Judge Not

Well, good morning, Church of the Grow.

How are we doing?

Good morning.

Russ is excited.

He gets to sit in the crowd this week and take a week off.

He is excited to be here.

My name is Jonah.

I'm the student pastor here for Church of the Grove for our Walnut Grove campus.

And I'm so thankful to be here with y'all this morning and get this opportunity to preach.

If you're a first-time guest, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much for choosing to join us in worship and this message.

If you're watching online, thank you for watching online.

Can we welcome everybody that's watching online?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Man, I'm so thankful for our online service during the season.

Um it's just difficult and hard.

Um and I know that there's so many people watching online that want to be here with us in person, but but maybe can't due to sickness or or exposure.

But there's also people that are getting to watch online that are maybe on vacation, maybe at the lake, maybe in the mountains.

Um my family's on vacation.

I told them I'd give them a shout-out.

They better be watching.

If they're not, I'm gonna quiz them on it later, see if they're actually watching.

Um, but man, we're so thankful to be able to have online for people to gather with us even though they're not in here physically.

Um but man, I'm excited for this morning.

Um, we're gonna get to wrestle with some very easy words from Jesus, and it's do not judge.

Those are easy words to think about, right?

Easy words to talk through.

I was messing with Russ earlier saying how I've been on Safir for three months and I've gotten three opportunities to preach, but every single one of them um kind of getting the short end of the stick.

Um the first time was Father's Day, which is statistically one of the lowest attended Sundays of the year.

Um, so I was like, well, that's awesome.

Um, second time was was fasting.

Um that's what I was preaching on, and that's just a topic that is not preached on very often.

So I was like, well, that's cool too.

Um and then this Sunday I get to preach on do not judge, um, the passage where Jesus commands us not to judge others.

A very easy passage of scripture, and it's Labor Day weekend.

Um, so I don't know what they're trying to tell me, um, but regardless, I'm so excited for this morning.

But so we're gonna continue going through the Sermon on the Mount, which we've been doing since about January, um, and it's filled with so many different passages of Scripture and so many different messages, um, but there's so many that they're often hard and difficult to hear, and this is one of those, on the passage where Jesus commands us, do not judge.

Um, that's a difficult message for us to hear as humans.

Um, but the interesting thing about it is that when we hear that, we immediately start thinking about somebody else, right?

You just heard me say this morning is about do not judge us.

Someone just came in your mind that's very judgmental, and you would never think that it's yourself, right?

You would never think, oh, I I I need to hear this message.

It's always someone else needs to hear this kind of message.

Um, and it's interesting, you've never, I bet you've never met someone that's been like, I'm the most judgmental person I've ever met.

I'm a judgmental person.

You've never met someone that brags about that.

It's so funny that we hear this and we think, I'm glad he's not preaching to me this morning, but someone else needs to hear this.

Um, but if I'm being honest and vulnerable, I I will tell you, I'm I'm kind of a closet judger.

Um, I I don't really openly judge a lot.

Um, we could be talking face to face, and you would never know that I'm judging you.

But in my head, I'm I'm I'm maybe thinking some some different things, especially if we're talking about sports, I'm having a conversation with you, I'm probably smiling, but man, if you start talking about the Florida Gators, the Alabama, um, Georgia Tech, oh Lord.

In my head, I'm like, oh gosh, what is wrong with this person?

Um, I'm I'm a closet judger, meaning I don't express it a lot, but in my head, there's some judgmental things running through.

And sometimes it's silly stuff like uh like sports.

Um, if you're a cat person over a dog person, Lord help you.

Um if you don't like Chick-fil-A, if we start talking about food and you bring up you don't like Chick-fil-A or Zaxby's or something like that, in my head, I'm like, man, this person is missing out.

Um but on a serious note, we we all struggle with being judgmental.

We all struggle with being judgmental because we have this tendency to think in every situation that we're right and that God is on our side.

Whether it's something silly or something serious about what what Bible, what the Bible has to say, um, whatever it may be, we we tend to think that we are right and God is always on our side.

He's on our side anytime there's a difference, anytime there's an argument, anytime there's a debate.

God is always on our side.

He thinks that we are right.

So if you're like me, you might think this message is for someone else when you when you kind of hear me introduce it, but but it could be in fact be for for you.

There's a study done in a book called Unchristian by David Kinneman and Gabe Leon's a number of years ago, but they did a survey of young people, and they kind of just asked them what comes to mind when you think about Christians?

And they gave them a list of words to choose from, and there were three words that rose to the top that kind of trumped everything else.

And 87% of those people that that are outside of the Christian faith looking in, observing what the Christian faith is all about, and 87% of the people, when they were asked what do they think about Christians, 87% of them said that they're judgmental.

87% of people that were asked about this view Christians as people that are judgmental.

The other two words that they use were hypocritical and anti-gay, which are two words that could probably fall under the umbrella of being judgmental.

So just know that that if you tell someone you're a follower of Jesus and they're not a part of the church and they're kind of looking outside uh or looking from the outside in on the Christian faith, that they could be viewing you as judgmental just because you say that you're a Christian.

And I think we're quick to kind of shrug this off of like, oh, they don't they don't know what they're talking about, they're they're looking in from the outside, that number's skewed, they were probably asking uh so-and-so, or this group of people, or this group of people, and you just kind of dismiss that number.

The 87% of the people outside of the Christian faith view us as judgmental.

But I think what we have to do is we maybe need to look at that number and maybe do need to do some evaluating and look in a mirror and see, are we judgmental?

Maybe ask God, God, am I am I judgmental?

Am I hiding some things in my heart?

Is there some something deep inside of me that is judgmental towards other people?

As I was preparing this sermon, I think that I I read this and immediately, you know, I'm like, oh, I'm not judgmental.

I don't struggle with this.

But as I began to prepare the summer, what I found is that there are some pieces of me that lights and it tends to judge others.

What Jesus not so gently says is that, man, when you judge what when you judge others, you're gonna get yourself into some trouble.

So do not judge.

I think we all struggle with the tendency as well to kind of pick and choose passages of scripture that we that we kind of go to a lot, that we read diligently and we we study and we dig into.

And I think this is one of those passages that we're gonna talk about this morning.

That when we read it, we we kind of brief through it.

Judge not, all right, I don't judge, I'm good, and we move on.

Or we see the the title, the heading of it is judging others, and we just skip right over it because we don't want anything to do with that.

So this morning, I think we're gonna we're gonna take some time in a passage that we often skip over.

And we're gonna be in Matthew 7, verses 1 through 6.

Matthew 7:1–6

And this is a passage where Jesus boldly tells us, do not judge.

But as we continue to walk through the Sermon on the Mount, we're kind of moving into the portion of the sermon where Jesus kind of begins to talk about how we relate to other people, um, but more specifically, how we relate to people who don't believe the same things as us, how people who maybe aren't Christians, who don't live the same way as us, maybe how we relate to people that are living in sin openly and they admit it.

So this portion of scripture is where Jesus is talking about how we relate to people that we probably don't agree with.

But as you're turning to Matthew 7, 1 through 6, this passage we're gonna be in, I want to take some time to kind of explain what Jesus does not mean in this passage, because I think sometimes that that's important for us to understand the context of the passage in the whole of Scripture.

There's so much stuff in Scripture that talks about judging, so we can't take this one little passage and just that be it.

So I want to explain what Jesus does not mean.

Because often, even in our culture, you you know, you tell someone that their shoes are untied, and they're like, Are you judging me?

Are you judging?

I mean, you you you tell someone, hey, um, you you know, I I I don't know, that that's not the right way to do that.

There's an easier way.

And are you judging me?

Are you judging how I do things?

We live in a culture that's so defensive, and live in a culture where people get offended so easily, and it's kind of a culture where we just can't say anything.

We can't say anything now with with without offending somebody, but that's that's not what Jesus is talking about here.

When Jesus says do not judge, he does not mean do not think or or do not observe and evaluate something.

That's not what he's telling us to do.

He doesn't mean that that when he says do not judge, he does not mean that you've got to agree with everyone and everything.

That's not what he's telling us to do.

When Jesus says do not judge, he doesn't mean that when you disagree with somebody or see somebody living in sin, you've just got to hold your tongue and sit on your hands and you can't say anything.

When Jesus says do not judge, it is not the same thing as do not say or do anything.

That's not the same thing.

Another way you can say this is that when Jesus says do not judge, he is not saying do not discern.

Or do not think, do not press into this.

That's not what he's saying.

So this morning, that's kind of what I want to spend some time looking at is what it means to judge in a condemning way, and what it means to judge something in a discernment kind of way, something that we are called to do as followers of Christ.

So there's a truth I think we all need to understand before we jump into this passage, and it's this the follower of Jesus is called to show unconditional love, but not unconditional approval.

We are called to show unconditional love to everybody, no matter what they're going through, no matter how they live their life, no matter what they do, what they say, how they look, no matter anything, we are called to show unconditional love, and we are supposed to love everybody the same way God has loved us.

But we are not called to show unconditional approval.

We are not called to just roll over and go with the flow of the culture.

We are called to stand firm in our faith and to stand up for what God says in his word.

So that being said, let's read Matthew 7, verses 1 through 6.

Matthew 7:1–6

Jesus says, Do not judge others, and you will not be judged, for you will be treated as you treat others.

The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.

And why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own?

How can you think of saying to your friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye when you can't see the past, when you can't see past the log in your own eye?

Hypocrite.

Hypocrite.

First get rid of the log in your own eye, then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye.

Don't waste what is holy on people who are unholy, and don't throw your pearls to pigs.

They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you.

So the big idea I want us to kind of kind of get in our heads this morning is that as followers of Christ, we are called to shine a flashlight rather than swing a gavel.

Now that's just kind of a catchy saying that you can remember is shine a flashlight rather than swing a gavel.

But what that means is that as followers of Jesus, we are to shine the light of Christ on everybody and everything we encounter.

We are to shine the light of Christ, but we are not to swing a gavel.

We are not to condemn people and judge people in a condemning way that Jesus is talking about here.

We are to shine a light and not swing a gavel.

We have to learn to discern but resist the urge to condemn.

So once again, we got to ask, what does Jesus mean when he says, do not judge?

Um so the word judge in the Greek is the word krino.

I think I'm pronouncing that right.

Um so it's krino, and to be honest, it doesn't really help at all to know what it means or to study the Greek because it has so many different meanings.

It has such a wide range of what this word means, and it's used in so many different contexts throughout scripture.

So that's why it's important to understand what Jesus is talking about here.

So when you start studying this word, it it kind of this word in a broad sense, very basic sense, means to separate, to separate something, or two things, or three things, whatever, to simply separate.

But under that, it can mean to make a moral judgment, a judicial decision, uh, enforce a law or exact a lawsuit.

Um, it can mean God's judgment on creation, it can mean condemnation, discernment, it can mean all these different things.

But when we read the words of Jesus, we got we we start going, Jesus, what do you what do you mean when you say don't judge others?

What do you mean when you say do not judge?

But as I said earlier, I really want to kind of focus on the difference between judging in a in a condemning way that Jesus is talking about here, and judging in a in a discernment kind of way that is encouraged throughout scripture.

Um, and I'm gonna use a couple different passages to to kind of prove that.

Um But first, uh I ran across a little, well, I didn't run across it, Russ gave it to me, but it's really good.

Um it's a it's a diagram by an author named uh Sky Jathani.

I think I'm saying that right.

But he wrote uh a fun and insightful book called What If Jesus Was Serious?

A visual guide to the teachings of Jesus we love to ignore.

Um so in this in this book, he posted a picture, and I think we maybe have it, maybe not.

Oh, yeah, there we do.

So he posted a picture where you basically take an apple and an orange.

Now, this is a very gross apple, if you can see it close.

It honestly doesn't even look like an apple.

Um but you you have an apple and an orange.

So there's there's kind of two types of judgment.

One type of judgment is discernment, kind of separating two things is this is this, and that's that.

That's kind of what discernment means in a broad sense.

So discernment is this is an apple, this is an orange.

Anyone gonna argue that?

Anybody get offended by that?

So this is an apple, this is an orange.

That's discernment.

In a spiritual sense, that would look like this is good, this is evil.

This is right, this is wrong, this is sin, this is not sin.

That's discernment.

It's separating two things.

Now, condemnation comes in where you say, Well, I like apples better than oranges.

Apples are great, oranges are terrible.

In a spiritual sense, God loves apples, he hates oranges.

God's gonna save all the apples, but he's sending all the oranges to hell.

Because they do this or they look like that, they think like that, they act like that.

Apples are superior, oranges are nothing.

That's condemnation.

That's the kind of judgment that Jesus is talking about in Matthew 7.

We cannot judge people in that way.

We cannot say God loves these people but hates these people.

God favors these people, but he hates the people that do this, or he hates the people that look like this or think like this or act like this, or believe in this political party.

We can't think like that.

That's condemnation.

And that is what we are not called to do as Christians.

So to get again a better understanding of what Jesus is not talking about in Matthew 7, I want to read a verse from 1 Corinthians, it's verse, it's 1 Corinthians 2, 15 through 16.

So we're gonna compare the warnings of Jesus to not judge with the encouragement from Paul to judge all things.

So this is 1 Corinthians 2, 15 through 16.

Paul says, the spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?

But we have the mind of Christ.

So what Paul says is the Spirit of God that lives in you gives you the discernment to judge all things.

It's a command and an encouragement to judge all things.

And when you read it just by the wording, you say, well, that contradicts what Jesus says.

So how is the Bible true?

But when you look at what kind of what the word judge means, how it can mean condemnation, which Jesus is talking about, or discernment, which Paul is talking about, it became it becomes clear.

Discernment, it's a really good thing.

The gift of discernment from the Holy Spirit is a good thing.

It's a necessary thing to be a follower of Christ.

As Christians, we are called to live differently than the world.

And in order to live differently, then we gotta discern what's of the world and what's of the kingdom of God.

We gotta have that gift.

We gotta be attentive to that and we gotta focus on that.

So as Christians, in a discerning way, we have to judge all things.

We can't just roll over and follow the flow of the culture.

We have to discern.

We have to discern what God is calling us and how He is living, calling us to live.

So what we can, in a sum, can get from these two passages is that the word judge can simply mean two different things.

It can mean to discern.

The difference between two things is in uh we judge that apples are not oranges.

This is what Paul is referring to.

And we even see later on the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls us to discern between right and wrong, good and evil, by by seeing the the fruit that a tree bears, which is just a metaphor for for seeing the what kind of fruit that that people bear.

It kind of shows who they are, if they're if they're truly believers or if they're of this world.

But the second meaning of judge is to sit in the place of judge and condemn.

And that's what Jesus is warning us about in Matthew 7.

It's a hard the the I think the difficult thing about this is that it's so hard to discern and not let it lead to condemnation.

It's so hard to kind of separate two things of okay, that's good, that's evil.

That's that's obedience to God, that's sin.

It's hard to discern those two things without letting condemnation come into the picture of, oh, well, if that's evil, then then I hate that person.

I think less of them.

I'm better than them.

Jesus is on my side.

They're they're not as good as me.

Discernment so often leads to condemnation, but we gotta remember we are called to be a light.

We shine the light of Christ and we discern what's good and evil, what's what's sin and what is not sin.

We have to shine that light, but we also have to make sure we are not condemning others or swinging a gavel.

So there's a few perspective changes that I really want to focus on that we can gain from this section of Jesus' sermon.

And it's the first one is this as kingdom citizens, we are to be life-giving, not judgment pronouncing.

As citizens of God's kingdom, we are to be life-giving.

We should produce life, we should shine the light of Christ in everything we do, but we should not be judgment pronouncing.

We do not have the final say, we do not swing the gavel, we do not condemn.

Going back to Matthew 7, verse 1 through 2, do not judge others, and you will not be judged.

Matthew 7:1–2

For you will be treated as you treat others.

The standard you use in judging is a standard by which you will be judged.

When we see this verse, we have to we have to recognize that God has placed you in your family, in your in your neighborhood, in your workplace, in your school, and in wherever you're at in life, in your in your gym, in your the the ball field that your kids play at, wherever you're at in life, God has placed you there to be a light of Christ.

To give life, not to judge, not to rule and condemn, but to give life and life abundantly that you have been given in Christ.

God has placed us to be a light and the salt of the earth.

But we have to choose that.

We have to choose to be a light rather than a gavel.

We have to choose to be the salt of the earth rather than something people see and just despise because they're judgmental.

We have to choose to be a light.

I think we gotta realize that judgment is not, it's not our job.

Condemnation is not our job.

God makes it very clear that He's gonna handle that one day.

It's terrifying to think about, but God will have the final say.

He will bring judgment and bring it righteously and just, but that's not our job.

Jesus says, we'll be judged with the same measure in which we judge others.

And he says, judge not, and you will not be judged.

So when I read that, I begin thinking, I don't want to be judged.

If I'm judged on my work, then I am toast, literally toast, because you know what hell's like?

I would be toast if I'm judged on my own works, on what I do, how I live, how I treat.

Others.

I would, I don't want to be judged on that.

I put my faith in Jesus so I could escape that judgment.

I put my faith in Jesus so that when God comes to judge me, He's not judging me, He's judging the righteousness of His Son that lives in me because of the gospel.

I don't want to be judged.

This deal, don't judge others, and you won't be judged, that sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

I'd be willing to shake on that.

I'd be alright with that.

So I'm not gonna judge others because that's not my place, and I'm called to be a light.

So instead of being judgment pronouncing and condemning, I'm gonna be life-giving because Jesus gave me life.

Why would I not give it to everybody else?

Why would I not want to share it with everybody else?

Why would I, why, why would I not want to be a light of the world because of because of Jesus that lives in me?

I'm going to point others towards the one who saved me from my sins rather than condemning them for their sins.

This leads to the kind of the second perspective change from this passage is condemning judgment is always hypocrisy.

Condemning judgment is always hypocrisy.

Verses 3 through 5, Jesus says, And why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own?

How can you think of saying to your friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye when you can't see past the log in your own eye?

Hypocrite.

Hypocrite.

First get rid of the log in your own eye, then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye.

Man, how can I notice the speck in my friend's eye when I got a log in my own?

How can I see past my own sin to see the sins of somebody else and then condemn them for it?

Make them feel guilty for it.

Make them feel ashamed for it.

How can I do that if I can't even see past my own sin?

Condemning judgment is typically fueled by a self-righteousness and a pride.

Condemning judgment is fueled by pride that I am better.

I'm good.

Jesus is on my side.

What you're doing is wrong, and he doesn't like that.

Condemning judgment always comes from a place of self-righteousness, of I've got it all figured out.

You need to follow my way.

You need to listen to what I have to say.

That's condemning judgment.

We have no room to judge others.

I spent this past weekend on vacation in the mountains with my family.

We went up Thursday and came back last night, but we got, I mean, there's just this crazy view, crazy view of miles and miles of mountains.

And as I'm sitting here writing this message about judging others, especially this part, I began to think, who am I, who am I to judge someone else for their sin?

When I look out over creation and I think about how God created everything in the earth, in heaven, above the earth, below the earth, he created everything, including me.

So if the same God that created all those mountains that I'm looking over, the miles and miles of mountains, and he also created someone else and breathed life into their lungs, who am I to judge that part of God's creation?

As a part of God's creation, who am I to judge another part of God's creation?

It makes no sense.

It's illogical.

Because condemning judgment, it always comes from a place of hypocrisy.

As people who have been saved by God's grace, we don't gather under the banner of perfection and self-righteousness.

We gather and we bring people in under the banner of grace.

That's what we should strive for.

We don't want to condemn because we are worthy of condemnation.

Brother, we want to show people grace.

We want to spread grace.

I want to close out this morning walking through just a powerful story in Scripture.

And this story gives such a practical application of what it looks like to show compassion and mercy and grace rather than condemning judgment, but also just show such boldness and discernment in the situation.

We're going to look at an example from none other than Jesus Himself.

It's the passage of John 8, verses 1 through 11.

John 8:1–11

It should be on the screen, but I'm just going to read through it real quick and kind of talk through it afterwards.

And it says this But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

Early in the morning he came again to the temple.

All the people came to him and he sat down and taught them.

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst, they said to him, Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.

Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such woman.

So what do you say, Jesus?

This they said to test him that they might have some charge to bring against him.

But Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.

And they continued to ask him.

He stood up and said to them, Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.

Once more he bent down and wrote on the ground.

But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.

Jesus stood up and said to her, Woman, where are they?

Has no one condemned you?

She said, No one, Lord.

And Jesus said, Neither do I condemn you.

Go and from now on sin no more.

Man, to me, this is one of the most mysterious but beautiful passages in Scripture.

You know, if when I get to heaven, probably one of my first questions is going to be, Jesus, what in the world did you write in the ground?

They caused these people to walk away one by one and showed your compassion to this woman in such a beautiful way.

But in this passage, you see so much of the heart of Jesus, the character of Jesus.

In this passage, you see his love for people, his compassion for people.

You see his absolute love for people, but you also see his absolute hatred, hatred of sin.

You see his compassion and his grace and his mercy, but you also see his hatred towards self-righteousness and pridefulness and arrogance.

You see his hatred for sin, but love for the sinner.

In the story, there's a woman caught in the act of adultery, there's religious leaders, and they say, Jesus, here's a stack of rocks.

The old law commands us to stone her.

We got to kill her, Jesus.

That's what the law tells us.

Here's a stack of rocks.

Let's do it.

Jesus looks at them, he writes in the dirt and he says, How about whose ever without sin throws the first stone?

Man, that's got that's a dagger of a line.

Dagger of a line.

It had to pierce the hearts of so many people there that day.

Whoever is without the first sin, throw the first stone.

And what happens?

They begin to walk away one by one because they realize who am I to judge?

Another person because of my sin.

Who am I to judge?

So they start walking away one by one after Jesus took such a bold step to tear down self-righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees.

After telling them, examine yourself.

If you're without sin, then you lead the charge.

Take your shot.

And after they all walked away, Jesus is left with this woman.

A broken, sinful woman.

An adulterous woman.

Man, she had to be terrified.

Terrified.

She was just on the brink of death, about to be stoned by all these religious leaders that claimed to love God so much, but would be willing to kill her for her sin.

She had to be terrified.

She was on the brink of death, and now she's standing in the presence of God.

In the presence of the Son of God.

She had to be terrified.

She was probably preparing for the worst.

She's probably preparing to be condemned.

She was probably preparing to be killed by Jesus Himself because she knew her sin was worthy of death.

She was probably preparing for the worst and preparing for condemnation.

But what did she get?

Man, she got the love of Christ in the most powerful way.

The most powerful way.

For Jesus' sake, neither, neither do I condemn you.

Even though your sin makes you worthy of it, even though you deserve it, I'm not going to condemn you.

I'm not going to condemn you.

Jesus sees this woman in her sin, but instead of condemning her, he spoke words of life to her.

Out of a love for this woman, he showed mercy and grace.

But out of a hatred for sin, he told her, go and sin no more.

We got to notice that part that Jesus doesn't say, All right, you're free to go.

He says, I don't condemn you.

I'm not going to condemn you.

But man, I'm going to command you to go and I'm going to command you to sin no more.

I'm not going to encourage you to continue to live in this sin that you're living in.

I'm not going to encourage your adulterous ways.

I'm going to tell you to go and sin no more.

I'm going to show you mercy.

I'm going to show you grace and compassion.

But man, I'm going to discern what's good and what's evil, and I'm going to tell you to go and sin no more.

There's something important there.

It's important for us to notice how Jesus doesn't encourage this woman to continue living her life in sin, but he points her to the life that's found in Christ.

The abundant life that's found in Christ.

Another thing I love about this story is that ultimately Jesus could have stoned this woman.

According to his rule, that he who is without sin cast the first stone, he could have thrown all the stones he wanted to.

He could have been slinging them one after another because he was without sin.

Jesus was perfect.

He was perfect.

He was the only one there worthy of condemning this woman for a sin that she was worthy to be condemned for.

But instead of condemning her, he showed grace and compassion and mercy.

And that should say something to us.

That's people who have been bought with a price and have been given that same grace and mercy and compassion, we should show the same thing to other people.

Who are we to judge?

Jesus didn't condemn, he gave life.

So if Jesus chose to give life rather than condemnation, why wouldn't we?

Why wouldn't we?

Just like the woman caught in adultery or our sinful nature, it makes us worthy of condemning judgment.

We are worthy to be condemned because of our sin.

Not by man, but by God.

We were doomed for condemnation.

We had no hope in and of ourselves.

We were doomed.

But then God sent Jesus.

Instead of condemning us to death the moment we were born into our sin, God sent Jesus so that we would have a way and have a hope to eternal life.

God knew we couldn't do it on our own.

He knew that just like the woman caught in her adultery, we were caught in our sin.

We were stuck in our sin and we had no hope, but God sent Jesus.

Sent the greatest news to ever spread across the face of the earth.

The good news that he lived, died, and rose again to be righteous for us and died in place of us.

So, kind of my application to the sermon, all this different stuff.

If you're a believer and you have been given life through faith in Christ, my question to you is why would you not do the same thing to every single person you encounter?

If you have been saved by grace through faith, not of your own works, then why would you not wake up every single morning desiring to give that life to somebody else?

Rather than walking through the day condemning this person, you're driving to work and someone's going to speed limit and you start just going to town on them and thinking the worst of them.

Instead of doing that, why would you not desire to give life to that person?

I'm preaching to myself.

I can't stand slow drivers.

But man, why will we not wake up every day with the desire to give the life that Christ has given us?

Son of God came to this earth to save you.

God loved you so much that he sent his son to die for you.

Why would you not want to share that?

If you're not a believer in this room, if you never experience a life that's found in Christ, if you're like the woman caught in her adultery, standing in the presence of the Son of God, living in sin, then man, my my my charge to you, my my plead for you is to put your faith in Jesus.

To hear the words that Jesus told that that woman that was caught in her sin, I don't condemn you.

Go and sin no more.

What that means is Jesus saying, I didn't come here to condemn you.

That's not my that's not what I came here for.

That's not my mission.

I came to show compassion.

I came to give peace.

I came to give salvation to all those who would believe in me.

If you'd never put your faith in Christ, the invitation of life and life abundantly is right in front of you.

Believe in the gospel.

Believe that Jesus came to die for you.

He lived for you, died for you, and rose in your place.

So that you wouldn't have to fulfill the righteous requirement that we have to get into heaven and spend eternal life with God.

Jesus did it for you.

He gave it all for you.

No matter how much sin you're living in.

I don't care what your situation is, I don't care what you've done in the past, what you're doing now, what you plan on doing in the future, it doesn't matter.

Jesus did not come to condemn you, but he came to save you.

He came to give you life and life abundantly.

So I want to take this time to just kind of extend an imitation of salvation to you.

Man, you can be saved from your sin by simply believing in the good news of Jesus, placing your faith in Jesus, placing your faith in the Son of God and what he did for us, and believe that it's truth, that what God's word says is true.

And confess that Jesus is Lord.

Again, I charge you to hear the life-giving words of the Son of God.

Neither do I condemn you.

Go and from now on sin no more.

Neither do I condemn you.

But go and put your faith in me and sin no more.

Find life in the gospel.

Place your faith in Jesus and experience some mercy and the grace of God.

To kind of close out, close out this sermon this morning, we're gonna have a time of communion.

Um, we're gonna have a time for us to just kind of reflect on the sacrifice of Christ.

Um, we're we're gonna take this time to remember, to remember and and and not forget what Christ has done for us.

So if you're watching online or in the room, um or if you're in the room, go ahead and get your your cups ready.

But if you're watching online, we still invite you to take place and participate in communion.

Um there's nothing special about really what you use, it's more so what it symbolizes.

Um so so man, gather up if you got a piece of bread, some grape juice, um, man, whatever it looks like, just something that you can refer and and participate in.

But I'm gonna read a passage of scripture.

It's Matthew 2 26, verses 26 or 28.

And so when Jesus introduces communion, he says, now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to the disciples.

And he said, Take, eat, this is my body.

And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

So when we take communion as believers, as people have been, as people who have been bought by the blood of Christ, have been have been taken, our sins have been taken away through the breaking of the body of Christ, man, we we we come and we participate in communion.

Man, we we we eat of this bread and we remember the way that Christ's body was broken.

Broken, beaten, crucified.

Man, we remember what Christ went through on our behalf.

As we drink the juice or or or kind of anything you can get your hands on at home, we remember that Christ's blood was spilt for us.

There was only one way we were ever going to be cleansed from our sin, only one way.

And it's the blood of a righteous man.

And that man is Jesus.

Jesus shed his blood to cover our sin so that when God looks on us, he doesn't see our sin, but he sees the righteousness of his son.

So as we partake in communion, that's what we remember.

We remember the sacrifice of Christ.

And we even participate.

We participate in the sacrifice of Christ and show that our faith is in Jesus and Jesus alone.

Let's pray.

God, thank you for this morning.

Thank you for your word, the truth that it holds.

God, I thank you that even in challenging passages of scripture, even in this one, judge not that you may not be judged.

God, there is so much truth that can be found in this.

But there's also a challenge that we live in a world where we can't even discern things anymore.

We can't even separate things from right and wrong because everybody's opinion just blends in together and everybody views you as judgmental when you step out and put your foot down in boldness and faith.

So, God, just give us a balance.

Give us a balance of discernment and condemning judgment.

God, will we be a people that discern and we seek you, we seek salvation, we seek good, we seek obedience to you, but God, would you not let us be a people that condemn others?

Would you not let us be a people that condemn, but rather give life and life abundantly that you have so graciously given us.

So, God, as we continue to worship and we we take this communion and remember and celebrate what you have done for us, God, just continue to speak to us, continue to reveal to us anything you're trying to speak, God, and just give us wisdom as we go out into the world.

And give us a heart that loves people but hates sin.

God, we love you and praise you.

Pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.