Love Your Neighbor As Yourself

Introduction

Invite you to turn to Matthew chapter 7. I’m gonna read that text, Matthew 7th chapter. I’m gonna cover a couple different texts this morning, particularly Matthew 7 as well as Leviticus 19. I want to kind of join some thoughts there from these two different texts and work through those together. So start reading with me in Matthew chapter 7 and verse 1. Judge not that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there is the log in your own eye?

You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. Leviticus 19, which we’ll read here in just a few moments, is maybe one of the most popular phrases. love your neighbor as yourself. And in fact, probably the story that is best known in the world, in the dominant world, people who are not religious, who have no interest in going to church, don’t ever read their Bible, they know the story of the Good Samaritan, which is completely based on this concept of love your neighbor as yourself.

Along with that is the idea of judge not, the text we just read. And these two phrases I think are misused and abused in society quite frequently. And so I want to work through both of them. And before I go any further, I just want to say the elders asked me to preach on this. And so I want you to know that, particularly in helping us consider our attitudes toward each other. and I’ll just say that’s all I know. They asked me to preach this, I don’t know details, and so we’re gonna go from there, and I’m gonna preach this sermon, and so we’ll go forward from that standpoint. Love your neighbor in our dominant culture, the way it’s frequently used, and our world is so interesting now with social media and the banter that goes on there, but the way this is typically used, at least when I see it, is really that you should bow to my demands or you aren’t loving.

Judge not is kind of like the other side of that. I can do whatever I want, and you can’t tell me I can’t. So it’s like these two balanced things that are very misused and abused in culture. I remember years ago now, Beyonce, who used to claim to be a Christian. I don’t think she necessarily claims that anymore. I really don’t know, is being criticized by people within the Christian community because of the way she was dressing, the things she was doing on stage as she performed and on all of that. And her answer was judge not, right? That was the answer. Judge not, lest you be judged, right? So this kind of unholy combination of these two abuses leads to all kinds of things that are not really accurate.

1. Define the Terms: Love and Judgment

So, how do we go about living the biblical principles about judgment and about love in a way that is proper and right? I think the first thing we have to understand and we have to do really is define these terms, thinking on what does this actually mean? What is love, and what is the idea of judgment? Love, I think, is properly defined by the cross. that’s a concrete measure of what love is. There’s all sorts of abstract things that we could say, like be sacrificial, right? Or think of others before yourself. Those are all kind of abstract. But I think the clearest concrete example is that Jesus did what was best for others. That was love. So we can look at the cross and this very vivid and clear example of what love actually looks like.

He didn’t do that for himself.

It was for the benefit of everyone. And there’s all sorts of things people probably even in that day would have said it was foolishness to the Gentiles, stumbling block to the Jews. Who’s going to go around preaching you should follow a guy who died on the cross? That makes no sense. Jesus didn’t care. We did it. And it was a demonstration of his love and his concern for all of us. Judgment’s a little bit more tricky. Like a lot of words, it can kind of have different meanings. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not good. So judgment, you can also call it discernment, depending on the context. Obviously, discernment’s a good thing. I mean, we want to have discernment, but judgment can also, depending on the context and what we mean by it, can mean condemnation.

It can be done without mercy, it can be done with mercy or with compassion. So it’s sort of neutral. Sometimes condemnation of an action or an activity is correct. Sometimes it is necessary. And so judgment is a little bit more tricky, even, I think, than love, and because sometimes judgment is very much condemned in Scripture. And within Matthew 7, which is the reason why I read it, I think it’s both. There’s both given here in this text, which is why when you just say the first verse, judge not lest you be judged, you’re kind of missing the general context, which is an idea I want to focus on here in just a second. But I think the idea of judging is that in some ways it is condemned very clearly, right?

Matthew 7:1 and following. And other ways it is necessary. You have to judge. In fact, we are making judgments all the time. Daily, we are judging and discerning the sorts of things that we want to be involved in. This doesn’t always necessarily mean sin or not sin. Sometimes it’s just what is wise or what is not wise. And this is just part of our daily activity about what we do. In verse 6, though, there’s a judgment here that is necessary, that is right. Do not give dogs what is holy. This principle starts with, judge not lest you be judged. And the measure that you use, I mean, this is kind of the condemnation side of this. If you are going to judge people, just know you’re going to be judged the same way.

This measure you’re using is going to be measured back on you. So be aware of that. On the other side of that, though, in verse 6, there’s some clear judgment that has to be made here. Do not give dogs what is holy. Don’t cast your pearls before pigs over swine, is probably what you’re more used to in the King James version. Right? There’s a judgment that goes on in this, right? Like I’m wasting my time or I’m wasting my efforts. This person is not interested. They don’t want to hear what I have to say, right? And so there’s a judgment that comes along with that. And so even within Matthew 7, what we’re actually being told to do is to judge fairly, to be careful in our judgment.

2. Understand the Context of Matthew 7

And it’s really that concept I want us to work through quite a bit this morning, the idea of judging fairly, which is going to then bring us back to Leviticus 19 here in just a moment. Along with the idea of defining terms, though, I think one thing that we need to understand is context. One of the mistakes that’s made, I think, in Matthew 7 is not understanding the full context of what’s actually happening here. This is Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. And it may be a little different than we even imagine if we haven’t read from the beginning, Matthew 5 and worked our way through Matthew 7. Jesus has pretty much been lambasting the Pharisees and the rulers for quite some time. I mean, you go back to chapter 6, he’s talking about how pretentious they are and how they do all kinds of things for attention.

They go out and they pray in front of everybody, so everybody sees what they’re doing. You know, they’re kind of like just snobs of the day. And the people would have attached themselves more to the Pharisees than they would have the Sadducees. And there’s some differences there. But even still, the Pharisees kind of burden the people. And they look down on the people. And you can imagine, as Jesus is saying all these things about what they do to be seen by men and to be noticed and how self-righteous they were, and all of that the common people might have enjoyed that a little. You know, Jesus is knocking down these self-righteous Pharisees.

And line after line, he’s talking about the various ways in which they’ve done it wrong with their fasting and with their giving and with their prayer and how it’s all about them and their attention and their glory. And as we work through this, then I think he’s getting back to the common person and saying, that’s all true, but be careful. Be careful how you judge them. Be careful about being too eager to jump on those Pharisees and judge them for who they are. And what really needs to happen is you get the log out of your own eye first. Pretty easy examples. I mean, there’s some of these Pharisees. I’m convinced there’s Pharisees that were very good people, trying to do the right thing. And sometimes because we see a lot of the negatives in Scripture.

3. You Shall Be Holy, for I Am Holy

There actually are some positives in scripture about the Pharisees too. They weren’t all terrible and bad. There were certain ones who were, and Jesus points that out here, but then I think he kind of reels it back in chapter 7 and verse 1. Bring it practical and say, but hold on. Be careful about the way you are judging others. I’m going to go in Leviticus chapter 19 now, and I want to pick up the context here of what’s happening in this text, particularly with the idea of being fair, judging fairly. I want to start in verse 1, and I want to read a little bit there of chapter 19, but then I’m going to jump down to verse 15 and follow in there. All of it’s really good.

And I want to read the first few verses just to kind of set the context, and then we’ll work from there. It says, and the Lord spoke to Moses saying, This is Leviticus 19 in verse 1. Now we’re verse 2 speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God am holy. Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God.

Very particular for Judaism. When you get to verse 9, there’s also some kind of civil laws. He starts getting into here about taking care of the poor and a lot of ethical types of things. Here are the right ways to treat people and all that sort of thing in various aspects of life. So you shouldn’t lie to your neighbors and deal falsely with them. You should take care of the poor, all of this. But what I really want you to notice, like verse 10, verse 12, verse 14, he keeps finishing with this phrase, I am the Lord. And that connects back to the foundational principle in verse 2, you shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God am holy. And so all the things he’s saying here are reminders that God is the determiner of what is holy and what is right.

Whether it makes sense to us that you rest on Saturday or whatever for the Jews, it doesn’t matter. God determines what’s holy. This is his creation, and he decides. And so there’s principles that go along with that from an ethical standpoint that we won’t get into now, but he is the creator, he is the one who rules, he’s in charge, and so he makes the rules. And so when God says something is holy, it’s holy. And this is what he’s getting into here, and this is how you should live, because I’m God, I’m the creator, and I say how things are. That’s essentially the bottom line of what’s happening in this text. But the foundational principle is you shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God am holy.

Now, everything else under this then kind of attaches itself to that concept. Verse 15. You shall do no injustice in court, you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor. I am the Lord. You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. Why is this important? Well, I think good Bible students understand Jesus himself, his commandments are love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength.

I am holy. You should be holy, right? This is the concept, this foundational idea, this affection or this desire to do the things of God. And then the next one, which he says is like it, they’re very similar. You actually cannot separate them. And John makes this point in his epistles. You can’t love God whom you don’t see and love your brother whom you see. They work together. So he says, love your neighbor as yourself. And this is in some ways the most often quoted verse in the New Testament from the old.

Well, what does it mean? That’s what we have to work through and determine this morning. Does it mean we just do whatever else anybody else wants? You know, we never say no to anybody, we make them feel good. No, it does not mean that at all. It is exactly the sort of thing Paul talks about, which is we put others’ interests before our own, and we’re looking out for what is best for everyone. It’s not just working to make someone happy. That’s it’s not the idea at all of what’s going on here. It’s about judging fairly, it’s about judging righteously, because that is what is particularly in this context for everyone. Right here, they’re dealing kind of with civil authority. This is how they function. It’s all one within Israel.

Okay, so they have their civil law, they have their kind of religious laws, and they all work together because they’re a theocracy. God is at the top, and you have at some certain points at least, you have a king who is working for God as people. And so it all is one. We’re a little bit different, obviously, in how we function and as our government and all of that. But we are in the kingdom of God. Christ is the head, he is king. And so, yes, we have some civil things that we do. We’re members of this country and all that sort of thing. But actually, the most important is that we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. That is the most vital thing for God’s people.

And so these kinds of ideas like love as yourself, right? And judging righteously or judging fairly, verse 15 of Leviticus 19, all of those are a part of what is being part of God’s people. The world goes about all of this very differently. The world is very selfish, it is very demanding, it is very entitled, it is very self important, that everything should be what I want. And the thing is, we are in the world, and so probably all of us are influenced in that way. And we have to fight those urges. We have to fight what’s around us in the world and this desire to operate in the ways the world operates. And that’s what it means to be called a kingdom citizen and to be different, to be set apart.

4. Don't Judge When You Are in a Poor Position

That is not the direction we should be going. We need to be people who are humble, people who are looking out for others, who care about the things of God, not personal gain. So all of this is very different than how the world operates and thinks. And so I want us to just think about a few principles when it comes to judgment, especially in relationship to texts like Matthew 7 and Leviticus 19. The first of those is don’t judge when you are in a poor position to judge. I know that we use sports analogies a lot, so they just make sense. So I’m gonna do it again. Have you ever been at a baseball game? And you’re like 400 feet away from home plate, but you think you see balls and strikes better than the umpire?

I mean, I know some of you have because I’ve been there with you. You know, we boo and we get upset, the umpire doesn’t know what he’s doing, you know. and yet we think we have a better perspective than the guy who’s standing right behind the catcher watching the ball come right at him. This is the sort of thing I mean about this idea of lacking perspective. Or maybe we don’t have all the angles on what’s happening. And again, in our culture, this is not appreciated. We live in what is often called an outrage culture. You just get upset, you get angry, you hear something, you get mad, and that’s the way it is. And this is even this week, just think about the way this works in our culture.

It’s a bunch of keyboard warriors hiding behind screens, arguing with each other. Even the president of the United States. Okay? The president and Elon Musk are. I mean, are you aware of this? I mean, maybe people at camp were. I know we got a lot of people who came back from camp. Maybe you didn’t see this. Sorry. Your parents can tell you later. or not. and then even the last few days, Simone Biles and Riley Gaines, you know, debating and arguing online about all sorts of things. This is just the nature of our culture. And rather than taking things slowly, delaying judgment when possible, thinking carefully through whatever the issue is, the tendency in our culture, the danger is to jump quickly and to move fast.

There’s a book called Crucial Conversations that I would highly suggest. It’s really about how you deal with conflict. And it’s it talks about in the home, in churches. It’s not really like a religious book, but I think there’s maybe some religious background to some of these people who wrote it. And so they talk about different environments. Workplace is a big part of it. One of the things they talk about is we have a tendency, we just we do this, but we tell ourselves stories, right? And so if we operate by our story first, it gets us into all kinds of problems. We make all sorts of assumptions. We tell our thing ourselves things about how it’s all working and what’s happening. One of the examples they give is a woman goes home, she sees a bill on the counter, she opens it’s a credit card bill, she sees this is her husband’s work credit card, and there’s hotel purchases on there.

He comes in the door and she immediately attacks him. What are you doing? I can’t believe you’re doing this. That’s telling yourself the story first. You’ve already decided how it is. And you’re not you’re not focusing on the facts. And the whole they’d say you know, reorder. He comes home and say, Hey, I saw this. I saw the, I see these hotel purchases here. Those are the facts. Right? The bill is the facts. And then you say, you know, the way this makes me feel is that you are not being faithful to me. Now, that gives him a chance to explain. He can say, No, that’s not it at all. You know, an employee came to town, we paid for them to stay. This is what happened.

But instead of jumping to the conclusion and making assumptions up front, there is a conversation that happens. Bill can explain how it feels and the way it looks to her. But she started with the facts before getting to the feelings. And the reality is the story is not equal to the facts. And one of the problems, we love stories. Stories are great in many ways, but sometimes the stories betray us. How many of us tell stories in our head only to find out later the story we told ourselves was not true? You know, we thought somebody was upset with us, and we run and we mole this over in our mind over and over again, even to find out the person had no idea that we thought that, or what they said made us think that, or anything.

And so the stories often betray us, and sometimes we ignore the facts to tell our story to ourselves.

There’s a few areas I think scripture deals with Matthew 7, Leviticus 19, but really all sorts of other things that go in here. The first is we can delay judgment so we avoid judging hypocritically. This is really the point of Matthew 7, what Jesus is actually getting at here. I think he’s coming to the common people and saying, before you start judging those Pharisees I’ve been hitting on so hard the last few minutes, maybe stop and think about yourself. Now we like to think about ourselves, just not necessarily in this light. Thinking about my flaws and my faults and the things that I’ve done right is not really fun. It’s a lot easier, a lot more fun to nitpick and point out the error to somebody else.

This is exactly what Jesus is saying here. But before you want to go and correct everyone else, maybe delay that for a moment and think about yourself. Is there anything that I need to correct here? Is my perspective off? Am I coming at this from the right angle? Along with that, all these sort of work together. But along with this is the danger of judging ignorantly. Have I actually made an effort to get the full picture? That is really hard to do. I think as a parent, maybe we experience this really well. You know, if we’ve got a couple kids and they how does this work, right? They come tell us the stories about what happened. And Proverbs talk about this a long time ago.

Now I did a series of sermons on Proverbs 18. Some great stuff in that chapter about this that applies to all sorts of things in life. Here’s a couple statements from Proverbs 18. If one gives an answer before he hears, it is folly and shame. Verse 13, the one who states his case first seems right until the other comes and examines him. Verse 17. So the first kid comes and tells you what happens. I can’t believe your brother or your sister did that. And then, of course, the other comes, and you hear the other side of the story, which even then it’s a little bit ambiguous sometimes, but actually took place. there’s a famous story in our family. I might get this wrong. My mom can correct me later if I do.

It’s not about me, so that’s good. my sister and brother, when they were younger, were you know constantly having trouble, and my brother was hitting Heather, he was a little bit younger. so he would get in trouble, you know. She would come crying and Brian hit me, you know. The whole you know the whole scene, right? until one time my grandma was there, and the whole thing went down, you know, Brian’s getting in trouble for hitting his sister, until then she tells my mom, well, she was nagging him persistently forever before he did this. So it’s not all on him. And of course, then we find out, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story. A little bit, sorry, baseball again, but it’s kind of like when we do those replays, you know, you see the first one, and you’re like, that guy is out.

Can’t believe I mean it’s so clear, can’t believe the umpire missed this. But then you get like the other five angles. And sometimes, have you ever been this experienced? You baseball lovers, I know you have. Sometimes there’s only one angle that shows the guy’s actually not out. All the other ones, it looks like he is, but there’s just this one angle that reveals it’s not what you thought you saw. And so the warning here is not that you can’t ever judge. The Bible says to judge rightly or to judge with righteous judgment, but to just be very careful about that process. And then there is judging unlovingly, right? So hypocritically, ignorantly, unlovingly. This is moved by bias. You’ve already decided what you think, and nothing’s really going to change your mind.

All of these dangers are filled with bad assumptions, stories we’ve told ourselves, all of that. And there’s some great examples in scripture of this very thing. For example, Judah and Tamar. Remember that story? Tamar is married to Judah’s sons, and they keep dropping one by one because they’re wicked men. You know, and then Judah’s wife dies. He trip, Tamar sets this whole thing up. She looks like a temple prostitute. He goes into her later on. It is exposed that she’s pregnant, and Judah says, burn her at the stake. Boy, it would have been good if Judah slowed down and got some more information. Because he didn’t know he was the father. And so delaying judgment and seeking better perspective. It’s always a good thing to do.

Job’s friends. This is an interesting one. It’s not really purposeful. I think they actually have really good intentions. It’s just that their theology stinks. They think if bad things are happening to you, this is God bringing retribution on you. You know, this is the foundation of the things they’re telling Job. They’re just wrong about God and how God works. And so although their motives are pure and good, they’re just incorrect. And they’re giving Job a lot of really bad advice. Job living it, being in the middle of it, I think he gets it. There’s some things he’s off about as well. Mainly wondering why God is letting this happen. He doesn’t ever sin. I don’t think the text indicates he does that. And so just being careful, being thoughtful, delaying judgment, making sure we actually have good perspective on what is happening in whatever the conflict is always a really important thing.

Let me give you another illustration of the dangers here. I think we all know this. Media, politicians, I mean they’re just a bunch of liars. Okay. They shape things and they turn it and twist it to make you think something. Over and over again. This morning, I looked at a story, it was some other sports analogy. Roy McElroy saying something that says he snubs Jack Nicholas’s tournament. You know what he did? He just didn’t go. So you like you read the story and you realize the headline is ridiculous. Or like a quote is pulled out, you know, this guy says this, and then you go read the story, and like that’s not at all what he said. They just pulled one little phrase out and made it seem like he’s saying something completely different.

5. Judge Your Neighbor Fairly and Righteously

We live this every day. This is you have to check, you have to dig in and see are these things correct? Are they right? And if we don’t look at those angles, we’re going to get burned. And so delaying judgment to seek better perspective is so important. Number two, judge your neighbor when you can do so fairly and righteously. This is the idea of Leviticus 19. And there’s some things about this that are part of this process that I want to get into. Here he’s saying, he doesn’t say don’t judge, right? That’s not the point at all. It says you shall do it righteously or fairly. And there’s there’s ways you go about doing that. And it doesn’t matter. Some of our inclinations, right? We all have different personalities and we have different inclinations.

And so maybe you’re really drawn to poor people and you want to help poor people. It doesn’t mean they’re always right. Right? Or maybe you’re someone who just loves success and you see successful people, and that really drives you and motivates you, it doesn’t mean they’re never corrupt. And so he says, do not be partial. Don’t be partial to the poor or defer to the great. Verse 15, but you shall judge in righteousness. This goes back, and these are going to build, but it goes back to seeking the correct angles, seeking all the information that you can before judgments are made, and doing it in a way that is fair. We need to look at Galatians chapter 6. Because part of this is the idea of seeking yourself first.

Am I in the right perspective to do this? Matthew 7 talks about this, but so does Galatians 6. If anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted. Notice again the focus is inward first. It’s just like Matthew 7. Get that thing out of your own eye because you can’t see clearly. Right? If you don’t do that first, you’re not going to see clearly. And this is exactly what Galatians 6 is talking about. But actually, the context goes back to Galatians 5. So I want us to think about this. Are my actions and my behaviors spirit led? Are they spirit led? The works of the flesh are evident.

Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, man, those are really bad. Those are bad things. Enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Those are not part of the spirit-led life. And so if my actions or my behaviors are described by those, that is not good. Now, some of those we would hold up as terrible and vile and horrible, things like immorality or idolatry. Fits of anger, though, I don’t know if I want to talk about that. A little bit more uncomfortable. What about the other side of this? So Paul goes on, it’s not just the works of the flesh, but he talks about what the fruit of the Spirit is like.

If we’re led by the Spirit, right? If we’re walking by the Spirit, if we’re keeping in step with the Spirit, then these things are going to be a part of who we are. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. And so the question for all of us is are our actions described by that first list or by the second? I can’t answer that for you. I can only answer it for me. Well, sometimes we see the fruits of things, and that can reveal some stuff. And so maybe you would come to me and say, hey, you did this and this and this, and I think maybe those are works of the flesh and not part of the fruit of the spirit. That’s fair.

That’s part of judgment, isn’t it? And so by observation, by looking at things, sometimes we can work through that and we can help each other, and we should do that. But ultimately, it is on me to look within and to see am I being led by the Spirit? The Spirit within me, and is that what’s driving me? Or am I being driven by deeds of the flesh? And if it’s the first list, I’m in no place to judge. This is the exact point Paul is making. It’s the exact point that Jesus is making. The point of these judgments in chapter 6 is to restore, to heal, to turn from error, to protect the innocent, we might say, even in James 5, 19 and 20. And so judgment is done properly by those who are spiritual, who have looked inward first.

Judgment is in connection to truth and God’s standards, not opinions or emotions or social norms. Has anyone here had surgery recently? You don’t have to raise your hand, it’s okay. So want to think about it. Or maybe taking medicine or herbal remedies. Did you know that for centuries Christian believed, Christians believed that this was immoral and questionable? That thus dissecting the body was sinful. Seeking divine healing was taught as being spiritually mature. So the idea in some of these, there’s a variety of beliefs, but I’m giving you an overview here. I’m about to give you some quotes. But the idea was some people might do herbal remedies or that sort of thing, but if you’re truly spiritually mature, you would seek divine healing. Tertullian and St.

Augustine both denounced the practice of dissection to learn about the human body and called it sacrilegious. What of those who have made it clear, made it their business to anatomize bodies and have examined the bowels of the dead. I call them butchers rather than philosophers. Tertullian on the soul. Philosophers is how they talked about scientists in antiquity. So that’s what he’s saying there. It was the formal position of the church, in the medieval period, that the church abhors blood. Surgery and medicine in general were viewed as against nature and suspect. It was desecrating the sacred body to intervene. C-sections were immoral and unethical. This actually was true in thought, at least up until the end of the 19th century, so 140 years ago. Are you aware of that?

At the Council of Tours in 1163, Pope Alexander III maintained that through medicine, the devil tried to seduce the priesthood and threaten with excommunication any ecclesiastic who studied medicine. Similarly, in the Council of Le Mans in 1248, it forbed monks from any surgical activity reflecting a belief that shedding blood was unbecoming for the clergy. All dissections were considered sacrilege. Surgery was considered dishonorable until the 15th or 16th centuries. All of this from George Cutton in his book, The Project Gutenberg. But it wasn’t just religion. Gettlin, not the one we have here, but a famous physician in the Roman Empire in the second century, so this is he’s not a Christian.

Made this statement. Since it is not permitted to dissect the human body, I have had to learn anatomy by cutting up apes and other animals. I have made the best of this.

Of the body, or being too materialistic and not spiritual enough, not looking for divine healing. There was also social and religious taboo. It’s just disgusting and abhorrent to them. But you know, in James 5, 14 and 15, it says to call the elders first and let them pray over you, anointing with oil, and the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick. Now there’s all sorts of things I could get into here with this about we don’t really believe in the supernatural in our world, and so all of this is very difficult. And even within religious community, this is pretty normal that we discount a lot of the supernatural. They don’t have that holdup. And they very much believe in divine healing. And they’re getting this from places like James 5, which talks directly about it.

And let me ask you this have we gone too far in our use of medicine and surgery? Are we even willing to ask the question? I think that’s fair. What about vanity surgeries? Elective C-sections. I’m probably making some people mad right now, but this is a real question. They believe this for 1400 plush years. Have we even thought about it? Look, I don’t necessarily think that they’re correct. But I think asking some questions about it might be good. And thinking about. But I want us to understand that emotions and cultural norms are not the measure of truth. The people in antiquity would be offended and condemn what we do today. That’s the reality. And probably we haven’t even really thought about it.

6. Questions to Help Us Judge Situations Fairly

Delay judgment. Think carefully. Consider things from different angles. And judgment can be good when it is done properly, when it is done well. So how can we go about this? It’s going to give you a few questions. There, I’m sure are many more, but what can we do to help us judge situations fairly? First, we just need to think practically. Judging fairly isn’t about winning. It’s about doing the right thing no matter what. That’s the goal. It’s about seeking the truth in the situation. It’s not about confirming what I already think. It’s being willing to challenge and come down on what we think is right no matter where we were before. It’s about using scripture properly in context. And again, this takes work. It’s very easy to pull out a verse here and there and use it to defend what I already think.

It’s much harder to use scriptures the right way. But here’s a few questions. Have I listened to everyone involved? Well, here’s what I’m not saying. I’m not saying you need to go get involved in every single situation and talk to every single person. But what I’m trying to say is do we have a good picture? Do we actually have a full picture of this? Or do we just hear something and jump on it immediately? Do we just get angry? Even though we haven’t really seen everything about what’s going on here. It’s interesting in some of the things that have gone on recently. I’m familiar with a few of the incidents. One of them, it was funny that the elders, in a sad sort of way, but it’s funny the elders said, you know, this person says the elders aren’t listening to anybody over here.

And then in the very same breath, someone over here is saying the elders aren’t listening to anybody over here. Do you see the problem here? These are stories. They’re stories that are not backed up with fact. And let me just say, there’s a whole lot of things in most conflicts that many people do not know. And so we should be very careful the conclusions we reach, particularly with the lack of information that we have. And so have we actually done our due diligence? Or did we just get the headline and the clipped quote and run with it and go from there? Have I considered my own biases? This could be a 30-minute topic right here. The reality is, I’ve said this many times, we all have our own biases.

Every single person in this room has biases.

In a very critical situation, I might even just need to sit down and write down. What try to identify what are my biases here? Where am I? What’s my starting place? Where am I working from? Try to help me gauge this properly. But Leviticus 19 deals with all of this. Have I reasoned frankly? Reasoning frankly means we’re sitting there, we’re having dialogue, we’re talking, we’re working through this. You shall not be partial, verse 15. That’s about bias. And then am I seeking for wisdom? All of these work together, delay judgment. Get ourselves into a way that is good for proper judgment. And these three questions help that process. There may be more. This is not an exhaustive list. But what I really want us to do with all of this is kind of switch the perspective, okay?

Conclusion

This idea of judge not like you can’t tell me what to do, or you know, you have to love me and do what I want. You know, this is worldliness. That’s the worldly way of thinking. That’s a worldly abuse of these very good biblical texts that we should be using properly, not improperly. And the whole point of all of this is really to then reverse this. So I am thinking to myself, I need to make sure I am not judging unfairly. And I’m looking in the mirror and asking, am I loving my neighbor the way I want to be loved? Some of you may be telling yourself a story right now that you think I’m targeting you or I’m mad at you. It’s not true. I preached this exact sermon on September 5th, 2021.

These exact points. How did you feel about it then? We were in the midst of COVID. There were lots of opinions and attitudes wrapped up in all of that. It’s the same appeal today as it was four years ago. Be very careful. Be careful about the story you tell yourself, the things you tell yourself about how other people feel about you. And I can tell you from personal experience, some of these things are completely wrong. They’re just stories. And all of us need to make sure we’re doing the due diligence to be careful about our attitudes, the way we’re treating each other. And in that light, this is my final appeal on this. Everything I’ve talked about this morning, don’t think about the person over here or over there.

Person down the pew from you. Maybe a person not even here. Don’t think about that. Just like those Pharisees and the people in Matthew 7. I need to think about me and what I need to fix and what I need to change. And you need to think about you and what you need to fix and what you need to change. The reality is I can’t change anybody else. And neither can you.

Paul doesn’t really talk about doctrinal things in either one. It’s just these personal conflicts that these people need to work through and their attitudes needed to improve and labor again in the gospel, the good news. Obstacles and stumbling blocks and distractions that come from personal opinions to get in the way of the good work that needs to be done by God’s people within his kingdom. This morning, that might mean for you that you need to come to Jesus Christ. You realize you’ve been self-willed. That’s the way of the world. It’d be no surprise. We’ve all dealt with that. We don’t want to shame you for that way of thinking because we’ve all been there. The idea is to start fixing it, to restore it, to make it better, and we want to help you with that.

We’ve all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We’ve all been in a situation where we’ve done wrong and we know we need to change. And so if you recognize that in yourself this morning, you can make it right. And God wants you to. His arms are open to you. If you’re not in Christ, he wants you to be in Christ. There’s now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And if you’re in Christ and you realize you haven’t been led by the Spirit, you haven’t been walking or keeping in step with the Spirit, it’s not all lost. You can come back and you can begin to work on those qualities that make up the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians chapter 5 and begin to rid ourselves of the deeds of the flesh.

Can we help you? Why don’t you?