HOW TO PREVENT FROM BEING SMACKED BY A 2X4!
15"If your brother sins against you,[b] go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ’every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’[c] 17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
18"I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be[d]bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[e] loosed in heaven. 19"Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."
I. INTRODUCTION
SHOW PICS OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF PEOPLE(people with tons of ear-rings, tatoos, crazy hair, goth, etc)
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you see these pictures? What do you think about these people?
In this society we always tend to judge someone by the way they look. How they dress, what they look like, how they talk. If they are not like us then they are different or we are uncomfortable around them or we try to “FIX” them to help them become like us.
CLUELESS-BRITANY MURPHY COMES IN AND THE GIRLS MAKE IT THEIR MISSION TO MAKE SURE SHE FITS IN BY DRESSING HER RIGHT AND GETTING HER TO ACT A DIFFERENT WAY.
If they are not like us then we feel uncomfortable around them. We judge them by what they look like rather than who or how they are on the inside.
Our natural human instinct is too judge people. For some reason everyone no matter what walk of life or how old we like to judge someone by their looks and by their character, how they act. If they are not up to our standards then we look down on them and we make sure to gossip about them or we exclude them from our groups.
I have found that Christians are some of the best at doing this.
God has called us to love everyone. But a lot of times I see Christians who judge people by their appearances and character. And if they are not up our standards then we will not welcome them into the church, but we will shun them and exclude them or even if they were part of the church we will ask them to leave if they have damaged their character.
PASTOR THAT DRESSED UP AS A BUM(dressed as a bum and people going into the church judged him as dirty, filthy, lazy, looser, but when church started he came to the front and revealed he was the pastor. He then preached a message to not judge to quickly.)
PREGNANT TEENAGE GIRL BEING KICKED OUT OF MY SCHOOL
She was judged because of her mistake and was asked to leave the school. Instead of being surrounded and prayed for and loved by other Christians. It was pretty disappointing.
As Christians you are called to be different. You are not supposed to act like everyone else. You are not supposed to follow the crowd. God wants you to be different. To show everyone else what is means to love people no matter how they dress or how they act or if they have done anything wrong in their lives.
Contrary to that popular saying people always give when they know they were wrong, “ YOU CAN’T JUDGE ME.” There is a time and a place for us to go to a person in love and Judge them. You guys and girls have friends that are Christians and they are doing things that you feel are wrong but you don’t know how to approach them. God wants us as believers to hold each other accountable but before we can do that we have to check a couple of things.
I. CHECK YOURSELF
Many times we want to judge others when we ourselves deserved to be judged. But in order for us to be able to judge someone in love we have to look at our own lives.
“ Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will 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? You hypocrite first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” MATTHEW 7:1-5
Christ is saying you must be careful to judge because if you choose to judge someone you too will be judged with the same measure you used to judge.
If you judge someone you have to make sure you check yourself. Check your walk. Are you judging someone even though you yourself are not right with god. If you choose to judge but are not right with God you are taking a risk. Christ says you must remove the plank in your own eye. What are your sins, your struggles that are keeping you from living a pure and holy life, pleasing to God. If you are not then you have no right to judge others.
When we are living right with God and are working everyday to follow him then we can as the scripture says see clearly and help our brothers and sisters with their struggles.
II. CHECK THE PERSON
Christ said if the plank is removed from our eyes then we will see clearly and will be able to help others, but we also have to know the person we are going to judge. God commands us to never judge non believers but only other believers.
I Corinthians 5:12-13 “ What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked man among you.”
We are not to judge non believers. A non Christian does not know what they are doing. They do not care about the bible or what Christ has to say. They are not waking up every morning in prayer, or reading their Bible. They have not heard of or have not accepted the truth. God will judge non believers. We are simply called to tell non believers about the gospel of Jesus. To tell them that God loves them and wants to have a relationship with them. And to love and help them as much as we can. God is the one who will judge them in the end.
But we are to judge other believers. In love we are to help build each other up. We are to keep each other accountable for our actions and to make sure we are walking with Christ daily.
So you need to make sure the person you are going to judge is a believer otherwise you are simply called to boldly preach the truth of God’s word to them.
III. CHECK YOUR MOTIVE
Let me make myself clear on judging. I do not believe when you judge someone that means you are condemning them to hell or something like that. You judge another believer because you love them. If I see one of you guys doing something in your life that I know is wrong, I know it is against God’s teachings, I am going to judge your actions as wrong. I am going to come to you because I love you and help you see what you are doing is wrong.
I am not going to judge you because you annoy me or something like that. When you judge someone you need to make sure you are doing it because you love them and because you have a strong desire to see that person have a growing relationship with Christ. When you try and correct them make sure you remember to make sure you are right with God and growing daily.
In Christ day there were the Pharisees who were always quick to judge others. They thought they were better than everyone else because they did all of these great spiritual acts. They were quick to judge not because they loved the people and wanted to see them grow in their walks with God but because they were cocky. They thought they were better than everyone else and thought they had the right to tell everyone else how they thought others should live.
Christ says in Matthew 23:27-28, “ Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”
So if you judge do it in love, because you desire to see that person grow in their walk.
You also must know most people do not liked to be judged. So before you speak to someone about their actions make sure you have prayed hard and searched the scriptures. Let God show you how to approach another believer and to control your words in what to say to them. People are going to get defensive but a lot of time that happens because they are in denial or they just don’t see what they are doing is wrong so make sure you have scripture to show them they are producing bad fruit and make sure you come to them in love so they know you are trying to help them not condemn them.
As Christians we have to help each other by keeping each other accountable. We are bombarded in media with sex, violence, etc… it is easy especially for Christians to fall into temptation so we need to help each other.
HOW DO I BEGIN TO HELP OTHERS?
GET ACCOUNTABLE
