Fake News part 7

Fake News • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

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Part 7 Do not Judge lest you be judged. Understanding the truth about the popular fake scripture that people believe that is in the bible, but it is not.

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Do Not Judge Lest You Be Judged.

You know fake news is in abundance today through articles, news stories, the internet and we really have to be careful that we don’t allow something that is said out of context or something that has not even happened to sway our opinions.

It is the same for the biblical fake news.

The more we buy into unfounded claims of the Bible the more we change what we believe what the Bible says and our biblical knowledge about God changes.

In fact the Bible tells us in Deuteronomy 4:2 that we cannot add to or take away from the commands of God.

That is why we are this sermon series. We don’t want to be those people who just agree with something because it sounds great, rather we need to judge if it is true or not, we must be discern the truth from the lies that are out there.

So far, we have discovered 6 phrases that we thought to be in the Bible, but we learned that they are not. We started with “God helps those who help themselves”. We learned that we have a God who helps those who depend on Him whether they can or cannot help themselves.

We also investigated the false saying that many people believe that is “money is the root of all evil”. The Bible teaches it differently by saying “the LOVE for money is a root of all kinds if evil” Then my favorite so far is the great saying that “God won’t give you more than you can handle”. We learned that it is not true because the Bible teaches us over and over again that God does give people more than they can handle to draw them closer to Him and to rely on His power.

We then tackled the very popular saying that “everything happens for a reason”. We learned that some things happen because they just happen and while many things do happen for a reason, God is not the reason for all things. Then we looked “God moves in mysterious ways”. But the Bible teaches us that God maybe mysterious to us, but He wants us to know His ways. We also learned that the way we can know God’s ways for our lives by pursuing Him, to change our thinking, and that we must change direction.

And last week we investigated the all to well know saying that is not in the Bible “when God closes a door, He opens a window” We learned that this is the closest to biblical truth, but it is still not in the Bible. We learned that God says no to our will, so we can yes to His. And to often we are the ones that closes doors. When we feel as if God closed a door we must do four things:

1.Don’t get frustrated.

2.Look for God’s direction.

3. Take action.

4. Be alert.

Which leads us to our final investigation of Fake News and that is “Judge not, lest you be judged”.

Before we begin let’s prepare our hearts for God’s message through prayer.

There was a time that the most well-known Bible verse for all people was John 3:16 “For God so loved the World that He gave His one and only Son that who so ever believes in Him shall no perish, but have everlasting life”

But this is no longer the favorite verse for many people today. Especially for those who are not committed to Christ, those without God, unbelievers.

I believe that the number one Bible verse used today is used by these people. In fact, it has become the trump card used to justify lifestyles, behaviors and sin. It used against born-again believers when we stand up for our Biblical world view. If we jump in with an opinion of what we believe is right or wrong they will try to use Jesus’ words against us “Judge not, lest you be judged”.

Has anyone ever said that to you?

Have you ever said that to someone else?

Maybe you someone has said it this way or you have said “DON’T JUDGE ME, because you know what the Bible says judge not less you be judged”.

Do you know what I have learned over the years? That people love to take things out of context. Especially when it comes to the Bible. That is what we have seen over the last 6 weeks.

That a small portion of the Bible is taken out of context so that the Bible will fit into our sinful lives rather than taking it in context and using it to shape our lives, as is the purpose of the Holy Word of God. People use misquoted verses and sayings to make them feel justified, to feel good about their situations in life. It also is used to mean that no one has the right to judge anyone for anything at any time.

IT’S FAKE NEWS!

So, where did this come from? Well believe it or not it actually came from Jesus’ own mouth while He preached the Sermon on the Mount.

But even though it is the Words of Christ, it must be taken within the complete context to actually understand what it means.

With that said; if you have your Bibles with you today and I hope that you do, open your Bible with me to two places today first is the book of Matthew. Matthew in the first book of the New Testament, Matthew chapter 7.

And the second is John chapter 7.

Now in Matthew chapter 5 is where we find Jesus on the mountain side teaching the disciples. This teaching is called the Sermon on the Mount.

In this teaching moment Jesus begins telling the disciples and the crowds that gathered around Him that there are standards to living as a born-again disciple of Jesus Christ and these standards are to guide people to be able to live rightly in the unjust sinful world.

Now Jesus begins with the BE-Attitudes. These are attitudes that we are to have when certain things happen to us because we are followers of Christ. He then speaks about us being the salt and the light of the world. He speaks of matters of the heart- murder- adultery, telling the truth, going the extra mile for others and loving our enemies. Jesus then addresses the big three for born-again believers, how to give, how to pray and how to fast, essentially Jesus is saying don’t do these things like the self-righteous pharisees and how the religious leaders did things.

Then Jesus begins the 7th chapter with judging others and this is where we find ourselves today.

If you are there first in the book of Matthew chapter 7 begin reading with me from verse 1. This is the Word of God and it begins like this:

Matthew 7:1-6 “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. 3 And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

6 “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.”

Now turn to John 7 and listen to the words that Jesus is saying: John 7:21-24

Jesus just healed a man on the sabbath and the religious leaders complained and Jesus said:

“Jesus answered and said to them, “I did one work, and you all marvel. 22 Moses therefore gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. 23 If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath? 24 Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”

Notice that the common theme in both accounts is about judging others. He is speaking of how to judge others and then Jesus being judged by the religious leaders.

However because of taking Jesus’ words out of context people believe that Born-Again believers are not to judge anyone, because of the teachings of Jesus.

Although this is not what Jesus is saying. The command is not to judge others, but when we judge we must have the correct heart in doing so. So, Jesus teaches His disciples and those in the crowds about how to judge someone and how we are to judge others around us.

In both instances of scripture Jesus was referring to or talking about the religious leaders of His day and how they were judgmental towards people.

In-fact I want to tell you that as Jesus spoke, He was correcting the problem while at the same time teaching the people then and teaching us today not to travel down the same road as those religious leaders.

Which brings us to our Take-Truth Today.

The Take-Truth is This:

JUDGING OTHERS IS WRONG, UNLESS I JUDGE BY WHAT IS RIGHT.

When Jesus says, “Judge not,” He’s not issuing a law on not judging others; he’s issuing a serious warning to be careful how we judge others. There is a difference of judging others with a self-righteous attitude and with a genuine heart.

Let’s face it, we judge others based on what they wear, if they have piercings, Tattoos (Not Right) how they wear their cloths. How they live their lives..ect… I believe and wouldn’t you agree with me that we are born with the judgmental gene.

But often times we make a judgement based on what we have seen or heard and the doesn’t give us enough information for the whole picture.

watch this video on the screen.

You know it is said that the Indians had their way of saying this: "Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins." And there’s something to that. For example, a person brought up in a Christian home can’t really know the temptations of a teenager brought up in a thoroughly sinful environment. The fact is that if we realized what some people have to go through, instead of condemning them, we might just be blown away that they have succeeded at being as good as they are.

There is a story about a newspaper reporter. He was once searching for a story about the laziness that existed throughout the South, when he saw a man in his field, sitting in a chair and hoeing his weeds.

This had to be the ultimate in laziness He thought to himself. So, he rushed back to his car to start working on his story when he looked back a second time and what he saw changed his entire outlook. He saw that the pants legs on the farmer hung down loose -- the man had no legs.

So, what seemed at first to be a story of laziness turned into a story of great courage. This shows the limitations that we have as we see through the lens of being judgmental.

When you look through the judgmental lens, you see only what you want to see.

So the question is: how do we judge another’s persons actions correctly?

Today I want to share with you 4 ways we can judge others correctly.

But before we begin, I want to caution you that when you judge others, you do it at your own risk, because if its not done biblically you bring that same kind of judgement on yourself.

He are the 4 ways that Jesus teaches us to correctly judge others.

Are you ready?

You know that reminds me of that famous I have a dream speech By Dr Martin Luther King Jr where he said

“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Okay, 4 ways that Jesus teaches us to correctly judge others.

Are you ready?

FIRST JESUS SAYS:

DON’T BE A HYPOCRITICAL JUDGE.

Look back at verses 1-4 with me: “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged. 2 For with the judgment you use, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the plank in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a plank in your eye? 5 Hypocrite!”

The Pharisees and other religious leaders during this time were hypocritical, they were about self-righteousness, they imposed an additional 600 plus laws on the people and they insisted that the people were to follow those laws. If not, they were punished, demonized, they were told that they are not part of the Jewish religion because they were not following the law, and they could be arrested and put into prison.

Not all of them were like this but most of them were. This is the wrong attitude to be Pharisaical hypocritical judge. A hypocritical judge says; “do as I say, not as I do”.

Look at what Jesus says in verses 3-4 “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye?”

Can I just say this? I even cannot handle an eyelash in my eye, I cannot even handle putting in eye drops… But a plank or other versions say a log?

When we judge like this it is hypocritical of people and people do it all the time.

Here is what Church folks say when someone does something that is tragic, here is many people say “I can’t believe that they would do something like that, its horrible”.

Yet we had forgotten what we used to be like before we met Jesus. Right? … I mean we were terrible before as well.

Or the best one is when you condemn someone in the church and you go home and do the same thing in private. Or you gossip about a person and you do the same thing. Listen folks’ self-righteous people are always full of themselves, they set up their own rules that others need to live by.

What Jesus is saying here is that you are a hypocrite just like the Pharisee if you walk around trying to call out people for their wrong doing when you have this big old log sticking out your own eye.

This is what you look like (have a trim limb and put it close to your eye. You are trying to tell someone of the eyelash in their eye when you are walking around like this. there are lot of people walking around like this---).

Jesus is telling us, don’t do it, because you will be judged by the same method.

First, to judge correctly we must not be a hypocritical judge.

Which leads to the second thing Jesus says about Judging others and that is:

2. JUDGE YOURSELF BEFORE JUDGING OTHERS.

Jesus said in verse 5 “First take the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

I want you to now that Jesus is saying that we can judge others, but you have to do it the right way. Amen?

So what’s the right way? In John chapter 8 gives an illustration of the right way. It is the story of when the religious leaders the scribes and Pharisee brought a woman to Jesus who was caught in adultery.

Do you know that story?

The bible says this: John 8:5-9 “Teacher,” they said to Him, “this woman was caught in the act of committing adultery. 5 In the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do You say?” 6 They asked this to trap Him, in order that they might have evidence to accuse Him. Jesus stooped down and started writing on the ground with His finger. 7 When they persisted in questioning Him, He stood up and said to them, “The one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Then He stooped down again and continued writing on the ground. 9 When they heard this they left one by one, starting with the older men.”

I love this story because the religious leaders where trying to trap Jesus, but instead He had them look into their own hearts and sinfulness. Jesus gets them to focus not on the speck in the woman’s eye but rather the log in theirs.

Notice that Jesus had them evaluate themselves, once they evaluated their own character they did not have time to worry about that woman’s character.

Do you know a lot of conflict would be resolved if people would first judge themselves with the same standard that want to judge others?

Think about this: when we spend our time pointing our fingers at others sin, our attention is distracted from our own sins. That is the real danger of judging.

The Bible tells us that we are all sinners saved by the very grace of God and as we walk the road of faith, we are a family working together to overcome sin. But listen to me…ultimately, the only sins that I have control are my own, and those are the ones that should command my greatest attention.

Therefore, Jesus is telling us to clean ourselves up before trying to clean others.

The truth is judging others is wrong, unless we judge by what is right and do judge rightly we cannot be a Hypocritical judge, and that we should judge ourselves before judging others.

And that brings us to the third point Jesus makes about judging others. If you are going to judge another:

3. JUDGE FOR CORRECTION

Don’t judge others just to judge them because you don’t agree with what they say or do. Because Jesus says in verse 6 “Don’t give what is holy to dogs or toss your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them with their feet, turn, and tear you to pieces.”

What this is saying folks, don’t judge others that will not accept your words. If you are only judging someone to cause an argument then its going to be worthless, they will trample your words, turn on you and tear you to pieces.

The Bible teaches us in 2nd Timothy 3:16 that “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness.”

It’s our job not to tear a person down but to build them up, and we can do that by judging to correct them though God’s Word.

As we look around at the walls of this sanctuary, the words on those banners LOVE, GROW, SERVE, and SHARE don't mean anything unless you understand the VALUES IN EACH OF THEM. These values teach us that it our responsibility add value to others.

You cannot add value to others by tearing them down, but rather building them up.

Will people have mistakes? Yes.

Will people do things that irritate you? Yes.

But we must judge them with the attitude of correction in love.

Years ago, we watched a show about a nanny who would come to homes with difficult children. She would teach the parents to get down to their level, eye to eye and tell the children what they did wrong and once they apologized they were to give them a hug and kiss and tell the child that they loved them and you know something it worked time and time again. By caring not about the offense, but for the child, it changed those family’s lives.

It is the same with us, if we judge for correction in love, it can change the person forever.

Then lastly #4 we want to

4. USE RIGHTEOUS JUDGEMENT.

Turn over to the book of John chapter 7, Jesus said to the Pharisee in verse 21 “I did one work, and you all marvel. 22 Moses therefore gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. 23 If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath? 24 Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”

Now Jesus is referring to the one work that is recorded in John 5:1-18 when Jesus healed the man at Bethesda who had been lame for thirty-eight years.

Jesus had healed the man on a Sabbath day and told the man to pick up his mat and walk. When the Jews saw the man carrying the mat, they became outraged that he was so flagrantly breaking their Sabbath laws. When they found out it was Jesus that told him to do this, they ignored the miracle itself and how it pointed to Jesus being God and attacked Jesus for breaking their Sabbath laws.

Jesus reminds them that the law of circumcision predated Moses and went all the way back to the practice of the fore-fathers of faith Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Genesis 17:9-14). He also pointed out that they themselves would circumcise a baby on the Sabbath.

Therefore, breaking their own laws, becoming hypocrites to their own laws. They had wrongly accused Jesus and judged Him to have a demon because the religious leaders gave the appearance of being godly according to man’s traditions.

Jesus said not to judge by outward appearances, but rather judge by righteous judgment.

So what is righteous judgement? Righteous judgment is the greatest form of judgment because its very foundation is God's law and truth.

God is very faithful in the patterns that He has set for us, so this should come as no surprise to us. God's law and truth must be the basis and guide for all of our thinking. Since all of God's judgments are righteous, we too must learn how to judge righteously in preparation for our future roles in His Kingdom.

Therefore, we are not to judge outwardly on man’s rules, regulations and thoughts, but rather we are to judge on God’s righteousness found right here in the Bible. If you judge any other way you are judging by an outward appearance.

Lastly I want us to look back at our scripture in Matthew 7 Verses 1-2

Jesus said these words:

“Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”

Folks this is a strict warning to all people who judge people wrongly.

On that day that Jesus judges mankind, He will judge not only by righteousness, but He will judge those according to how they judged others.

Those religious leaders who judged Jesus unfairly, I wonder what they might say then as Jesus is the ultimate judge.

I would hate to be their shoes; what about you?

Judge not lest you be judged is fake news.

Jesus teaches us that judging others is wrong, unless we judge by what is right. Don't be hypocritical judge. Judge yourself before judging others. Judge for correction, and with righteous judgment.

There will be a day that people will be judged for what they have done.

I have had to come before Christ and seek forgiveness for my own self-righteous judgment of others.

What about you?

My question to you this morning is how will Jesus judge you on that day, He will judge with righteous judgement or Will you be safe and secure with your name in the book of life?