We are in the second to last week trying to adjust our attitudes. The underlying premise of this series is that we spend most of our lives trying to change our circumstances, but the reality is, if you live long enough, you start to realize you can't control your circumstances. They have a habit of changing, sometimes violently and unexpectedly, but we can control our attitudes and our attitudes really can change everything. The goal is that we would become people whose attitudes prevail over and through our circumstances and not people whose attitudes are simply determined by our circumstances.
As Chuck Swindle wrote, I am convinced life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. Now, when I got into this, what I was worried about is I would get folks that would say, ah, this is just some kind of Christian pop psychology stuff you're talking about. It's not. This is incredibly important to God and it has huge impact in your life.
In the Bible, the followers of God throughout the century have warned all of us that would come to follow God about our attitudes. Your actions matter to God. There's no doubt but your attitude. I don't know if anybody's ever told you this.
Your attitude matters to God. If you think you're having an attitude, or having an attitude problem is not an issue for God or is people, I want to point you to a story about the Israelites and their famous 40-year wandering in the desert. That 40 years, that wandering, that lostness, in fact the reason that only two of the Israelites that headed out of Egypt went up in the promised land, all the rest of them died in the desert. Now listen to me.
This is a metaphorical lesson about attitude. Only two of them made it to the promised land. The rest of them died in the desert. The reason was their attitude.
Now, you might know the story. Moses records in one of the first books in the Old Testament, it's an Old Testament book called Numbers. The story then is repeated throughout the Bible as a warning to God's people. You see it repeated in the Psalms by the prophets, in the Gospels, in the Epistles, and three times in the book of Hebrews.
The story goes like this. God tells Moses to send some men to spy out on the promised land. They've been wandering for about 18 months. God says, Go, we're close.
Moses goes send some men to look at the land I'm giving into your hands. When the men come back, they return, they report to Moses, quote, we went into the land. It does flow with milk and honey. But the people who live there are powerful.
And the cities are fortified and very large. In a sense, yeah, Moses, good news, like that God, that same one who talked to you through a fire in a bush, that God, the same one who carved with his hand, the commandments and stone, that God Moses, the one that led us out of Egypt with all those miraculous signs, the one who split the Red Sea so we could walk through it, the one who's been providing food every day, manna for us, water all the time. Yeah, it turns out it's hard to believe he was reigned about that land too. It's fantastic.
It's amazing. We know there's some really big people there, so yeah, just forget it. And that's kind of the story. I can't.
Then he started to believe. I mean, he's dragged us all the way out here. And there's really big people over there. I can't believe that this is God.
Moses recounts it like this. He says, that night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron. And the whole assembly said to them, if only we had died in Egypt, we're in the wilderness.
Now, if you're familiar with the story, well, this is the first time that the people that God has led miraculously and provided for, but evidently, have gotten to the point where they said, oh, why didn't you just leave me in Egypt? They grumbled a lot. Now, see, I like to think that I'm one of God's people. And given the wrong set of circumstances, the challenge I might appear a bit too large, I have a tremendous ability to grumble about God too.
And so the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, how long will this wicked community grumble against me? I've heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites. They've been noticing a word that's coming up a lot here. The King James translation, if you're into the King James, I kind of like it a little bit better.
In this case, the King James translation said they began to murmur about God. Right? And so, you know, murmuring is just what it sounds like. Did you see this guy?
I can't believe what. How about Moses? Did you see? And that whole thing starts to go on.
And so, God gets to a point where he's had enough. And so he tells Moses, this is what he says. He says, look, these grumblers, these murmurs, not one of them, that has seen my glory, that has seen the signs I performed in Egypt, the signs I've given him the wilderness, not one of these grumblers, is going to see the land I promised them. Why?
Because of their attitudes, grumbling is an attitude problem, and God has a problem with it. Check this out though, the next verse. But my servant, Caleb. This is where we got the name for our son from.
My servant, Caleb, has a different attitude. I'm not sure about this one with my son, Caleb. My servant, Caleb, has a different attitude than the others have. He's remained loyal to me, so I'm going to bring him into the land he explored.
His descendants are going to possess their full share of that land. Why does Caleb get into the promised land, and everybody else die in the wilderness? Because he had a different attitude. Fast forward a few thousand years.
There's another follower of God by a man by the name of Paul, and he sits, change to a Roman guard, under house arrest. And he writes a letter to a church in a town called Philippi, and it becomes known as the Book of Joy in the Bible. How can one, despite being under house arrest, chain to likely a pretty big guard? How can one, despite facing giants, how could you be joyous?
And loyal Paul writes, here's how have this attitude in yourselves, which was in Jesus, who although he existed in the form of God, didn't regard equality with God, it thing to be grasped. But he emptied himself. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. And Paul goes on, and he says this.
He goes, do everything. Here it comes without grumbling or arguing. God is not a big fan of grumbling and arguing. Here's the key for today.
When you acquire a critical spirit, and you live long enough, it comes. When you acquire a critical spirit, it leads to desert places and death. When you acquire a critical spirit, it leads to desert places and death. Now, here's what I want to do.
I want to look at another attitude that is common to man, but should be uncommon to people who are supposed to have the same attitude as Jesus. An attitude which has its roots in this critical spirit. See, we, as we've looked over the weeks, we tend to be proud, Jesus is humble. We tend to feel entitled, and Jesus is thankful.
We tend toward cynicism. Jesus has faith. Every attitude that we don't deserve, we have, every attitude Jesus is entitled to, he seems to him to be free from. And so today is kind of the coup de gras.
Comes in chapter 7. Matthew. Matthew, is that what we have back there? We have Matthew, OK.
Matthew, chapter 7. An attitude that we have that Jesus does not have, which is crazy. And by the way, I have to tell you, it seems when you preach it, it almost seems heretical to say. But it's a very simple little command Jesus gives.
Do not judge, or you are going to be judged. As the old King James put it, thou shalt not judge. Can I get you to say that with me? Let's do the King James.
Ready? Thou shalt not judge. Now Paul would relate the concepts of critical spirits and judgmentalism when he wrote. He said, why do you criticize?
There is the spirit. And then pass judgment. There is the result of a critical spirit on your brother. Why do you do that?
Now, how many of you have heard the command, thou shalt not judge before? Raise your hand if you've heard this command. Fairly common. Now, here's what I want you to do.
Here's the next question, because a lot of you don't know the answer to this one. I'm pretty sure. How many of you know what the exceptions are to this rule? Raise your hand if you know how many exceptions there are to this rule.
See, nobody knows. I mean, what kind of people are excluded from this command? How many exceptions are there? I mean, is there an exception to this rule for people that don't think like you?
Is there an exception to this rule for the people who don't look like you or live in your neighborhood? Is there an exception to the rule for people who have really big houses, bigger than yours? Is there an exception to the rule for people who have smaller houses than yours? Where houses on the other side of the trucks from yours?
I mean, are we permitted to judge people that come from a different religion that seems to make no sense, but? Can we judge people whose politics are different? Whose sexuality is different? Well, I mean, we must be able to judge fat people, skinny people, black people, white people, drug acts.
How about people with tattoos, piercings, ear gauges? That one's hard for me. I struggle with the ear gauges thing. I've never quite gotten that one.
There's a great commercial. I'm not sure if it ever played in the States for Karlsberg Beer, which I probably shouldn't be sharing up from here, but there's this great commercial for Karlsberg Beer. I think they played in Europe. And it's really funny.
You should go home and look it up. What they did is they filled a movie theater full of just the biggest, burliest, biker guys. I mean, all full tattooed sleeves, piercings, facial hair. I mean, some rough looking guys.
And filled the theater except for two seats right in the middle of the theater, like dead in the middle, right? But the only two seats available. And then they sent couples in. They sold in their movie ticket.
And the couple's, they have a camera. The couple's would walk in and you see them look around. And you just see the color go out of their face. And the only two seats would be they'd have to go push all the biker guys out of the way to get to the middle.
Well, in the beginning of the commercial, you just see, like, it just looks for a while. They start to murmur. And then they leave. Then, every once in a while, you'll see somebody, by the way, these are couples, men and women.
Do you know who usually goes for the seat? The woman. The guy is like, we're not going in there. Are you crazy?
And so you see the guy pulling the wife out. We're not going in there, right? Eventually, though, you start to see some brave couples walk in and they push their way through the bikers. And they sit down.
As soon as they do, a spotlight hits them. All of the bikers pull out of Karlsberg, pop it open, hand it to them. And everybody celebrates. And it's just this commercial about judgmentalism, right?
It's pretty good. See, what kind of people does Jesus say? Oh, no. I didn't mean it about them.
They deserve judgment. I wasn't talking about them. You have every right to condemn them. See, here's the frustrating thing.
The answer to what the exceptions are are no exceptions. There's no loophole for judgmentalism. Jesus says, in the kingdom of God, there is no room for critical spirits and judgmental attitudes. In fact, one of the reasons Jesus winds up on a cross is his steadfast refusal to be judgmental towards people everybody else was, especially religious leaders.
If you want to see some biblical irony, check this out. Here's what Luke says. He says, now the tax collectors and the sinners were all gathered around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law say it with me, muttered.
This man, what are they welcoming? Crumbling against God, muttering about him. And why? Why did they mutter?
Because he refused to judge. See, Jesus welcomes them. He accepts them. This is so hard, especially for us religious people.
In fact, I encourage you to study this. Jesus accepts ethnic rejects. He accepts the pagans, the Samaritans. They were referred to as dogs by the religious people of the day.
The sexually scandalous, the corrupt, the traitorous tax collectors who were stealing from God's people, the unclean lepers who weren't even supposed to be in the community. Jesus accepts all of them. In fact, here's what I would point out from the scripture. The only people that Jesus uniformly judged were the religious people who pass judgment in the name of God.
Think about what he says to the Pharisees all the time. Get this now. The only people you see, Jesus judge, are those who judged. Thus judge not.
Lest, you be judged. Now let me repeat this. This is fairly scandalous. This gets a guy crucified.
And it's not very well understood. This does not judge sinners. That blowing your mind? Because it's even hard to say sometimes.
Because it's much easier to paint him as the guy that wants to judge them. I want him to judge them. See, this is how I know I have a little Pharisee in me. Because I don't even like saying it.
In fact, this comes, this concept of not judging comes out of the very purpose of Jesus. We measure, we memorize John 3 16 in the church all the time, right? If I ask every word for it, first John 3 16 for God so I love the world that he gave, because John 3 17 says this the next verse, for God did not send his son in the world to condemn another translation says judge, God did not send his son to judge the world, but to save the world through him. Jesus' teaching is do not judge.
Jesus the way he lived his life showed us do not judge. So you would conclude, therefore, as people that love God and want to follow Jesus, that his church, the place where his spirit resides, the body of Christ on his earth, well that would have to be the least judgmental place on the earth. Hello? Followers of Jesus, I mean they have to be the least judgmental people on the face of the earth.
Based on Jesus' teaching in the life, the church, it must have the reputation. I mean if you were from another world and you read these scriptures, you would think to yourself boy, the church must have a reputation in that world of being the most radically inclusive, non-judgmental, center-embracing, fear-melting community of irrational acceptance, right? John Orperg quips about this, he says people should be saying, you know, I've got a really dark secret. I'm afraid to tell my therapist this or my friends at the bar, the people in my 12th step group or my best friend, I don't want to tell my dog because I'm afraid they might judge me.
But I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to go share about it in my church because I know that's a place where nobody judges. If you're not a stranger and they're sitting next to you on a plane and it looks like they might have some problems, they're heavily tattooed up, got the ear gauge thing going, piercings everywhere and they're drinking like a fish. The first thing that you walk up and tell them is, by the way, I just want to let you know as I sit down next to you, I'm a religious person. Can you imagine them saying, oh thank God, I'm so messed up socially, financially, sexually, sexually, morally, relationally, I was afraid I might wind up sitting next to somebody who would judge me.
But now that I know you're a religious guy, let me tell you all about my issues because I know that this is a safe place of grace. Is this our reputation on the streets? We have two representations in the marketplace. If I went to down to the Green of Morrison and I asked people, tell me what you think about Christians, what are the two things we would say we are?
Hypocrits and judgmental, which is exactly what Jesus said the Pharisees were. Jesus, who was crucified by the Pharisees, his church does not have his reputation, his church has the Pharisees reputation, this is not good folks. I would love for our little church here to figure out a way that this community could be a Jesus community. Now Jesus says that shall not judge, let me tell you what this does not mean.
First, it does not mean that you and I are free from judgment. It does not mean that there is no moral accounting, that nothing matters, the way you live your life, what you do, your sinful actions, none of it matters because the reality is we all know all of us come short, right? In the scriptures teach, in Romans chapter 3, all of us fall short of the glory of God. It does not mean we are all at the hook.
Jesus would explain it a little bit further on. He says this, if anybody hears my words and does not keep them, again he says again, I do not judge that person, let me stop there, here is what Jesus is saying. If anybody hears what I am saying to them and they decide not to do it, I do not judge them. Now see, I do, I am wonderful at that.
Do not you hear what I told you about Jesus? You are not listening, so let me judge you. Jesus goes not to hear my words and I do not keep them, I do not judge them. Then he goes on, I did not come to judge the world, let me explain it again.
I keep telling you people, but you do not understand, I am not here to judge the world. I am here to save it. He goes on, there is a judge for the one who rejects me and doesn't accept my words, the very words I have spoken, will condemn them at the last day. What Jesus means is, look, I did not come to judge, I came to say why?
Because everybody here, it was already judged a long, long time ago. Remember in our origin series, we talked about this fall of man issue and we all have this brokenness in us, this propensity to want to be our own gods, to go our own way. So what God has said from that point on is, listen, you are broken, you are not connected to me, you are not holy as I am, holy. You see in the garden, the garden, I am a judge, separated from God and put out and we have lived that way all the way back into creation.
When Jesus is saying, listen, I did not come to judge you, that happened a long time ago. Remember John 3 16, I said, I wish we knew John 3 17, how about John 3 18. John said, there is no judgment against anyone who believes in Jesus, but anyone who doesn't has already been judged. Knowing this Paul says you then, why do you judge your brother or sister?
Do you see how prevalent this is in the scripture? Why do you treat them with contempt? Listen, we are all going to stand before God's judgment seat so that each of us will have to give an account of ourselves to God. Therefore, let us stop passing judgment on one another.
The deal is I have a judge and you are not it. We don't need to judge each other, it's not our role, it's not our place. Who are we to think that we should judge that it is our place? God judges and has judged and the question that remains for each of us is what do we do when we stand before them?
Are we wrapped in the embrace of Christ? Or are we judged and given the penalty? Do our sin? Jesus does not judge us.
Jesus advocates for us. Jesus pleads our case. Jesus covers our sin and the command to you and I is be like him. Don't judge.
Now here's what else it doesn't mean. It does not mean that we give up making moral discernance or being wise. Obviously if there's a drug dealer in town, your kids are hanging around and you tell them I don't want you hanging around over at that house and they wave their fingers. You're out of a teeny jean wave, don't judge.
Who are you to judge? That's not what Jesus is talking about here. Do not judge. Don't be discerning.
It doesn't mean just accept everything you hear. It doesn't mean that there's no punishment or consequences for bad behavior. What it means is we must do all of these things, not be naive, be discerning, and even assign blamer consequences to decisions, but we have to do them without attacking somebody's worth. When Jesus teaches over and over and don't judge, he is, as he has just this very annoying habit of doing, speaking into our hearts because it's with the heart that we judge.
What Jesus is talking about is your heart attitude that makes you judge. This brokenness issue. Do you have any idea why? I mean, I don't know if you've come to the realization that you judge.
I'm just a serial judge, man. I flip on that TV and judgment just spews. I can hear my kids right now sitting here, Carolyn's here first, the rest of the week or second, and he's going, I can't believe he's preaching this message right now, right? Because it just flows.
It just comes so easily. Why do we judge? Remember the number story we started with how Israel was grumbling? And it was an attitude issue.
Let me show you what started the attitude issue was actually in the chapter before. Israel's getting ready to go into the Promised Land. Here's their added skates in a sense. While they were at Hasworth, Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses.
What did they do to Moses? They criticized him. They judged him. They married a cushite woman.
Oh, mg. A cushite woman. Moses. See, they've been married before.
His wife had likely died. And Moses marries another woman. A cushite. And his family doesn't like it.
They're anti-cushite. And so they judge him for who he's married to. And for her, for where she came from. Maybe what she looks like.
Maybe they call her her skin. But why do they do it? Next verse. They said to each other, huh, has the Lord spoken only through Moses?
Hasn't he spoken through us too? But the Lord heard them. See, what was the heart at the judgmental issue for them? Is there selfishness in their insecurity?
You know, God has spoken to us too. Why does everybody just follow Moses around like sheep? Everybody just listens to Moses. Moses, Moses, Moses, Moses.
All I hear about is Moses. I've got something to say. I'm Moses. His sister.
God spoke to me too. Oh, and look at that cushite woman, please. See, the kind of judgmental attitude Jesus is condemning is this one. And it's serious.
In numbers, you want to see how serious it is? Remember, God heard it? And so God comes down. He calls all three of them.
It's so funny if you read this. It's like calling three kids in a room. You three. Over here.
He calls them in. And he starts talking to me. He says, God is not imparted. And as the clouds moved away from the tabernacle, there stood Miriam.
Her skin is whitest note from leprosy. When Aaron saw what had happened where he cried out to Moses, oh, my master, please don't punish us for this sin. We have foolishly committed. Criticism, judgmentalism is foolish sin.
God does heal Miriam from this leprosy, but he uses it as a warning sign for God's people. Critical spirits, judgmental attitudes are serious because that their heart isn't desired to raise ourselves up and tear others down. And that is the complete opposite of Jesus' attitude of humbling himself so we could be lifted up. I read a piece this week in the blogosphere.
It started this way. A few months ago, I was in line at the gym, waiting to swipe my membership card when I heard something disturbing. Two women who were ahead of me in the line started chuckling to themselves and commenting about a woman inside of the gym. Lady number one, I wonder if fat blank is here this morning.
Lady number two, pointing an overweight woman on a elliptical machine wearing a black and white outfit. There she is. Gosh, she is such a pig. Then they both swipe their membership cards and chuckle their way inside the gym.
These were grown women in their 30s who got their jolly's by making fun of a woman who was working hard to positively deal with the issues they were currently laughing at her for. That's judgment really is an ugly thing. See, unfortunately for these two women, they didn't realize that their comments about that woman told more about them than it did about the woman. I saw it summed up this week.
This is good. When you judge another, you do not define them. You define yourself. That's pretty good.
That's because I usually judge others in the areas where I feel the weakest. Let me give you some examples. Oh, why can't that mother control her kids? They're running through the store like animals.
Translation, I don't feel all that great about my abilities to control my kids and it feels makes me feel a lot better to judge that woman and how her kids seem out of control. We were on the balcony in Ocean City last year sitting out there getting ready for dinner. It was like 6 o'clock at night and a father was taking his kid downstairs. I have dinner on the patio, 10 stories below us and we're watching it.
And this father just yanked this kid and it started spanking. I'm spanking him. And my heart is just breaking. And I remember as I was doing the story, I remember, I called John and I'm like, do you see what this guy is doing to his kid?
And I thought to myself, I do that all the time. What am I doing? But it's just that way I look. And so when I'm judging him, it's making me blah.
You know, yes, sometimes I lose my temper. But not like that. We do it all the time. Pastors do it.
And why is that shirt so big? They must not be preaching the gospel over there. What's at the heart of it? Why can't my church be bigger?
The woman who thinks she's all that because she drives a fancy car. She has so much money and she's disgusting. She's like, I wish I had more money in a nice car. Look at that guy smiling over there all the time.
She's so fake and annoying. I wish I was happy enough to smile all the time, but I'm not. So I'm going to judge that guy as a phony. Look at the size of that guy's house.
Look at the expense of his car. Look at how his wife is dressed. I bet. Blankety blank blank blank blank.
Enter judgmental phrase here. I wish I had a house like that car like that, wife like that, kid like that, job like that. I don't feel all secure about my house, wife, car, job, kid. So let me tear yours down.
See, this is what Jesus is talking about. Do you know why Jesus found it so easy to not judge? Because he was the most secure being to ever walk the face of the earth. You know who he was?
He rested in the identity of being the son of God. He let God fill him in on his purpose and identity. And it was enough. The reality is, do you guys know anybody who's just really secure with himself or herself and they're constantly criticizing judging other people?
You know? That's why Jesus says, don't judge or you're going to be judged. Jesus only judges the judges. And here's what he went on to say.
He said this. He goes, from the same way you judge others, you'll be judged. And with the measure you use, it'll be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?
How can you say to your brother, let me take that speck out of your eye when all the time there is a plank in yours? Now, let me show you what I did. I asked a couple of the kids yesterday to help me out. I said, listen, I need you to crawl around out on the deck for a few minutes.
And so they did. And I had them do that to one of them, got this splinter here. And so I pulled this baby out. Do you see this?
It's very, it's not big. Now, join me to hand with that. This is a plank. Look at the size of that guy's house.
Oh my gosh. Can you believe his wife walks around and out and feel like that? That is unbelievable. Oh my gosh, look at the touch.
Look at the gauge in that guy's ear. Right? Now, I do that because I really want to press this into your mind. How ridiculous this is.
And let me ask you a question because I want you to see the correlation here. This is the brilliance of Jesus. Where do splinters come from? Planks.
Right? So we see the splinter because it's related to the plank in our eye. That's why we judge. Jesus says, here's the solution.
You hypocrites. What is our reputation? Judgmentalism, hypocrites. You hypocrites.
First, take the plank out of your own eye. Then you'll see clearly to remove the spec from your brothers. Two things as I close. I want you to be aware of.
You can work on this week, okay? First, when you're tempted to judge, start to train yourself so you feel, oh gosh, I'm judging. It'll be like citizen member of the system, you're all rich now, right? You've got your vacations funds, right?
Judging is the same way. Start to train your mind to take the thought captive. And when you feel judgmental, making judgments is nothing more than an ego strategy so we get lifted up. When you start to judge, I want you to remind yourself of the two words principle.
Be curious. I'm judging. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to stop and I'm be curious.
All of us are subject to what's known as the fundamental attribution error. Meaning, we tend to attribute our behavior to the environment around us and people's behavior to their character. It's easy to judge other people based on observations rather than saying, you know, this is probably a situation they're going through. What we tend to say is, see, that's just who they are.
So when I see somebody grab their kid at the deck in Ocean City, right, my first impression is, what a bad parent. But when I grab my own kid, it's because they need to be disciplined. We attribute their behavior to their character in our environment. Being curious means when we're tempted to judge, we take the thought captive and say, I wonder what is going on with that person.
I wonder what happened with that person. I wonder what's in the background of what I'm seeing right now. See, judging is easy. Judging feels good.
Can we be honest? It feels good. Why? Because it inflates me.
Being curious requires maturity, a healthy dose of self-control and compassion. I just have to share this one story with you. I shared it right now and then when we were doing work in the mission years ago, there was a kid there. It was a good looking kid, man.
Like, movies are good looking. And my mind was going, what's this kid doing in the mission? Like, he's bright, he's smart, all the rest. And he hung around with us and came to church for a while and we went out to lunch.
He said, I got to share my story with you. I haven't shared it with anybody. I didn't realize how judgmental I was because he felt safe. So he said, I want to share it with you.
He took me out and said, listen, when I was growing up, he said, my mom and dad, my mom was a drug addict and my dad was an alcoholic. So I got taken away from my parents and sent to Florida to live with my grandfather. And so I was living with my grandfather, but my grandfather was an alcoholic and my grandfather was abusive to the point that I got beat by my grandfather many nights. He said, so he said it really got bad one day.
His father then moved in next to his grandfather, moved in next to his grandfather with his new wife and their new family. But he wasn't allowed to have anything to do with him. He wasn't allowed to come over. He wasn't allowed to have dinner with others.
He had to stay at his grandfather's house. He said, I tried to hang myself twice in the backyard with my belt. And both times I failed at it. He said, so what happened is kids in the neighborhood, they started doing drugs and I had no reason not to do drugs.
And I started doing drugs. And then my mother came back on the scene. My mother lived up here in New Jersey and she said, why don't you make a life together? Why don't you move back up here with me?
And so he moved back in with his mother. The court said clear to her whatever. And so he moved back up here. I think he was 14 or something like that when he moved back in with her.
And the two of them developed together a heroin addiction. To the point that the mother began to prostitute her son out to other men so that the two of them could get drugs for heroin. I sat there in that restaurant that day and I said, got to the best of my ability. I am never going to judge anybody ever again.
Be curious. You don't know the story. Second thing I want you to do is I close. Take the plank out of your eye.
When the judgmental thought comes to mind, take it captive. Be curious about yourself. Why is it that I'm judging them? Why am I trying to?
What is it I'm trying to make myself feel better about right now? Where is the brokenness of me, the hurt in me, the loss of me, the insecurity in me that I'm trying to overcome by judging somebody else? Because this is what Jesus is talking about when he says, take the plank out of your own eye. It's really hard to see the splinter in your brothers when you have a plank in yours.
Find the plank. Search for the plank. Name the wound. Bring it to Jesus.
Let him speak into it. Let him speak into your identity, to your purpose. There is healing there for forgiveness, grace, purpose, identity. You don't get any of those things by judging other people, but you get all of it through Jesus.
If I can get the band to come up, this is crazy. Jesus did not come to judge. Even though he had every right to, therefore we do not have the right to judge, stop taking and claiming for yourself God's position and start assuming Jesus's thou shalt not judge. Father, we need to work with your Holy Spirit in our lives to do this.
Apart from ourselves, apart from you, just left ourselves, it's going to be impossible, our flesh will win. As a Lord for those who are willing to go after this, I pray over them that you would impart to them supernatural power, spiritual power, to help them, to not judge, but to instead be curious, maybe to love, to name the plank in their own eye, to remove it and bring it for healing to the cross of Jesus Christ. It's in his name that I pray. Amen.