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Look at me, blogging two Sunday afternoons in a row!! Do I sense a trend?? I honestly hope so. Time will tell...
Anyone out there know someone who's judgmental?? Or are you that "someone"?? I'll tell you right up front that I am. In some ways I've grown out of it; but there's still work to be done, and probably always will be. I'm only human, what can I say?? Of course, I'm also an INFJ*, but I've recently discovered that the judgement from that perspective is about assessing and planning rather than hurtful opinions of/toward others. I know that we've covered a lot of recent ground concerning judgement, but that just goes to show how important it is to God for us to weed it out of our lives. I'm sitting here contemplating how to proceed to the main message, and just made a connection that we should all adopt the Planet Fitness motto so that our lives become "No judgement" zones. :)
I think we can all agree with the thought of how hard it is to live for God in the midst of the chaos our world is in. It always has been. We are, all of us, only human, after all. Chaos is in our nature. It's otherwise known as Free Will. God created us in His triune image of Spirit, Soul, and Body, but He understood that it was necessary to include Free Will into the mix so that the love we returned to Him would be sincere and not coerced*. That being said, we Christians may try to "force fit" our faith into Society's mold. Anyone remember the show "Square Pegs" from the late 80's?? Our attempts at force fitting our faith anywhere else but in the foundation of Christ will bring the same results. It simply won't work. The Gospel is too important for us to mess with. We will never bring new believers into our Churches by "soft-pedaling" the Truth of God's love for them. People want something genuine, they want to know there's something different, some better option than what they can find for the proverbial "dime-a-dozen" out in the World*. Let's dig into today's passage and see where judgement play into the scenario...
James 4:11-12
New International Version
11 Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister[a] or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?
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Just two verses in today's passage, but they pack a mighty punch!!
Judgement comes very easily and naturally to us all. I really believe that it's because it's easier than stopping to consider the reasons behind the words or actions of others*. Also, it makes us feel superior in the aspect we're judging them on. Both of these ideas work to reveal our hearts. And as we've seen, that's God's entire point. The fact is, judgements and slander only work to pull us away from God's love. (and potentially pull others away with us*)
Pastor Matt brought out a really great quote from American Theologian, Scot McKnight, regarding the definition of slander. I can't find it just now, but he speaks of slander as speaking against someone in a way, usually untrue, to make them look dangerous or unworthy. Talk about a toxic mess!! YIKES!! But how often do we hear exactly those kinds of narratives tossed around?? Yep.... And what do toxins do?? Corrode and destroy, right?? By spreading judgement and slander, we are hurting ourselves and others. We are corrupting and ultimately stealing from our lives and theirs.
Looking closer into our short passage, we see that our judgements and slander affect not only ourselves, but 3 distinct groups or individuals --
Brothers and Sisters -- This group are our Church Family. We see other places in scripture that speak to our dealings with these people as well. It's a basic truth that God designed people to live in community with each other to the good of all. And not just the good of the group, but "all" as in everyone as we share the Gospel.
Neighbors -- As we may realize, this is not just referring to the houses or apartments directly beside us. Ultimately, the concept spreads to the entire World*. This eliminates by default, the possibility that there is anyone exempt from the "no judgement" rule. In others words, there is literally no one else on Earth you are allowed to judge. Only yourself. Look at Matt. 22 for more on this and also think about the people you spend time with. If they are judgmental about others in front of you, what might they be saying about you to others??
Law -- More specifically, God's Law, or as we saw a few weeks ago, "The Royal Law". As we know, this is the bit about loving God above all, and loving others as yourself. The fact is, judgement simply does not and ultimately cannot equal love. Conversely, if you truly love someone, you absolutely cannot judge them. Now, understand me here, this doesn't mean that you have to agree with them every second of the day. It just means that you accept them for who they are and love them anyway. You could really say that since it's God's Law and not our own, anyone "sitting in judgement" is actually "sitting in God's chair". And there's none of us qualified for that. He's the Creator/Artist, He get "dibs" on the judgement thereof.
We gain more perspective by turning to Matt. 7:1-5. We read here about Jesus' message of non-judgement and the hypocrisy of those who do judge. Jesus is far gentler with us than we generally are with others. That's exactly why He constantly challenges us to self-reflection. He knows that that's what we need to do in order to grow in maturity and bring a purer love to the surface. In doing this, we are in a better position to see others more clearly and help them grow as well. And that's the key here too, helping others grow in love for God and their fellow man. It just isn't possible when you're judging them. For one, as mentioned above, you cannot love and judge at the same time. For two, your judgement of them is only going to turn them against you. It's a "lose-lose" proposition...
Humans have literally been sitting in judgement from the word "go". Look back to Genesis in the Garden for proof of that. When God made Adam, it was the only time in the entire Creation Story we see that God didn't proclaim that it was "good". Only after He created Eve did He declare humans as good. It's that core motivation of community I mentioned last time. But what do we know happened?? Adam and Eve tried to make their own decision when it came to eating from the wrong Tree, right?? This only proves out that God is literally the ONLY ONE QUALIFIED TO NAME GOOD OR EVIL. God's intention was always for us to rule and reign on the Earth WITH Him, not try to take over from Him. It's a sad commentary on Christianity when any particular denomination or individual Church considers judgement as a so-called "gift to God." (People know who they are, and they know who they are, so there's no need to be specific here) Bottom line is that we're called to submit to God's authority, not our own. And I know some of these people believe that's what they're doing, but their simply misguided in their approach.
So what is the "antidote" for all this toxicity?? For that we need only to explore Luke 6:27-38.
Here we read the whole thing about loving our enemies and doing good to those who harm us. Turning the other cheek and so forth... and when we come to the last part about how what we give will be given back all shaken together and running over?? We most usually hear that reference in messages about money, right?? But if we really look at it, we see that it's actually mercy and forgiveness that are being spoken of here. As we give mercy and forgiveness, it will come back to us in the same measure and overflowing!! What a glorious revelation!! The fact is, our lack of mercy and forgiveness are barriers to our receiving of them. Or more accurately, accepting them. God's mercy and forgiveness are readily available, the point lies in our recognition and accepting of them. Just like a birthday present, it's been bought, paid for, and delivered, it's just up to us to open it and use it. And as we saw several weeks ago back in James 2, mercy triumphs over judgement every single time, exactly like paper beats rock and scissors cuts paper, and so on...
Exploring Romans 5 shows us that God loved us while we were still lost in Sin, but that His mercy can bring freedom to our lives if we just accept His loving sacrifice and salvation. As God's love was exemplified by Jesus, it's our responsibility to deliver it to others. Salvation is simply too important to keep to ourselves. I've known people who were very private about their faith and just wanted to keep it between themselves and God. How incredibly selfish is that?? Maybe that's a judgement; but from what I can see of God's Word, it isn't. It's simply telling the truth because it's abundantly clear throughout Scripture that He wants us to share our faith. Therefore, if I were to actually "call anyone out" on it, that would be nothing less than God desires in the aspect of correcting our brothers and sisters in faith.(1 Tim. 5) Approaching with love, of course.
Another important piece to remember is concerning our Spiritual Gifts and the workings thereof. It's a danger to anyone to become judgmental in the application of their gifts, but possibly those who need to be the most aware of this are the Prophets. Those of us (as I feel a part of this group) who are set apart to observe, pray, and bring correction to the body of Christ are particularly susceptible to judgmental views. We see someone either doing or saying something we know or believe to be wrong, and it's right there just "chomping at the bit" to come out. I can't even begin to tell you how real the struggle is for me on this... but I'm pleased to say that I've come a long way towards holding my tongue if not necessarily my thoughts.
Our final observations for today are these -- First off, we tend to resist forgiving others because we know that God will be more merciful towards them than we would. Secondly, we may not only be harboring unforgiveness towards others, but toward ourselves. We have these lies floating around in our hearts that we're not worthy of forgiveness. That's just another example of trying to make these decisions for ourselves rather than trusting that God knows best. As mentioned above, God is literally the ONLY person in the Universe qualified to judge good and evil. This is why there's so much to be found in Scripture towards self-inspection/reflection. Mark 11:25 even tells us that our prayers won't be answered if we are holding unforgiveness against anyone. This includes ourselves. His invitation is for us to anchor ourselves in HIs love so we can be better prepared to share it with others. And not just on Sundays either... -- God Bless!!
Footnotes --
Meyers-Briggs scale -- Introverted, Intellectual, Feeling, Judgement
As love is properly understood, coercion cannot produce true affection. We have Free Will so that we can choose to accept God's love or not. If there's no choice of Good vs. Evil, then our response cannot be pure and voluntary. Besides which, if there were nothing Evil to save us from, Jesus wouldn't have needed to die. We would just be "hanging out" for no specific reason. We would have no greater purpose in life than our own desires, and we all know where that would get us... And just to be clear for those who may believe that there is only God's Will as He is Sovereign, let me direct your attention to verses like Jn. 3:16, Rom. 10:13, Acts 2:21, etc... These, and at least 20 others speak of "whosoever will" accept Christ. This proves that not everyone will. Look at Jn. 6:44. No one can come to salvation unless the Father calls them. Further proof that not everyone will be saved in spite of the fact that we see in 2 Peter 3 that, "it is not His will that anyone perish..." But here's the thing, just because He wills something, doesn't mean that's what's going to happen. Shocking, I know!! I mean, just look at the kings of Europe back when there were more of them. Just because a King is the Sovereign of the Land doesn't eliminate the fact of criminals within the realm. Get it?? Got it?? Good!!
People are looking for something genuine... We've seen it from early days of humanity in idol worship, nature worship, and more recently in the collection of stones or all the TV shows and movies about the supernatural. All of this stuff wouldn't be so prevalent unless people were looking for something bigger and better to help them in life. We need to be prepared to step up and be ready with the truth.
Looking at the reasons behind things -- I have multiple examples for this, but the one I'll share is this: about 2-3 yrs ago, I was looking to purchase something from a second-hand shop down the street. The indication on their website/FB connection was that they usually respond within an hour or 2. Okay, so I left a message. When I didn't get a response within the indicated time frame, I got upset. Now I realize that this shop was only run by 1 or 2 people, but to me, if you put it out there that response time is going to be minimal, that's what people should be able to expect. Anyway, when the guy eventually got back to me, I found out there was a sick wife involved and I then felt like an absolute jerk for having been upset by the delay. I later went back and apologized. As we've seen the posts so often, "Be kind, someone may be fighting a battle you know nothing about."
The idea that we may be pulled away from God by our judgements and slander is bad enough, but the fact that we are in danger of pulling others away with us is worse. Just this morning before we left, Rob and I caught the end of Andy Stanley's sermon. IDK what the Scripture was, but his point was that the Gospel is meant to be good news, so we need to be sure that we are behaving in ways that are "good news" to others. Amen!!
Back in 1989-90, I used to teach the 3-4-5 yr old Sunday School Class. Our final lesson of the year was on Neighbors. I started with the house/apt next door and extended out by the house next to that, next street, and so on to the World. And btw, it was my idea first to use the "crayons and paper" analogy to show how everyone is special... lol jk
This one caught me off guard when I first saw it a few years ago --
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