and destroy.

And that’s his game plan - Jesus gave it to us in John 10:10 “10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” - the enemy isn’t here to play, his end goal is to steal your peace, your security, your confidence; he’s here to destroy any shred of faith and relationship with God that you may have, and he’s here to kill you - your emotions, your body even. He wants you dead, he wants every part of you dead, separated from God at the highest level; and it’s amazing that we leave our doors open for him.

And if you give him a foothold in your life through self-judgment and condemnation, you can be assured that he will take every opportunity to use it to drag your spirit to new lows. What may start as seemingly harmless, can quickly become debilitating.

I always feel prompted to remind the church - pick up your guard. Be watchful, watch yourselves, start praying over your families.

My pastor always used to tell me don’t assume the devil is as lazy as you are

And this is just one of the areas - self-judgment, self-condemnation, one area I’ve seen the enemy use prolifically in churches.

ILLUSTRATION:

I told you I always struggled with this issue somewhat of self-condemnation. It’s been going on for quite a while - a battle that I’m winning, but one that I’m definitely still fighting. Back when I was in FCC it was much more severe - I was a young pastor, 28 years old, positioned to take over one of the biggest churches in the city. The crazy thing is that I had an extremely large base of support, I mean I’m sure some people may have had their doubts for various reasons, but honestly - I had most of the church behind me. There was no real external voice condemning me.

But there was always a lingering voice in my heart - “You’re too young. You’re going to mess this up. You won’t be good enough, who are you compared to Pastor Benny (my SP)?” and I just couldn’t really shake it. To the point that it actually started to give me cold feet.

Around the same time, I attended a funeral - and at the end of the funeral there was a symbolic moment where you get to release butterflies. And so I was watching as the funeral attendants released these butterflies in this beautiful moment at the end of the funeral, they were beautiful, huge butterflies that very nearly filled the sky; it was a pretty amazing moment. But then I noticed this one attendant who had one big butterfly left in her box, and whatever she did - it just did not want to leave. She was shaking the box, turning it upside down, prodding the butterfly, trying to take it out by hand - and just nothing was working; this butterfly was so determined to stay inside that box.

And I remember thinking at the time of that incident, “what a loser butterfly, so stupid to choose his own cage rather than the freedom that he’s on offer, rather than the purpose that he was quite literally bred for.” and the moment I thought that, it was like the Spirit whispered to me, “That’s you - when you condemn yourself.”

And I actually had a moment where I started to get emotional - which sorta worked because everyone was crying anyway so now I just blended in. But it’s because I had that realisation:

I had traded calling for condemnation, I had silenced God’s voice over my life and had slowly, but surely replaced it with my own. I had become my own judge.

Segment 3: The effect: Self Judgment stops us journeying with God.

And John tell us exactly what this does to us in v21. This is what happens when we start to judge ourselves, we start to condemn ourselves: 1 John 3:21 “21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God;”

This is a positive phrase but what we can infer from it is the opposite - if our heart DOES condemn us then we LOSE confidence before God.

Self judgment and Condemnation steals our confidence to approach God, takes away our ability to approach the throne of grace with confidence.

What this looks like in our walk is that we start to shy away from the presence of God.

We don’t have any more confidence in our prayer, we don’t feel like approaching God in prayer because we feel undeserving, we doubt whether He even hears our prayers, we believe our prayers are ineffective.

We begin to doubt His mercy and kindness over our lives - and begin to drift into thinking that God is no longer for us, we stop seeing God as a Father - and only see Him as a harsh critic.

We may even begin to doubt our salvation - and buy into what we condemn ourselves for. We are too sinful for God to love, too broken for God to use.

The end result looks very much the same regardless of what the symptoms are: Self judgment stops us from journeying with God.

When we judge ourselves it presumes that WE have the final right to judge, it presumes that WE know better than God, that OUR judgment is more correct than God’s

We can even fall into a very dark place where we presume that the work of the cross is insufficient to cover our sin and mistakes; it can quite literally defeat the work of the cross in our lives.

Segment 4: The Solution

So what do believers do when they have fallen into this pit of self judgement? How do we battle self condemnation? Because at first glance it doesn’t really look like John has provided us with a solution in this passage - but that’s not true. He actually has.

1 John 3:20 “20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.”

Notice that John does not say anything along the lines of “listen to your heart” “trust your heart” - no he literally tells us the complete opposite; he basically tells us to ignore what your heart is telling you because God is GREATER than your heart. Don’t believe the internal voices of self-condemnation and self-judgment because they AREN’T from God, they don’t BELONG to God.

Again, pay attention to the fact that He doesn’t say your heart is WRONG. He doesn’t say your heart is RIGHT. He just implies that it doesn’t matter! Why? Because it comes down to this simple fact: YOU are not the Judge, God is.

In other words: Your heart may be a witness to your brokenness, but ONLY GOD gets to judge it.

Your heart’s condemnation does not get to over-ride God’s judgment!

John even goes on to say - God knows EVERYTHING! He already knows the mistakes you’ve made, He already knows the sin you’ve committed and WILL commit, He already knows the brokenness that you hide and carry around; and if HE doesn’t condemn you - then who are you to condemn yourself?

The judgement and condemnation of the heart should never replace the confidence we have in the FINISHED work of the cross!

You know - we’re able to feel the weight of sin that leads us to repentance, and the bible encourages us to EXAMINE ourselves to check for unrepented sin, which we are to flee from as Christians; but these things are different to self condemnation and self-judgment.

I want to speak to some people today that may have fallen into self judgment and condemnation. You have voices - perhaps even your own voice speaking into your life; telling you that you are not good enough, that you are a mess, that you aren’t worthy, that you are unclean - and these thoughts, these judgments have paralysed you; they are stopping you from drawing near to God, or feeling His presence.

You have declared yourself judge in place of God! It’s time to get out of the Judge’s seat - you need to release the judgment that you have made on yourself. Maybe you even need to release the judgement that others have made over you WHICH YOU BELIEVED.

You judge yourself DIRTY - He has declared you CLEAN You judge yourself UNWORTHY - He has delcared you WORTHY You judge yourself GUILTY - He has declared you FORGIVEN You judge yourself BROKEN - He has made you WHOLE

You need to submit to HIS judgment, and relinquish your own.

ILLUSTRATION: Appointed, not Annointed

You know when I first joined this church - there weren’t many rules. I was expecting like a full on induction into the work environment. Dan basically showed me his disaster of an office and was like “Welcome. Get to work” and that was pretty much the full HFTC induction.

But he did have one uncharacteristically serious conversation with me which I think up til this day, is the single best lesson for ANY minister to learn.

He sat me down and carefully explained to me - he said, “Jon, I want you to know that you are not in this position because you are anointed. You are in this position because you have been appointed.” I was like - what does that even mean? He went on to explain, “So many ministers believe that they are in their position because they are anointed - and that’s ok, until someone more anointed comes along. Then they get insecure and are always looking over their shoulders, wondering if they will lose their jobs because there is someone who can do it better.

But that’s not how we do things here. You are in this position because you have been appointed by us - and that’s important to know because we want you to be secure in your job and calling. It doesn’t matter if someone more anointed comes along, you have been appointed to the role - it’s yours, operate in that security of calling.”

You know - this applies to self judgment too. Because if we think of ourselves as only loved by God because of how GOOD we are, and how Anointed we are - well then when we fail and when we break, we can be tempted to believe that God’s love for us diminishes. We begin to judge ourselves, and condemn ourselves because we believe it’s all based on performance, on anointing.

But that’s not how it is - the bible says that God loved us FIRST, before we could do anything. He called you son and daughter BEFORE you had a chance to even prove yourself. You are APPOINTED as His child, and your brokenness and sin cannot steal that appointment away. He has already Judged you clean, He has already declared you loved - and you can’t change that judgment; you can only submit to it.

Segment 5: Not performance, position

You guys know the most confusing passage in the bible? The one in Romans?

Romans 7:14–24 “14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

You can literally hear the wrestle inside Paul’s mind here - and this is the same wrestle that I believe that John is addressing. We want to love God and serve God, and we’re striving towards that but the things that we do, the sin that we carry, the mistakes that we make get in the way - and we reach this same conclusion that Paul reaches in v24. “I”m a wretched man!” our hearts condemn us.

And if we were our own judge - this is the sentence that would stand unchallenged. We ARE wretched, beyond help, quite undeserving of being called sons and daughters of a Holy God.

But RIGHT after this Paul writes easily one of my favourite verses in the entire bible - Romans 8:1 “1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

The word condemnation in the greek is katakrima - and it doesn’t just mean “not guilty” it goes further than that, it more means that there isn’t even a sentence against you anymore, that the entire case against you has been closed FOREVER.

This means that because of Jesus - all of our sin, our brokenness, our shame, our past mistakes; have been wiped clean. You aren’t just not guilty - there is no longer any sentence against you!

“For those who are IN Christ Jesus” It is not about your PERFORMANCE - it is about your POSITION.

For those who are IN Christ - the Judge Himself has thrown your sentence out. Nobody can condemn you anymore - YOU cannot condemn yourself anymore, because the only one who can judge you has declared your not guilty.

The beauty of Romans 8:1 in the life of a Christian is that this ISN’T the end point; this is not where Christians “end up” once we’ve got ourselves in order and our sin in check. No - this is quite literally the START of the Christian’s journey. It BEGINS with positioning yourself in Christ and IMMEDIATELY being declared not guilty.

We don’t “work towards” NO condemnation, you live from it.

And this is why self judgment, and self condemnation is not viable as a Christian - because you are not the judge. God is; and He has already pronounced a verdict on you. “Not guilty.” Who are we to over-ride what the Lord has spoken over you?

If the Lord declares you forgiven, then who do we think we are to say otherwise?

ILLUSTRATION: “But you don’t know what I’ve done”

You know in heavy pastoral ministry - when I deal with people who are struggling with significant sin, and significant guilt in their lives as a result of their sin; I hear variations of this one line quite commonly. “But pastor, you don’t know what I’ve done.”

One specific time I was counselling a young girl through immense guilt that she just could not overcome. It caused her to step out of ministry altogether, and leave the church for a period of time. And as she sat opposite me weeping - I said to her, “It’s time to come home, it’s time to come back to the Lord, He wants you back.” She responded with this line; “But pastor, you don’t know the things I’ve done.”

I just said to her, “I dont need to because I’m not your judge. But the Judge already knows everything you’ve done; and He has declared you His daughter. It says it right here.” I said as I showed her Romans 8:1.

You know when I last caught up with her around 5 years after that incident, Romans 8:1 was still her phone’s wallpaper. Not guilty. Sentence withdrawn. No condemnation. Present declaration.