Not to Judge
Notes
Transcript
Let’s pray:
LORD, What a great day it is for Mission Woods Church as we will once again gather on our church property to worship as a family. Thank you for your hand of protection being upon us during this time of being apart. I have personally been so encouraged by those who have reached out to me, and through my own reaching out to others in our family of faith. To know that we have not ceased to be a church family warms my heart.
Lord, I ask that you would open our eyes and minds, our hearts and souls to your word this morning. We pray this together in YOUR Holy Name. AMEN
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
Not to Judge
Not to Judge
I’m excited that today our church will be gathering for a Drive-Thru communion service in our church parking lot. It’s been a long time. Being locked up for four months has not done our culture any good. In an effort to do what has been labelled “social distancing” - though what is meant is “Physical Distancing”, most of us have been in our homes most of the time. When we as humans of whom God said, “It is not good for man to be alone,” created as social beings have been separated for such a period, is it any wonder that we see less than cultured behaviors begin to emerge.
Granted the cultural climate has not helped. During this pandemic we have also come face to face with serious questions about justice, inequality, and race. And the church has been at the forefront of these discussions since its beginning. Sometimes at great cost.
This past week we celebrated the life of John Lewis - a representative at the national level, a civil rights leader, a man who encouraged people to get into good trouble. And he did, sometimes as we have been reminded this week at great personal cost.
It is within this context today that we come to our text. It takes no imagination for us to recognize the divisions in our culture. And James begins our text today with:
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
“Your passions are at war within you.” We don’t like to admit that do we. James goes on to point out those passions - our desires, the things we covet and cannot obtain. He tells us in the end of vs. 2, “You do not have, because you do not ask.” And vs. 3, “You do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”
Do you see what James is doing? He’s reminding us of several things, but primarily that this world and what is in it is not our primary relationship.
You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Our God “yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us,” vs. 5. God has shown himself to be a loving, giving God, who gave us the breath of life. It is God who has given us all things, and we in our fallen nature are so prone to considering the things of this world to be the prize. When we do so, we become selfish, we get in quarrels over who is right and who is wrong. And yet God is bigger than anything we’ve done in the past. God gives more grace. vs. 6.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Submit, resist, draw near, cleanse, purify…each of these commands are impossible without God’s invitation and grace.
In this walk with Christ and in our reading of Scripture far too many read of God’s condemnation of the sinner, and indeed that is there. We read our Bibles and over and over again we see God’s call to holiness, and righteousness. The more we see these calls and the commands of obedience for them to be true the more we see just how far short we fall despite our best efforts.
There are those that do not see any fault within themselves, in their view of themselves they’re like the rich ruler who believed he had kept all the commandments. He was convinced he could be righteous on his own power. But we can’t. The longer I’m on this path, the more I read the Word, the more I see its not about our efforts, it’s about God’s furious love for us.
Brennan Manning wrote:
The men and women who are truly filled with light are those who have gazed deeply into the darkness of their own imperfect existence.
As Christians, I have no doubt that each of us could make a list of the good things we do - and yet we can also look at a list of the areas of our life we’d rather not talk about. We are walking contradictions. We say, as the Bible teaches, “don’t sin!” and yet we know we continue to do so.
Verse 10 stands out in this passage:
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
To “humble” oneself is to make oneself bow down. What else can we do before our LORD who truly is HOLY, so holy in fact that John saw in his vision the elders in heaven bow down and cast their crowns before him.
The wisdom of Proverbs haunts those who would lift themselves up:
Humility comes before honor. - see Proverbs 15:33; 18:12.
But that’s not our world. That’s not our culture where the loudest voice or the largest crowd seemingly wins the argument. Whether it be the news pundits on network or cable, the politicians, the activists, the protestors, or friends and family on social media there is no lack of self declared righteousness.
Yet, when we get to the point that we’re trying to determine right and wrong we’ve already missed the point. Who are we to determine such? Yet we’re so quick to do so.
Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.
I won’t speak for any of you, but I can say that I’m guilty. I know that whether I say anything publicly I am far too quick to judge. My moral compass is far too often slanted towards what I want.
Jesus warned us in the Sermon on the Mount:
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
“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? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Familiar words for us, I know. I’m working on becoming a better whittler - working on that plank in my own eye.
James concludes our passage today:
There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
That’s pretty conclusive. There is only one LORD and judge. Who are we to judge our neighbor.
I began today speaking of our current cultural climate. In a time where it is so easy to stop listening and simply shout against that which we think we disagree. We hear words and phrases that have become triggers though we seldom allow the ones speaking to define what exactly they mean. Defund the police, Black Live Matter, Fascist rule, Open the schools, shut down.
John Lewis who passed last weekend, was known for the phrase “good trouble.” You may have seen it on some of the masks at his memorial service. Good trouble, I believe, is when we push against an injustice though it may get us in trouble, but we do it for what is right - simply for what is right.
In the fourth century lived a monk named Telemachus. He is a martyr of the church. It is said that he lived an ascetic life. During this time there were still gladiator fights that took place around the empire of Rome. Telemachus went to one of these so called sporting events and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He made his way through the crowd down onto the stadium floor.
The little monk ran toward the gladiators, “In the name of Christ, STOP!” The gladiators had no trouble casting the little monk aside. The people at first laughed thinking it part of the entertainment. As he persisted, their laughter turned to anger, and turned on him. Historians tell us he was stoned by the crowd.
The Emperor was so impressed by his martyrdom and it spurred him to issue a historic ban on gladiatorial fights.
Sometimes there is great cost for doing what is right. Jesus reminded us that it would take everything - for us to lay down our lives and take up our cross. James put it like this.
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
This is the God’s Holy Word.
Thanks be to God.
Let’s pray:
Sovereign God, forgive us for our pontificating and self-righteousness. Forgive us for how often we have judged our neighbor or our sister or brother in Christ. Teach us to let it go, to keep our eyes focused upon you and to Draw near to you. Lord, we need you to cleanse our hands and purify our hearts. Give us strength to resist the temptations of the devil and to simply follow after you. In Jesus’ Name we pray. AMEN.