Judgment

Intro

Welcome to River’s Edge today.

We have been in this series on the Sermon on the mount for some time…But we have been camping out here and we have intentionally been going slow through these three chapters

Why?

Because immediately after Jesus announced his Gospel: The availability of the kingdom of God

His rule…His reign…right now...

The very next thing after Jesus’ Gospel announcement was the Sermon on the mount.

Jesus is saying: Here is my gospel....The availability of God himself...

And now this is what it looks like extended though you

Your life can embody the good news of an entirely new and different kind of kingdom

So to intro us today...

We are going to play a little how well do you know your Bible game

So it will be on the screen: Can we recite John 3:16 together?

John 3:16 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Ah, yes…The core verse that we learn as kids

It teaches us that God loves

It teaches us that we are the object of his love

It teaches us that God has a son and we know that son is Jesus

and that whoever of us believe in Jesus will receive eternal life

This is a super impotrant verse just for our own salvation

This is the verse that gets memorized…and that sort of tends to live in our memories

But what does John 3:17 say?

To make it easier for you I put most of it on the screen and it is your first fill in

John 3:17 (NIV)

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Everyone always stops memorizing at John 3:16…But 3:17 is just as impotrant because John is telling is the mission of Jesus right...

That Jesus came to not to condemn us, but to rescue us.

Condemnation comes from the root of contempt that is in our lives

Contempt rejects the value of another person....it destroys fellowship and excludes others

it is out of contempt that condemnation happens....

And what John is trying to tell us is that this is simply not a part of Jesus’ character...

Jesus ‘ lack of condemnation gets put on display and contrasted against the Pharisees

John 8:1–11 NIV

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. 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.”

See the teachers of the law and the pharisees are all about using the law as a weapon to condemn’

And Jesus stood opposed to all of that, he was about embodying the law to save others

jesus didn’t just know the law, he was the living embodiment of it all, So when he stood there before this woman and all of the pharisees, he doesn't just apply the law to her but to everyone...

He says let anyone without sin cast the first stone.

See the Pharisees had weaponized the law and had directed it toward this one person

and what I want to suggest to you today is that this story right here is emblematic of why people don’t come to church today...

Some people don’t come because they hear a voice of condemnation in their head…They think about going to church but they hear this voice that said something like if I went to church I’d be the biggest hypocrite…Well yeah…Isn’t that why we are all here? Are we not simply repentant hypocrites?

I have found that just by virtue of the fact that I am a pastor, based on who I represent there are some people who don’t want to talk with me because they get a strong sense of condemnation...

You may have friends or family like this...

I want to suggest to you that they did not pick this up from Jesus, they probably picked it up from some other religious person....

Church we need to rid our characters of contempt and condemnation because we serve a God who came to save...

We serve a God that does not condemn…but transforms

John 3:17, John 8, all speak volumes about the character of Jesus

When the Apostle Paul wanted to talk to the Roman church about the difference between the Old Testament law and Jesus he said this:

Romans 8:1 NIV

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

Some of you are here and maybe you are struggling with sin...

something in your life that you did that you can not reconcile...

The desire of jesus NOT to beat you up and condemn, you…His heart is to say, I already took your condemnation on myself…I took your beating on the cross…Jesus is not about condemnation, he is about saving...

And what does it look like to save you

It means to make you into a new kind of person who doesn't even desire to do what you used to do

This is what it means to be saved

It means Jesus re-makes you from the inside out...

It’s with all of this understanding that we move back into the Sermon on the Mount

And before we do I want to give you just a quick word in Greek

The word is “Krino” K-R-I-N-O and it means “to condemn”

And it is also the same exact greek term to pass judgment on someone

In Greek it really means to speak harshly toward someone it means having an unfair or critical spirit

The word Krino denotes an attitude of someone who looks for the fault in someone else...

Have you ever experienced that in someone? Its hard to be around right?

So all of these verses that I read to you are linked by this word Krino…and its the exact same word that Jesus will use on the sermon on the mount …and in english we will read the word “judge”

Scripture

Matthew 7:1–6 NIV

“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. “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

So lets cover

Matthew 7:1–2 NIV

“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.

Do not Krino...

Do not condemn, do not look for fault in others, do not be harsh to others

Why?

Because your not representing Jesus well when you do

Condemnation is a way to punish or control others

When we condemn others what we are really doing is communicating that they are irredeemably bad and rejected

And many times we use condemnation as control other people or to punish them…we want them to feel our wrath

This isn’t the way God is...

When someone is condemned they are sentenced to exclusion

How many of us if we were to go around the room could identify with this sense that we have been punished or controlled by someone’s whose main voice is condemnation

All too often, we are people pleasers, so when someone condemns us, or blames us for something, the people pleaser inside of us wants that person to like us....So we mold our behavior to fit with what our judge or condemner wants

So well allow ourselves to be controlled by the condemning voice.

One of the questions I think is really impotrant is what voice do we listen to in our lives?

If you listen to a voice of condemnation…Is that the voice of God? Or something else?

Many people believe that God is condemning them but they are believing in a lie.

To be sure, your sin does distance you from God but its God’s heart to cleanse you of your sin and bring you close to him!

See Jesus is not this way

Jesus did not condemn so he doesn't want it for us.

Regular condemnation or judgment takes mercy right out of our lives

But when we become the kind of people who are freed up from judgment and condemnation…Then God is freed up more to use us and to bless others

So what does Jesus say to do…if your caught up with having a spirit of condemnation?

Matthew 7:3–5 NIV

“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.

This same strategy was used by Jesus when he spoke with the pharisees…Let those who are without sin cast the first stone…So How did Jesus know?

How does Jesus know that we need to look inward first?

The very fact that we are condemning reveals a that we don’t have a heart of kingdom righteousness.

I think the reason why Jesus used the eye example with a plank in our own eye is that when we focus on other people’s problems we play the comparison game and we become blind to our own issues.

Condemnation always involves a degree of self-righteousness and distancing ourselves from the one who is condemned

It always involves an element of comparison to others

In order to drop condemnation as a habit, we need to ask Jesus to deal with the contempt that is in our hearts.

To be fair the Bible does talk about believers correcting one another....But this is not what is happening here...

And if you remember, Jesus rebuked the pharisees

But you have to see the different spirit in it all...

Sometimes, the best thing you can do for someone else is to rebuke them.

Why? A rebuke is for their salvation…It is to bring them back into right relationship with others and with God.

If you study the interaction between Jesus and the pharisees one of the things that you will always see is that Jesus rebuked and corrected while the pharisees always “accused”

You will find in the Bible that an accusing heart nearly always goes before condemnation

This is why Jesus said…instead of condemning someone else…look at your own heart…look at your own life…do you have a heart of contempt?

Modern Example

This issue of Judging or condemning I believe is far worse today that it has been in recent memory

our society has slipped into an era of partisan thought

When something happens in our society and we immediately divide into camps and begin condemning the other side

This is just the default way of human life.

We have grown more accustomed to accusing each other and defending our own way, flaws and all…that we become blind to our own issues

Jesus wants to unleash his heart in yours...

And if you hold on to the partisanship

If you hold on to the accusations

if you hold onto the contempt that you have for others, then you will never be freed up to love like Jesus!

Lastly Jesus says

Matthew 7:6 NIV

“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

I don’t think Jesus is making the case that some people are just pigs and dogs and therefore unworthy of correction

What I think that Jesus was saying, and anyone who has seriously worked with animals in some way might understand this...

If you keep giving a pearl to a pig, it will eat it, but there is no nutrition there

And it will turn and tear you to peaces because at least you are edible.

See if we maintain a life of judgment and condemnation to others…There is no Nutrition there, for them or for us…There is nothing that will sustain you

So the object of your judgment will eventually turn and tear you to pieces...

The pearls to pigs piece is a very misunderstood statement because we tend to think Jesus is calling people pigs…But I think it is more of a warning of what a life of judgment will bring

Your judgment, your condemnation will devour you and all others...

Now Jesus doesn’t want us to judge one another because its not useful…But we do need to be corrected from time to time

So what Jesus I think is saying here is don’t judge.

Gently and lovingly correct, it eventually leads to salvation

Challenge

How countercultural would it in conversations at work or at a dinner party

Or even in conversations online...

When someone goes to condemn someone else…you were the voice of love?

Voices of condemnation should sting our ears

What if you came to the rescue of the condemned the way that Jesus came to the rescue of the woman who was condemned by the religious elite

They should be unbearable to christians…Because God is our father

and in him there is no condemnation

Maybe your here today and you are searching for truth

But all you have ever heard your whole life are voices of condemnation

That’s not God’s voice

Jesus came to save, not to condemn

and when you trust Jesus with your life

All that judgment can go away...

Because there is no condemnation for those who have their life wrapped up in Jesus life

Jesus is Good

He is Love

He is forgiveness

So we are going to take communion and there are a few things that we believe about this:

It is open to all who believe

But we also believe that this is a decision point...

Maybe your here and you need to say to Jesus today…I trust you with my life

You do so through this meal

So maybe your here today and you need to trust Jesus for the first time

He has been speaking to you and you know it

And maybe you're here today and you trust Jesus

But the voices of Judgment and condemnation have started to win…and you have allowed yourself to go down that road....

This meal says otherwise…That there is a God in Heaven who lays his life down for you

Jesus wants to free you from the burden of judgment…Its too heavy…You were not built to carry that burden....

This meal is about freedom