The Merciful Winds Of Judgement

Thank you for listening to the Kelowna Christian Center podcast.

Our desire is that today's message will be fresh and encouraging to you.

For more information on KTC and how to connect, visit us at KTC.net.

How many of you remember back when Kelowna was surrounded by fire?

You remember that?

You remember how many of you may have been watching I think CHBC at that time, and they were pointing out to the fires, and the church gathered together in prayer.

Do you remember that?

And while we were watching CHBC that night, as they were explaining where the fire was going, and the flame was 200 feet high and it was jumping a kilometer at a time looking for fresh air, all of a sudden the screen went black.

And they didn't understand what had happened, whether or not there was a power outage, etc.

But what had happened was a very, very small cloud centered basically over in this area of the city came and just deposited rain right on that fire and put it out.

It was the result of prayer.

Do you believe that God can do that?

Do you know that there are 555 fires going on in British Columbia right now?

Our province is on fire.

But the wrong kind of fire.

We want the fire of God, right?

But you know what?

I think we should stand today and just pray and intercede for the body of Christ and for the people of our province because some of them are in really dangerous situations.

We had a lot of firefighters out there that are risking their lives.

Talked to one just the other day.

Let's stand together, okay?

And let's just lift up our province before God and believe God that He can intervene in a supernatural way and just send a cloud of His glory come in and just take care of that.

Some of you are struggling with your health in terms of uh of uh breathing.

Uh, you know, probably in March, I some of you know I had surgery, uh lung surgery.

They actually went in and checked out all the scarring that was in my lungs as a result of last year's fires, and then they they scrubbed my lungs and then flushed my lungs.

Isn't that phenomenal?

So I'm a brand new man, just like a baby with new lungs.

But this this these fires are not easy on people's health, and so we we need to pray, okay?

So, Father, we just uh present to you our province and the people that dwell in the province and those who are fighting the fires throughout our province.

We know, Lord, that you care about this nation of Canada.

And when your people pray, you heal the land.

When they repent of their evil ways, you heal the land.

When they cry out to you, God, for intervention, you hear from heaven, and you answer with the mighty power of your right hand, and you can intervene and bring judgment upon that fire and put it out.

And so, Lord, we ask right across this nation, this province today, that you will preserve the health of your people, that you will preserve property, that you will, Lord, intervene and put those fires out that are causing damage and impacting.

And we know, Lord, that there are some that are even set by people.

And so we ask that you protect us from the evil one, those who come with evil motivations and intentions to undermine and to strip this province of its resources by having to fight fires.

We ask, Father, for your intervention today.

And we believe that you hear from heaven and you answer us.

And some trust in horses and chariots and their natural human ability, but we will trust, as we sang this morning, in the name of the Lord our God, who hears us when we cry to Him.

When we shout out to you, help, Lord, you hear from heaven.

We thank you for that, Father, this morning in Jesus' name.

And our eyes will be looking across the province to see your intervention in Jesus' name.

Everyone's dead.

Amen.

Remain standing, if you would, please.

Amen.

Take a look at the the sound booth at the back there, would you for a moment?

Do you see two young people up there?

Would you stand up?

I want to see two of those young people stand up.

Come on, you can hear me.

You see them.

I want to tell you, we believe in putting our young young leaders to work, and here they are giving leadership this morning.

That's wonderful.

I'd like you to stand with me this morning and read the word of God.

I'm going to be talking about something.

Of course, you know, whenever I talk about something, it's uh it's somewhat challenging.

So I ask that you actually hear me out the whole session.

Don't walk out on me, or else I might cry.

Or I might take a wrong assessment as to your what your response is, but it's very important today that you hear the word of the Lord.

So if we could, let's read together.

Matthew chapter 7, uh, verses 1 to 5.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

Would you read it out loud with me?

Do not judge and you will not be judged.

Do not condemn and you will not be condemned.

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, brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye?

You hypocrite, first take the plant out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Thank you, Lord, for your word.

Who called you a hypocrite?

Jesus is talking here.

I didn't call you that.

I didn't call me that.

But Jesus doesn't mince words, does he?

When he says that we're acting one way and believing something differently.

So, Father, thank you for your word this morning.

We are grateful that we can stand in agreement with your word and that your word has the power to save and change and transform the way we think.

And so we open our hearts to you today.

Thank you, Lord, for revelation that will bring about transformation in our thinking and renewal and then reformation in our life.

We ask that, Father, in Jesus' name, for your glory.

And everyone said, Amen.

Give somebody a greeting next to you.

We see Larry and Francine are here all the way back from Kenya.

Welcome this morning.

Grateful.

Today's our our 46th year.

The 46th year of a life sentence.

You are my bride of 46 years, and what a what a blessing it has been to be with you.

And I've been a blessed man.

And thank you so much for putting up with me for 46 years and helping guide me through my old age.

Amen.

I see Don and Don Irvine and his wife.

Wonderful.

Nice to see you here today.

God bless you, Don and Carolyn.

Well, it's good to see those who have been part of our body for many years.

Don worked together with us and was the one who started Heritage Christian School, came to me as a as a pastor and said, I feel a real burden in my heart to do this.

And uh basically resigned from a very, very good job and took it on, and you can see where it's gone today, and we owe a great deal of gratitude to you.

Thank you so much.

And again, Larry and Francine, it's nice to see you.

Nice to see you home.

We welcome you.

Blessed to have you here.

And I know you've got a busy every time you come back home, you're busy uh meeting with lots of people, so God bless you and favor you and all your appointments.

And uh also thinking about Andrew today, I don't know where he is, but I see Daphne, you made it back, handling uh that trek of raising money for Israel.

Um and I think he's still going, isn't he, for a while?

Um, but he was really proud of you.

I know he texted me this week and he said you just kept right up with him.

Uh, even with all the smoke and the heat.

Bless you and thank you for doing that on behalf of Israel.

Yeah.

The Bible says, and would you say this with me?

The Bible says.

I'm gonna say that a number of times today because sometimes when I minister, people get the impression that it's David Caluman saying, It's my opinion, my observation, my idea.

It's not.

The Bible says, would you say it again?

The Bible says.

Here's what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 4.

2 Corinthians 4:4

It says that the God of this world, Satan, has blinded the minds of the unbelieving to prevent them from seeing the truth.

The Bible says, say that with me.

The Bible says in Colossians chapter 2, verse 8, that we're to be on our guard, that no one takes us captive through philosophy and empty deception, pseudo-intellectual babble, according to the tradition and musings of mere men, following the elementary principles of this world rather than following the truth, the teachings of Christ.

Colossians 2:8

God says, you better be careful and guard over your heart, lest your heart is stolen by ideas that are not based upon the truth.

The Bible says, would you say that with me?

It says, though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh.

In other words, our fight is not with people.

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they're mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.

In other words, God has given us tools and weapons in our belt that we can pull out to break down strongholds.

Strongholds are mental fixations that have grabbed a hold of people's lives that control their life.

And some of you, I rem I know when I was a young man growing up, I thought I was a jinx.

Every time I did something and and messed up, I thought it was my fault all the time.

Anybody ever had gone through that?

Don't hang out with me because when I do something, this is what happens.

Well, I had to break that stronghold in my mind because that was keeping me back from taking steps forward and believing and trusting that I could do it.

That's a stronghold.

The Bible says though we walk in the flesh, we don't warn the flesh.

The weapons of our of our warfare are not carnal, they're not with guns, but they're mighty through God to the overthrowing and the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and brings everything into captivity, every thought that is not an obedience to God.

The weapons that God has given us are to take every idea that is built upon deception and built upon falsehood and bring it back to the plumb line of God's word and find out what is true and what is not true, and then to proclaim what is truth so that our lives are not built upon lies and falsehoods.

The Bible says.

Would you say that after me?

And this is from the message translation.

We use our powerful God tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by God.

We use these tools to tear down the things that are caught in culture to trap and ensnare God's people and to move them from the truth into a lie.

And if you are in the word, you'll know the word, and the truth, you'll know the truth, and the truth will what?

Set you free.

So the more truth you live by, the more free you are.

And it should be in your heart when you see someone living a lie, believing a lie, walking in that lie.

It should be your heart to break the power of that lie over their life so they can be free.

So, in a very real way, we are we are truth proclaimers and we're confronters of things within culture and society that are undermining the power of truth to set people free.

The Bible says.

In Romans chapter 12, verse 2, it says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Romans 12:2

How do we do that?

We challenge every word, every idea, every ideology, every philosophy with the scripture.

Because we believe that the truth is in Christ and that his word is the truth.

And that if we get the word of God into our life, it'll be a protection against those things of culture that come upon us and come against us to undermine our liberty and our freedom.

So we stand up against every idea, every ideology, every philosophy of life, every word that we hear, and we place it up against the plumb line of God's word.

How many of you know the words are powerful?

They hold within them the ability to impact all of life.

And it's no coincidence whatsoever that when God, the Father, describes his son Jesus, he calls him the Word of God.

The Logos of God.

Meaning, and and the Greek understood, the Greek uh nation understood the concept of Logos.

It meant it he was the power, he was the source, he was the wisdom behind everything that was created.

He was the Logos.

He was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And what we hear from the Word of God is truth about all of creation, including you and me.

There's no question, there's no, there's no coincidence that Jesus is called the Logos.

So I want to address two words with you today that I believe that are impacting the church and undermining our strength and our viability.

And this will come against some of the culture of our world around us.

How many of you know we're a counterculture?

It's called the kingdom of God.

We live, we're in this world, but we're not of this world.

And we we've got to be very careful that our lives are not influenced and impacted and changed by culture.

We are to be the changers of culture.

The first word I want to talk to you about today is the word toleration.

Toleration.

Interestingly, the Bible doesn't even use the word tolerate.

Probably it's not used because it's not really in the character of God to tolerate.

God has not commanded us to tolerate people.

He's required of us to love everybody.

Hello?

The Bible makes it very clear that we are not called to tolerate people.

We are called by God to love people.

Tolerance is passive.

It's like putting up with people for a long time.

But love is active and it reaches out beyond ourselves.

And it cares beyond what the natural man would be able to care.

Tolerance, though, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is this, is defined as this, the capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the opinions, practices, or behavior of others.

As difficult as it may be for some of us to recognize, respect the opinions, the practices or the behaviors of others, there is a movement in our culture towards toleration.

The culture defines toleration in a different light, though, than what is put here in the dictionary.

It's redefining the term.

The new cultural norm would have us not only respect and recognize different opinions and practices or behaviors, but it wants us to accept, embrace, and celebrate them as if they were our very own.

If I disagree with another person's viewpoint and worldview, and some of you have found that I've done that with you on a Sunday, and I dare to say that I believe you to be wrong, I'm called narrow-minded, bigoted, and intolerant.

The paradox is really clear here, though, concerning what I'm seeing in the world, because the world has become increasingly intolerant towards those who believe they believe are being intolerant.

The message, the paradox of tolerance is that it's actually a message of intolerance.

According to the postmodern way of thinking, dogmatism is to be avoided at all costs, diversity is to be cultivated no matter what, and tolerance means that you're never ever going to say to anyone that what they believe or their opinion is wrong.

As a result of that, and I see that within my own group of uh ministry today, pastors avoid speaking certain things from the pulpit because they're afraid of offending people and having them get up and walk out.

And I I I've seen that happen in my own ministry here.

People get up and walk out from what I have to say.

Spouses do not confront issues in their marriage out of a fear of disengagement and separation.

Teachers do not fail students because of the concerns of parental kickback on their decision to fail.

Employers do not fire employees because of legal repercussions.

In the state of, I think uh it was in New York that I was studying this, over$50 million a year is given to teachers to sit in a coffee room because they won't let them teach, but they have to pay them.

Tolerance has come to mean this the acceptance of every viewpoint as equally true and valid.

That's the redefinition of tolerance that is happening in our culture.

However, true tolerance means treating every person with integrity and dignifying them, and humbly giving a person whose opinion you may consider to be untrue and invalid an opportunity to speak and to be heard by you.

That's tolerance.

To tolerate a religious viewpoint that is contrary to your own does not mean that you have to accept it or or or adopt it as your own or celebrate it as a fact.

The very meaning of the word tolerance implies that you have different belief systems than another.

Other person and both should respect each other in their dialogue.

How many of you know that we've lost the ability to dialogue in our culture today?

We've lost an ability actually to listen to anyone without feeling that you have to have an opinion even before they finish what they said.

Some of you are doing that right now.

If someone tells you that you have no right to believe as you do, remind them that they're not being very tolerant, according to their own definition.

There is a good and there's a bad tolerance.

Paul encourages us to bear with one another's faults out of love.

Remember the issue is we're not to tolerate one another, we're to love one another.

God says the good part of the tolerance is we tolerate when there are things that maybe don't go our way, but we do it out of love because we love someone.

And those things that we're tolerating are not going to affect our relationship.

We're bigger than the mistake or the problem.

But there is a the scripture also tells us of a bad tolerance, and that bad tolerance is when we actually tolerate sin in our own personal life or in the life of the body of Christ.

Scripture tells us never to tolerate sin.

We're called to be lovers of people, tolerant of people's opinions and ideas and positions, but we're to have zero tolerance in our life with those beliefs and lifestyles that will undermine the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our life.

I want to talk to you about that word tolerance.

Because I think it is at the core of what is undermining the body of Christ today, and it is also something that the world is pushing on the church and undermining its ability to speak back because we're called intolerant.

The second word I want to talk to you about is the word judgment.

And you heard it in our text today.

I'm going to read it from the message translation, that text from Matthew 7, 1 to 5, and here's what it says don't pick on people, jump up on their failures, criticize their faults, unless, of course, you want the same treatment.

That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging on you.

It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own.

Do you have the nerve to say, let me wash your face for you when your own face is distorted with contempt?

It's this whole traveling roadshow mentality all over again.

Playing a holier than thou part instead of just living your part.

Wipe that ugly smear sneer off your face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to help your neighbor.

It's a great message translation, isn't it?

You say, why do you use that translation?

I've had people judge me on my translation use.

I just love reading the Bible in a lot of translations, and I do know the Greek and the Hebrew, and I can get to the exact words, but you know, sometimes we need to find the vernacular of the day in which we're living in to get a message across.

So let's do it.

Do the best I can to be a good communicator.

For most of us, one of the very first scriptures that we learned, I've moved on from tolerance.

You got that message?

Now I want to talk about the issue of judgment.

For most of us, when we gave our life to Christ, one of the most favorite scriptures in our life was John 3.16, the first thing that we memorized, right?

For God so loved the world.

We know that really well.

But for the world who has not actually been in church, one of the scriptures that they've memorized the most is the portion of scripture that I referred to here from Matthew chapter 7.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

Judge not.

If you're a Christian, you're not supposed to judge.

You've heard that?

Judge not, you'll be judged.

They may not have many scriptures, as I said, and not many memorized, but this is constantly used against the church, and many Christians have fallen for it.

It is a social contradiction again and a paradox that we have to face when the world judges Christians for judging.

Did you get that?

You're not supposed to judge, and I'm judging you for judging.

Okay.

According to the recent Gallup poll, about two years ago, researching 20 plus somethings, in a new book called Unchristian, What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity, it was found that nine out of ten millennials view Christians as judgmental.

So are we?

What does the Bible say about judging?

They say, well, isn't it clear?

Judge not lest you be judged, right?

Don't condemn.

Oh, you'll be condemned.

Pardon.

You and I both know that we're not to judge and we're not to condemn.

We're not judge or jury.

However, this scripture does not command us not to judge.

But it's actually a command on how to judge.

And how to judge appropriately or righteously.

Christ makes it clear.

And he's speaking to the religious leaders of the day that made a judgment on everything.

And he says, you need to judge, but don't be judgmental.

You know what I mean by the difference of being judgmental?

Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their fault.

Being judgmental means to pick people apart harshly.

Of course, none of you have ever done that.

It means being a fault finder who forms critical opinions, is negative and destructive towards people, and enjoys actively seeking out their failings.

There's some people it's really hard to get them to actually rejoice in your successes.

They'll even criticize successes.

Someone who is judgmental makes quick interpretations on a person's motives, questions their sincerity, and is ungenerous towards their mistakes.

That's being judgmental.

A judgmental person reads between the lines, assumes the worst, and jumps to inaccurate conclusions.

Judgmental people become prejudicial people.

It's interesting, the word prejudice is prejustice.

It actually means to prejudge someone.

That's being prejudicial.

You're not giving them the benefit of the doubt.

You're not believing the best, hoping the best, thinking the best.

You're prejudicial.

You've already decided before the evidence is in.

Anybody ever been on the side of getting that before?

Are you with me this morning?

Or are you just really listening intelligently, right?

It means to prejudge when God calls us to believe the best and to hope the best for each other.

One man wrote, he said, It's been said that the only exercise some people get is jumping to conclusions, running down other people, sidestepping responsibility, dodging the question, passing the blame, pushing their luck, and wrestling with their conscience.

God has made it very clear that we're not to judge.

But we're not to judge judgmentally with a perspective in our heart that has actually judged people before you've actually gotten to know the facts.

The second thing God says in this portion of Scripture in Matthew 7, he says, you need to judge, but don't be hypocritical in your judgment.

It says, for in the same way you judge others, you'll be judged, and with the measure you use or meet out, it will be measured back to you.

It's what the message translation talks about as the boomerang effect.

Whenever you open up your mouth and make a judgment on someone, it's coming back at you.

Whenever you point one finger at somebody, what?

You heard it.

Three fingers are pointing back.

The word hypocrite comes from the Greek word, which is actually means an actor.

We get the word actor.

It means someone who is falsely expressing something that he is not.

Or presenting something on the outside to someone that is not an accurate reflection of who they are.

It's pretension.

And Paul writes in Romans 2, 7 to 14, he says, if you tell someone and make a judgment that they're lying and that lying is wrong, do you lie?

Hello.

As a matter of fact, that's one of the per the reasons in Romans 12 when Paul addresses how the world will be judged.

Well, I never knew God.

How can God judge me?

Well, you made judgments on other people.

Your judgments on other people are an expression of what you believe to be right and wrong.

God will use your judgments on other people to judge you and ask you whether or not you lived up to your own judgments.

Hello?

Gets kind of serious.

From that perspective, every single one of us needs a savior.

Because we all stand guilty.

Right?

Maybe you're disgusted with wealthy people who exploit the poor and we can measure out a healthy cup of justice against them, but how often have we ourselves been greedy?

How often have we hoarded the resources of this world that we have in North America, the richest people on the planet, while much of the planet lives with a whole lot less?

We wind up making judgments on others, and those same judgments come back on ourselves.

One of the primary illustrations of that in the Old Testament is found in 2 Samuel 12 when David had committed adultery and taken another man's wife to himself and had worked to get this other man killed on the battlefield, and Nathan the prophet comes into his chambers and confronts him with a story and says, Hey, you know, there's a guy who was having someone over for supper, and he had lots of sheep and flocks and had everything that all the resources he needed, but he looked at his neighbor who only had one sheep, and he went and took that sheep, killed it, and gave it to his his friends in the in in and provided a great banquet with that that one sheep.

And David got all upset, all frustrated over this, and told them what should happen and made a judgment.

And then Nathan said, Well, you're the man.

You remember that story?

You're the man.

Your judgment on another has actually judged you.

God says you need to judge, but don't judge hypocritically.

Don't judge hypocritically.

When you know that you've got the issues, it should have should have rang something differently in David's heart when he heard those words from Nathan.

And I believe that there was a start of repentance that began to happen in his life as he began to see himself for who he was.

Having a hypocritical spirit blinds us to our own faults.

It allows us to justify our faults.

Other people lose their temper, but we have righteous indignation.

Other people are jerks, but we're just having a bad day, right?

We translate everything the worst for them and the best for us.

Other people have a critical spirit, but we just tell it like it is.

Other people are pushy, but we're goal-oriented.

We qualify and justify our own actions, but we jump all over somebody else's.

I know I'm not talking to judgmental people here or hypocrites here, are we?

I remember one guy told me, he said, uh, I don't go to church.

And I said, why?

He says, because it's full of hypocrites.

I said, well, that's where hypocrites belong.

They need to go to church.

At least they're honest hypocrites.

And they're there in church willing to address their hypocrisy and allow someone to speak to them so they can change.

You're on the outside and no one's talking to you about anything.

You can keep your hypocrisy.

Hello?

We've all got hypocrisy, and hypocrisy is simply the difference between what we know and how we're actually living.

And God's constantly closing the gap on that, isn't He?

What we know and how we should live, God's constantly bringing it up so that actually what we believe and how we actually can function in life actually become, uh, have an integrity to them.

Amen?

Are you glad for that process?

That's the work of the Holy Spirit.

God says in this passage, we need to judge, but we're to humbly judge ourselves first.

So I'm saying, judge, but don't be judgmental.

Judge, but don't be hypocritical.

Judge, but you need to judge yourself first.

Lay hands on yourself and cast out that spirit.

Come on.

Before you go around placing your hands on other people and trying to correct the world and straighten those out, you need to practice on yourself and see how powerful your prayers are.

Right?

You need to practice on yourself, and that's valid.

Deal with your own blind spots.

God says, first take the plank out of your own eye.

Plank is like a beam that is like, you know, 20 feet long.

Jesus is using a little bit of humor here, but he's trying to make a statement, right?

You you're looking at your brother's eye, and he's got a little speck in it, and you're looking at, and you're having a hard time seeing that because you've got a beam sticking out of your own.

Get rid of your own problem.

As a matter of fact, we tend to see in other people what we have a problem in.

Only me.

Not you.

Come on.

We tend to judge in other people what we're already judging in ourselves.

You can tell an awful lot about pastors about what they'll talk about and what they won't talk about.

That's why I try to talk about everything.

But the Bible says, take the plank out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Brothers, he says, if someone is caught in a sin, in Galatians 6, 1, you who are spiritual should restore him gently, but watch yourself, or you also might be tempted.

Self-judgment and humility to deal with ourselves is critical before we can see clearly to help others deal with their issues.

Have you ever been flying in a plane and they go through this whole thing that we're going to be flying over water, or if there's a change in air pressure, a mask will drop from above you, right?

Do you remember that?

And they said, first put it on yourself, and then you're able to put it on your child.

You can't help them if you pass out.

Put it on yourself, and then you're able to help someone else.

Well, self-judgment is critical.

Do we assess ourselves?

Do we do we have those kind of prayers before God that basically say, God, search my heart?

Is that a dangerous prayer?

Come on, love me this morning.

I just want to it's my it's my anniversary.

Okay?

Be good.

Help me out here.

Okay?

Do we have that heart to say that prayer that says, search me, oh God?

And if you see any wicked thing in me, talk to me about it.

That's a pretty dangerous prayer.

How many of you know God will?

How many of you know God doesn't need permission to?

Holy Spirit's ministry is to convict you of sin and of judgment and what's righteous and judgment.

So he'll tell you what's wrong, what's right, and what the consequences in your life will be if you don't obey.

Well, Holy Spirit is faithful to do that.

But when we come alongside and we give this prayer to God and say, Search me, O God, and we wait five seconds and leave, right?

Because we feel we must be okay because God hasn't said anything.

How many of you know we we dial heaven, 911, tell them what we need, and then say, Search me, O God, and then we say, Hmm, hang up.

Because you and I both know that the Holy Spirit would deal with some of the things of self-assessment and correction in our own personal life.

And he'll bring back an individual that we spoke to wrongly.

So you need to call him up and make it right.

He'll talk to you about the things that no one else will talk to you about, leave you alone.

That's why a lot of people don't pray, actually.

They don't like praying because God talks to them.

How many of you know that God will shout above your shouting and still get to you, even if you don't pray?

It's better that you go to God than to have God come after you.

Anybody like that?

From my perspective, that's a better way.

I'm just going and offering my services and saying, Lord, because I know you're going to do it anyway.

But search me.

Talk to me, okay?

Because I don't want to be hounded from heaven.

How many of you know God can talk to a deaf person?

He can talk to the most rebellious person and still get their attention.

And so I've made that decision in my life that I want, I want that self-assessment going on, so I don't wind up as a leader, as someone who is a spiritual leader making judgments on other people when I myself have the same problem.

Critically important for my life to be clean in my heart so I can remove the plank and be able to see clearly so I can help someone else.

Hello?

Is this helpful to anybody today?

The fourth thing that we find out from this is that we're to judge in such a way that we discern the situation to become a help to our brothers and our sisters.

Avoid critical judgmentalism, but embrace careful judgment.

Let me just say this to you.

We need to be careful about judging people on the basis of their personality.

There are some personalities that rub me the wrong way.

I remember a little correction I got from a, oh I guess it was about a two-year-old.

It was Brody's boy.

I said, Judah.

He stopped.

I said, Judah, look at me.

He didn't turn around.

I raised my voice a little bit more and I said, Judah, look at me.

And he turned around and looked at me.

He says, Papa needs to be patient.

Oh.

I mean, if he dragged the, it wasn't my purse.

That little guy's personality just challenges you all the time.

He's got a unique way of just getting under your skin.

Okay?

Smile at me.

Just won't give you what you want.

Some personalities we make judgments on because they're not like you.

And just the fact that they're not like you doesn't mean that they should be subject to your judgment.

We need to be discerning about people.

God has given us a multi faced number of personalities to deal with, and our personality is under God's care.

Your character is important to God, but your personality is what makes you celebrated.

Hello?

This is good wisdom to you, by the way.

Okay?

But it's dealing with that judge not mentality that is in the world.

When God says, don't be judgmental, don't be hypocritical.

Deal with judge yourself first.

But once you've judged yourself, now help somebody else.

But don't judge them on the basis of their personality.

Don't judge them on the basis of their appearance.

Samuel made a mistake that day when he went to David's house, the house of Jesse, and was looking at all these fine young men, and God kept on saying, No, this guy's he's handsome, he's tall, he's whatever.

And God said, It's not one of him, one of them.

I don't look at people the way you look at people, Samuel.

Man looks on the appearance, but I look on the heart, and God had to find out.

I've got a man, his name is David, he stinketh.

He's up with the sheep.

He may not be the most good looking, and he might not be dressed the best, but my hand is on his life.

So be careful about judging people on the basis of their appearance.

There are gems in this congregation that get passed over.

They are diamonds in terms of their heart after God.

Hello.

Love you.

Is this good?

You'll stay for another couple hours on this one, won't you?

The third thing, don't judge people.

Well, Jesus said this in John 7.

He says, do not judge by appearances, but judge with righteous judgment.

In other words, discern.

Have some good common sense with your evaluation of people and your assessment.

Don't judge people on the basis of their mannerisms.

I remember hearing the story of a boss who came to his his uh his workplace and he saw a young guy just there leaning on and not working, right?

And he went over to the young man and said, How much do you make a month?

He said, Well, uh, or a week.

He said, about 300 bucks.

He said, here's a month's pay and gave him 1200 bucks.

And the kid and the guy left.

He went over to the manager and he said, Who is that kid?

He said, Well, uh, how long has he been working here?

He says, Well, he doesn't work here.

He's the pizza delivery boy.

Gave him 1200 bucks.

What a tip, right?

Don't judge people on the basis of their mannerisms.

Just because you can't connect the dots as to why they're there and what they're doing, don't judge people on the basis of that.

Don't judge people on the basis of theological gray areas.

Some make Sunday or the Sabbath more important, but then the end of the day, others make every day as important as the holy day or the day you gather together.

Don't make judgments.

I've made a decision regarding drinking in my life.

My philosophy of drinking is that drinking is not a sin.

Drunkenness is a sin.

But as a leader, you shouldn't drink.

Why?

Because you lose wisdom.

You might make decisions that will harm and undermine other people.

And also, it opens up the door for drinking and alcohol to become Lord in my life and cause me to do things that'll bring disrespect and dishonor to you.

And so I've kept away from that in my life.

Hello?

But I know a lot of people do drink.

I've got to be very careful to stay away from what I would call theological gray areas, but are there people that have got drunk uh that drink and then get drunk, and now I have to enter into their life because their marriage is in a mess?

Then I have to make a judgment.

Hello?

Oh, it gets real quiet about that one here.

But that's that's really an important one.

Don't judge people on their race or their color or their gender.

There's no race that is above another race.

Gender is not more important to be a man or a female or a woman.

Male or female.

In Christ, we are neither male nor female.

We're not known by our gender.

We are known by our calling and our anointing and the gifting that God has placed in our life.

That's what makes room for us.

A man or a woman's gift will make room for them.

They'll stand before kings.

We're not to judge one another even on the basis of sexuality.

Hello?

Something you may or may not know, but for a number of years, I was asked to do the AIDS vigils in the city.

You know what an AIDS vigil is?

It's those who had passed away from AIDS.

And they were remembering them from year to year to year.

And they'd have an AIDS vigil and re-remember the passing of a friend.

Some of them, of course, had died from homosexual behavior, some had died because of dirty needles.

Come on.

All of this stuff was going on in their life.

And I was sharing with them.

When our first granddaughter was born, the first person to call me up and wish me happy grandfather was the head of the homosexual community in the city.

I love the homosexual community.

I love the transgender community.

Hello?

I love people.

The fact that he, when I met with him, that he knew that I didn't believe and agree with his belief systems and lifestyle, it was clear.

But when we left the table after breakfast, I'd give him a hug.

Now somebody else saw that happening in the city with Pastor David.

Come on.

They might think, hey, there's something suspect here, right?

And I'd have most a lot of judgment I get is not from the world, it's from the church.

We're to love everybody.

That doesn't mean that I'm there to adopt.

I accept them, but I don't adopt and I will not celebrate their lifestyle.

That's pushing me beyond the point of recognizing and accepting and loving them.

Don't judge people's motives.

I remember that there was a time where uh I heard the story of a cashier that was uh cashing the check of a woman who was using food stamps to pay for a birthday cake.

And it hit the news.

I remember it hit my news and I read about it, and my initial instinct, even though I believe I'm a very merciful and compassionate man, was to say, that's not what you use food stamps for.

And I wasn't, I don't think abnormal.

But there was a judgment well beyond that that began to come in from the community, and I remember following it for a period of time, that news feed, and the woman who was written about actually heard about it and wrote in and said, Listen, my daughter is leukemia.

This is probably my last birthday with my child, and we saved up those food stamps to buy a birthday cake because it'll probably be the last birthday I celebrate with my daughter.

Hello?

Your heart goes, Lord, where's our grace?

Where's our compassion?

Keep us away from a judgmental heart where we make decisions and judge people on the basis of what we believe to be an improper motivation.

James 5 says this, verse 19 to 20, brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover a multitude of sins.

We bring them back, not with a hand of judgment and judgmentalism.

We bring them back with love.

We bring them back with love.

We care enough about you to talk to you about what's going on.

The intention is never to straighten them out, but to straighten them up.

The human distortion sometimes that exists in the church is the feeling that, well, okay, if we adopt this statement, we're not supposed to judge.

Well, then it's all God's responsibility to talk to everybody.

My responsibility is just to encourage.

You know that's a false solution, and it's not biblical.

Because God alone does the judging, I'm freed up to spend all my time encouraging other people.

Yes, we need to encourage each other people in their spiritual journey.

You get that with me?

However, it is my conviction that the worst thing we can do for someone who needs correction is to say and do nothing.

It's funny, you know, how the concepts turn and shift.

How many of you have ever seen those programs on television called, uh, I know I'm a little bit over time here this morning.

Wow, a lot over time.

How many of you have ever seen the intervention?

The world has an idea that when an individual's in trouble, they're going to create an intervention because they care enough for the individual that if they continue on that path, it's going to be self-destructive.

But when we intervene, we're called judgers.

We're judgmental when we intervene.

But they're enablers and helpers when they do an intervention.

How many of you know there's godly intervention that's needed in the body of Christ?

And we need to be involved in helping one another.

Listen, I'll end with this.

How many of you are happy that I said that?

All of you who are online, 150 plus of you.

How many of you are happy the fact that God not only judges our sin, but he's provided a savior?

How many of you are thankful for a savior?

Are we all ex-thinners?

Ex-somebodies who become somebody in Christ because of the grace of God?

We all are.

But don't allow the world to draw you into the trap of accusing you of intolerance simply because you have a different opinion and belief about life.

And don't let the enemy draw you into the trap of drawing back from judgment.

When God says you need to bring judgment, you need to bring intervention, but make sure you're not judgmental, make sure you're not hypocritical, make sure that you judge yourself first and then get involved and help people to make wise decisions.

Hello?

Everybody heard that this morning?

Amen.

Hallelujah.

Father, we ask you this morning to help us to be the kind of church you're proud of.

That we love on people.

Help us to be free from that that uh redefining of values that's going on in our culture and not to be drawn back into feeling that we're intolerant or bigoted or judgmental just because we have something that is different in terms of an opinion or a lifestyle.

Pray, Lord, that we'll be all equipped to be able to make a stand for what is truth so that the church can be salt and light, show people the way, and preserve them from self-destruction.

Thank you, Jesus, that you came to not only expose my sin, but also to be my savior.

And Lord, we have our who are here have welcomed you into our life as Savior.

You've saved us from our sins and given us an opportunity.

You've taken our feet off out of out of my re clay and put it on some solid ground for us to stand up.

And Lord, we pray blessing upon your church as it moves within the culture and is an influence for good and righteousness.

Pray for that, Father, in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

God bless you this morning.