Date: January 28, 2019 ()

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How is your wall doing? Is it coming down? Over the last few weeks have you seen a real change in your life? Have you seen how God wants to dismantle that wall and it is really happening? You know that we are not here to play games. We are not here to just talk pretty talk. We are here for God to do a powerful work in your life, a life-changing work. What I am telling you all about, I have been through myself. I went through it a long, long time ago. When I heard about it, I thought, “That is for me. That is what I need. I want it. I am sick and tired of all of this stuff in me and I want to be free of it.” God set me free. Just like what I am sharing with you, somebody shared with me. It really can change your life. If you will open up, it can change it.

Have you seen changes in the lessons that we have done in the weeks before this one? Have you seen the change? Can you say, “I used to be like this.” I will tell you a way that you can know if you have really been set free from these things. You get in the same situation and you do not act the same. You find yourself saying “You know I used to just absolutely lose my temper when that happened like that,” or “I used to struggle with that. I do not struggle with that anymore. What happened?” It is because you have truly opened up your heart and opened up your life. You said, “Jesus, bring the trucks in. Bring the cranes in. Bring the dirt busters in. I am ready. I am ready. I am ready.”

Today, we are going to talk about another one. Are you ready? This one is called “Judging Others the Right Way and the Wrong Way.” Nowadays, everywhere we go, no matter what is going on, people say, “Oh, I would not want to judge. It is not my place to judge. It is wrong to judge.” It is if you do it the wrong way. Do you really mean that? Would you like all of the judges in the world who pass judgment on what happens to you in a court of law to go away? Would you like God to go away? When bad things happen to you or somebody is doing something really wrong and it is affecting your life, would you really like no judging to go on? Did you know that it says in I Corinthians, “Do you not know the saints will judge the world.” Right there it is. We will look at it again in a minute but it flat out says there is a time you have to judge. If you are not prepared for that are you going to be a good judge? Let us look at this. What is God saying? (Look at this picture. The scales of judgment; somebody is making a decision, weighing in the balance what is going to happen. Is it going to be decided fairly?)

Most of you are familiar with the verse, “Judge not, lest you be judged.” There are two kinds of judging; one to be avoided and one to do. There are two different meanings for that word in the Bible. One of the words means do not look down your nose at other people and think that you are better and they are worse than you. Another word that is used for judging in the Bible is evaluate carefully and determine the right answer. In the English language we have the word judge. There can be two meanings to it. You want to be sure you know how to operate in the second one and you want to be sure that you do not operate in the first one, the bad kind.

When you look at what makes a person judge the wrong way, when you get right down to the bottom of it all, they do not have enough love. They do not have real love for people. They do not have real care for people and so they just look at conduct and say, “Well I would not do anything like that,” or “Did you see what she did? Can you believe she did that? Can you believe he did that?” There is absolutely no love. As a Christian, you are commanded to walk in love. You are commanded to do it. God wants you to do it. God is love. God does not do that. He does not look down on people and say, “I cannot believe you would do something like that. What is the matter with you.” He does not do that. He judges. He is a just God but He has the right way of doing it. When He talks to you He says, “I want you to be like Me." I want you to be Holy, like I am Holy. I want you to have so much love in your heart that when you look at people you evaluate carefully right and wrong behavior but you have love in your heart.” That is your little guideline right there.

(Look at this second picture. Here is a man judging other people. He is really getting with it isn’t he?) I am going to read this verse to you because you all need to know where the verse is located. You know you can all quote it. Here it is. In Matthew 7, “Do not judge others and you will not be judged for you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.” There you go. We are talking about the wrong kind of judging. I want you to get your paper out and I want you to begin to write down as it comes to your mind all of the people you have judged; all of the classes of people you have judged, all of the races of people you have judged, all of the nationalities of people you have judged and been so harsh about it. You do not want people to judge you harshly, do you? No, of course you do not. You want to have mercy all over the place. Judge them but give me mercy, God. It does not work that way or not according to this verse. “Judge not and you will not be judged and whatever standard you use to judge is how you are going to be judged.” Have you ever thought about the fact that maybe one of the reasons so many bad things happen to you and so much goes on that you hate could be because you have been judging others? It could be that is just coming back on you. God said it is going to. Right there it says that you are going to be judged it you do it so do not do it.

I do not know if you know this verse in Romans 2 but it says basically what you see in others that you do not like, you have been doing yourself. Does that not happen? Have you ever judged somebody? I have done it. I think “That is terrible that they did that. That is just terrible.” The next thing you know I am doing it, the very same thing. Why? I will tell you a little secret. It is tunnel vision. You get focused on the wrong and you put an intense emotion with it and it imprints it in you and the next thing you know you are doing it subconsciously. You find yourself doing it. It happens that way.

Another thing is if it is really something you would never do, well watch out and see your children do it. It just can happen that way. Some of it is stuff you would never do, but how you look at it, what you say about it, that determines how it comes back on you.

Look at this second Scripture, Romans 2, “You therefore have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else. At whatever point you judge the other you are condemning yourself because you who pass judgment do the same things.” There it is. I am going to give you another idea of what that is talking about. It is easy to see in others what you hate in yourself. Think about it. You hate it in yourself, you notice it in someone else, you pass judgment on it and then you realize I am doing it to. Is that not something that is startling to you when it happens? Do you not hate it? Think about it. It has gone on for thousands of years. Look, this Bible verse in Romans was written 2000 years ago. This is common to man. We do this.

Why do we judge people the wrong way? We are trying to put ourselves up. We are trying to make ourselves look good. We are trying to step on someone to make ourselves look good, trying to cover up a guilty conscience. This has gone on for so long. We have not changed. We are never going to change in terms of what humans are like. We are human beings are we not? We "be" this certain stuff. We are human beings. In fact, I guess we ought to really be called human doings because we also do it. We do not just “be it” we do it. Why does God hate it? He does hate it. He does not want you doing it. One, it puts you in the place of God. You become like a little God. I approve of this. I do not approve of that. I think that is wrong. I do not think that is wrong. I do not think they should do that. I do not think they ought to say that. I do not think they ought to act that way. Did you see that? That is not even how God is anyway. He does not do it that way.

The next thing is, you are placing a value judgment on a person. That is wrong. It is the performance of people that you look at. You do not need to be putting people down. Even with your children, you love your children do you not? They do things that disappoint you or upset you. It is very important that when you are correcting them that they do not get that idea that you are down on them and judging them. You can say to them. “You are a wonderful person and I love you. Your performance was not what you are capable of doing. You can act better than that. I did not like that performance but I love you and I accept you.” They can feel that. Another thing is when you do it to make you look good and them look bad, it ends up making you look bad does it not? People even get defensive of the ones that you have judged. Instead of turning on them like you are hoping people will do, they suddenly start looking at you and saying, “What is her deal? She is always judging people. What is her problem.”

I can tell you another reason why you have done that. If you have asked yourself “Why am I so critical of people? Why am I always seeing the bad in them?” Ask yourself this. Is the root because I feel insecure about me? I do not feel like I am good enough. I do not feel like I measure up. That is usually one of the main reasons why people judge other people. They do not feel good about themselves. They see their weaknesses and then they think, I have to do something about it, so I am going to say this. When we are talking about this wall between you and God, judging someone the wrong way is a part of that wall. It will cut off relationships between you and God. It cuts off relationships between you and others, between you and your family. It slows you down. It stops you. There is a better way and we are going to talk about it.

What is the good kind of judging, this evaluating, proper evaluating? I can give you a good example. As a parent, you are responsible for your children’s character. You are not responsible for their choices. When you are thinking about it, do not get down on yourself if your kids make bad choices because it is your job to teach them how to have good character and how to make good choices. When they do wrong, then it is your job to teach them how to see what they did wrong and understand this is wrong, this is why it is wrong and next time do it this way. Always teach people the principle of next time because that is not hard to take. “Honey, the next time you get in this situation where you are being pressured to make the wrong decision, the next time you get in it, do this.” It is not hard to for people to take it. They can think, “Okay I can try that.” You are really trying to teach people how to evaluate actions of others, how to avoid the same mistakes that other people are making, how to correct something that has been done wrong and, mainly, you are teaching them how to assess behavior. Why is that important? First of all, I hope you wrote those down. I am going to read them again to you because they need to go on your list of how you are to judge and God expects you to judge the right way and to teach your children to. 1) Evaluate activities to keep from making the same mistake. 2) Evaluate to correct something that is wrong. 3) Evaluate to assess behavior. That is what God wants you to learn how to do. Maybe you do not know how to do that. Maybe you are one of those people that you have just been judging so wrong for so long you think, “Lord, if I ever needed you to help me, I want this out of my life.” Call it sin and just say, “I am sorry. You hate it. You tell me not to do it. And I do not want it coming back on me.” Sometimes when I do something wrong and I know I have made a mistake, sometimes I say to the Lord, “God, I am so sorry I did that. Would you kill all of the bad seeds I sowed in this behavior?” He can do it. He can do it because you do not want it coming back on you.

How are we going to be judging in the world to come? We are going to be judging the angels. Did you know there is a Bible verse that says that? We are going to judge the very angels. Better be learning how to do it the right way because you need a lot of experience. You need to know how to do it the way God would want it done. In your prayer today ask God to show you. “Lord, teach me more about this. I would like to be one of the best judges of character around. I would like to look at people and see them for who they really are and help people. I would like to be a blessing to people, not a curse to people, not somebody who holds them back. I would like to be the kind of judge that if I ever needed a judge in a courtroom that I would have the wisest judge there was, that he could see behind the scene, he could see motives and he could give good wisdom on how to live then. Lord, I would like to be this way.”

Look at this next Scripture. This is the one I was telling you about. I Corinthians 6:2, “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world and, if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases now?” You see, there it is. God is telling us ahead of time that this is going to happen. Do you want to know what is going to happen in the world to come? There is one right there and you better know how to do it. We are going to judge the world. Do you realize how many people that will be? Oh my goodness. Why are we doing it? I do not know why. I do not know why God wants us to but He says we are going to.

What exactly does God say to judge? In Colossians 3:5 it says, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature.” That is something to judge. Is it spiritual or earthly? Sexual immorality is wrong. Does anybody judge that today? Oh no, everybody is doing it. In fact, did you know it says in the Bible in the last days people will be sexually immoral and say, “What is wrong with that? It is not wrong.” Do we not see that today? Another thing is impurity. God loves the pure hearted person. God loves the person that they have pure motives for what they are doing. God says, “Judge the impurity.” What do you see that you know it is not a right motive, it is a wrong motive. God says to judge lust. That can be a sexual lust. It can be a lust for money. It can be a lust for power. Do you know how to judge that? Can you look and say that person is doing it the wrong way? They are stepping over anybody and everybody to get to where they want to be. How about evil desires? Can you walk so closely with the Holy Spirit that He can whisper in your ear, in your heart? Do you see that? Let me tell you what their real reason for doing it is, because He wants you to learn how to judge like that. He can help you see greed where you are the one that sees it and this is what I want you to do about it. So many times, folks, those of you that are people who really struggle with judging, let me tell you what the good side of your problem is. You have a very discerning spirit. It is a good thing gone bad. God wants you to pray sincerely. “Lord, I do not want to be like this. I want this gift of discerning of spirits, discerning true motives, discerning what You are doing, discerning where it is the devil. Lord I want that grow in me. I want that to be like it ought to be with me. I sincerely ask You to help me to change, Lord. I want this out of my life.”

When you really love people and you see them doing wrong, you will find time to stop and pray for that person because you can see what is going on. It is your responsibility in caring for other people and not just being so wrapped up in your own little life and your own world to stop and say, “Lord, I want to pray for this person. I see this. Help them to see where they are wrong. Help them, God, to see the truth. God, let the truth set them free. Help them God.” If you do not care enough to pray to God about them, do you really love people? Do you really love them?

Does God judge us in this life? Absolutely. He does it to keep us on the straight and narrow. Sometimes we think, I am going to get into heaven. I have all of these problems and I do all of this stuff and I have all of this stuff in my life but God loves me. Bless God, I am going to heaven. The Bible says Jesus is coming back for a bride without spot or wrinkle. What does that mean? You know as well as I do what that means. No wrinkles. You have to get this stuff out of your life. Sometimes we think if we do not judge someone severely they are getting away with something. It is not true. Nobody gets away with sin. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows, that he reaps. Is that not true? Is that not what he says?

Look at this Scripture. Hebrews 10:30. I want you to write this Scripture down in this section where you are writing down about who you judge because I want you to remember this verse. This is out of The Message Bible. “God has warned us that He will hold us to account and make us pay. He was quite explicit. Vengeance is mine and I will not overlook a thing and also God will judge His people.” Nobody is getting away with anything, believe me.

What are the steps to overcoming the wrong kind of judging. Are you ready? We are going to take some of that wall down. Examine your own life and look to see the areas of behavior that you never can seem to master, You have attitudes you cannot ever seem to master. Which can you attribute to making a judgment on another individual? You become like what you focus on. Do not focus on their bad behavior. Do not be thinking about it all of the time. As you make this list, we are talking about your behavior, not somebody elses. List them, confess them by name. Name the baby as I keep saying in these lessons. Name the baby. Ask not only for forgiveness but cleansing and healing. Learn to access and evaluate these things in light of God’s Word. Get to know God’s Word. If you have a particular area you struggle with, get a concordance, go online to Biblegateway.com, type in the key word that you struggle with and see what all of the Bible verses are. Write them down. Print them off. Put them where you can see them all of the time. Pick out one that really applies to you and read it.

Another thing, ask yourself this question. Is this a time in my life that I am so unhappy with myself and my behavior that I am looking for someone else’s faults so I can make myself look good, so I will not look so bad? Ask yourself that. Get honest with it.

Now we are ready. We are going to break those judgements. Are you ready? “In the name of Jesus I break the judgment I placed on my father, my mother, my brother, my sister, my children, for being controlling, uncaring, harsh, judgmental themselves. God forgive me.”

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