CRCF””7-4-10
VIDEO about Judging Others
ME
I judge others way too often, way too quickly. And, I”™ve been on the receiving end of the judgment of others.
Yesterday Jonas and I watched a lady in McDonald”™s talk down to the workers there and get real ugly. I told Jonas it reminded me of when I was a teenager working at Hardee”™s and how folks would get so angry and mean over innocent mistakes with their order. In college, I worked for a commercial lawncare company and was often looked at with scorn as I would walk into the food court of the mall where we were mowing for lunch””dirty, sweaty. We were treated as “less than”. And it was than that I realized just how judgmental I”™d been all my life. I realized how I too had viewed people like that.
Who Do You Think You Are?
James 4:11-12
If I condemn others, I”™m condemning God!
Simone Weil
I also am other than what I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness.
Thomas Merton
I thank you, God, that I am like the rest of men.
If I condemn others, I”™m condemning God!
YOU
Is this stuff ever a problem for you?
GOD
If I condemn others, I”™m condemning God!
James 4:11a (NIV)
11aBrothers, do not slander one another.
What”™s in the heart can always be found on the tongue!
Remember . . .
James 3:6-8 (NIV)
6The tongue is also a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. 7All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, 8but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
Publius, the Greek sage, put his finger on a technique we tend to forget when he admitted: “I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.”
Swindoll
Think first. Before your lips start moving, pause ten seconds and mentally preview your words. Are they accurate or exaggerated? Kind or cutting? Necessary or needless? Wholesome or vile? Grateful or complaining?
Talk less. You increase your chances of blowing it if you talk too much. Furthermore, compulsive talkers find it difficult to keep friends. Conserve your verbal energy!
Start today. Fit that muzzle on your mouth now. It’s a project you’ve put off long enough.
James 4:11b-12 (NIV)
11bAnyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you””who are you to judge your neighbor?
James 4:11-12 (NLT)
11 Don”™t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God”™s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you. 12 God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor?
If I condemn others, I”™m condemning God!
Matthew 22:37-40 (NLT)
37 Jesus replied, “”˜You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.”™ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ”˜Love your neighbor as yourself.”™ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
Romans 13:8-10 (CEV)
8Let love be your only debt! If you love others, you have done all that the Law demands. 9In the Law there are many commands, such as, “Be faithful in marriage. Do not murder. Do not steal. Do not want what belongs to others.” But all of these are summed up in the command that says, “Love others as much as you love yourself.” 10No one who loves others will harm them. So love is all that the Law demands.
“When we fail to love, we are actually breaking God”™s Law.” (NIV Study Bible, 2096)
If I condemn others, I”™m condemning God!
YOU
So, how do you make sure we”™re not condemning God? HOW do we get a handle on our own hearts when it comes to judging others?
James 4:7-10 (NLT)
7 So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. 9 Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor.
That”™s tough to do, isn”™t it? But check out this promise from God!
James 4:6 (NLT)
6 But he gives us even more grace to stand against such evil desires. As the Scriptures say,
“God opposes the proud
but favors the humble.”
If I condemn others, I”™m condemning God!
Ephesians 4:32 (NLT)
32 Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.
Grace and forgiveness must be our response to others””because it is God”™s response to our sin!
Philip Yancey
Only by living in the stream of God”™s grace will I find the strength to respond with grace toward others. A cease-fire between human beings depends upon a cease-fire with God. (What”™s So Amazing About Grace?, 92)
Will Campbell
“In ten words or less, what”™s the Christian message?” one agnostic had challenged him . . . I said, “We”™re all bastards but God loves us anyway.” (Yancey, 142)
Yancey””“ . . . spiritually we are illegitimate children, invited despite our paternity to join God”™s family . . . The free offer of grace extends not just to the undeserving but to those who in fact deserve the opposite.” (142, 144)
If I condemn others, I”™m condemning God!
WE
Grace and forgiveness must be our response to others””because it is God”™s response to our sin!
On the days of July 1 to July 3, 1863, the Union and Confederate armies clashed in the largest battle of the American Civil War at a little village named Gettysburg. More than 160,000 soldiers dressed in blue or gray entered those Pennsylvania fields, and a staggering 51,000 became casualties in the fighting.
Some of the fiercest combat occurred on the last day of the battle with what historians call “Pickett”™s Charge.” General Robert E. Lee ordered an advance of some 14,000 Confederate troops led by George Pickett, across an open field, to take Cemetery Ridge held by Union troops and artillery dug in on the other side.
The battle lasted less than an hour, and not half of the Confederate troops survived. It was a bloody end to the deadliest battle in the Civil War”™s history. The Union was the accepted “winner,” but winning is a term hardly appropriate for so much suffering.
Fifty years later, in July 1913, surviving veterans of the armies that fought that day returned to Gettysburg for a reunion. It was the largest gathering of Civil War veterans ever assembled, with more than 50,000 in attendance. The youngest veteran was 61 years old, and the senior member claimed to be 112.
In that summer the world was once again on the edge of war (isn”™t it always?). There were terrible fears ”” socially, politically, and economically. But for a few days the nation set aside its anxieties and turned its attention to those old men once again assembled on the rolling hills of Pennsylvania.
The Washington Post wrote of the Gettysburg reunion: “Nothing could possibly be more impressive or more inspiring ”¦ than this gathering. They feel the thrill of bygone days, without a knowledge of its bitterness, which, thank God, has passed. But even more touching must be the emotions of these time-worn veterans, as they assemble on an occasion that in itself constitutes a greater victory than that of half a century ago.”
As part of the reunion, surviving members of Pickett”™s Charge assembled for a reenactment. The old Union soldiers took their position on Cemetery Ridge, and the old Confederates marched across the open field as they had done 50 years earlier.
Frederick Buechner says, “Then an extraordinary thing happened,” as the old Union soldiers moved out to rush down at the old men marching across the field. “A great cry went up, only instead of doing battle as they had a half century earlier, this time they threw their arms around each other. They embraced and wept.”
Buechner goes on to use this as an example of the new world in which we can live. The old animosities and former battles between people that could not live together are gone. We are brought together as one people, not because of the flag we wave, but because of the love that Christ brings ”” even among those who were bitter enemies.
God”™s love in Christ knows no limit. Serial killers, thieves, prostitutes, Wall Street pirates, dirty politicians, exploiters of the innocent, the enemies of our way of life: He doesn”™t approve of injustices ””God forbid ”” but still he loves all those in his world.
“While we were still sinners,” the Bible says, “Christ died for us.” Once we were God”™s enemies but in Christ God took the necessary, loving steps to reconcile us to himself. So it is that when we love without limit, when we love those who are our enemies, we are reflecting the nature of God. No, it is not practical. It is not right, fair, or justifiable; but it is love.
Forgiveness of our enemies is not natural, because humans are innately violent. But when we follow and are changed by Jesus, we are set free from the slavery of our human nature and what the world declares as normal. To follow Christ means we have found a new way to live, set free to love those we once hated. And when we are no longer fastened to what we once were, that is the greatest victory of all.
If I condemn others, I”™m condemning God!
But God WILL give all the grace we need to love and forgive and not be judgmental of others””but rather, to love and accept them, just as God, in Jesus Christ, has loved and accepted us!
Celebration of the Lord”™s Supper