Look at Psalm 75 and verse number 7, it says,
But God is the judge.
Title for sermon is, God is the judge.
God is the judge.
And let's start there in verse number 1.
It says, A psalm or song of Asaph,
and begins by saying,
Unto thee, O God, do we give thanks.
Unto thee, do we give thanks,
for that thy name is near,
thy wondrous works declare.
So the psalm begins by giving thanks to God.
In fact, it's mentioned twice, right?
O God, do we give thanks.
Unto thee, do we give thanks.
And that is very important.
Now look, I know many of the psalms are like this.
Many of the psalms have the praise of God,
the thanksgiving of God.
But this one's very specific about why that is, okay?
One thing that you'll notice in the psalms,
sometimes the psalmist might start in a sad place,
and then at the end of the psalm,
once he's offloaded to God and he's mentioned his concerns,
then he's giving God praise and thanksgiving.
Like you sometimes see that, you know,
development in the psalm of that psalmist.
But this is one where we begin by praising God,
giving God thanks,
and we also end by giving God thanks.
And that's really important,
very important to the context of this psalm.
And I'll talk about that in a moment,
but let's continue.
Well, let me just break that down a little bit.
The next part says,
For that thy name is near,
thy wondrous works declare.
So as we see God's wondrous works that can be creation,
that can be answered prayer,
that can be just the blessings, the hand of God,
his rewards in your life.
Every time we see the works of God,
it tells us that his name is near.
He's nearby.
Our Lord God is not a God that lives,
you know, far off in some other dimension.
No, no, no.
Our Lord God is very near unto us.
You know, we want to be at his right hand.
We want to be blessed by him.
You know, we can go to prayer anytime
and speak to our Lord God directly.
Jesus Christ is here in the midst of us tonight.
And so it's just a reminder that as we give God thanks,
we're not thanking some distant being.
No, no, he's very much amongst us.
And we ought to remember that church is the place
where we give God thanks.
And this is why, because church is mentioned,
or the congregation is mentioned in verse number two.
It says, now, so that was the Psalmist speaking.
Verse number two is now God speaking.
God says,
When I shall receive the congregation,
I will judge uprightly.
All right.
So you have to start with giving God thanks.
And now God is saying,
when I receive the congregation,
I will judge uprightly.
Now keep your finger there.
Come with me to second Corinthians.
Come with me to second Corinthians chapter five,
second Corinthians chapter five,
and verse number nine.
Second Corinthians five and verse number nine.
Now, when I think of verse number two,
when I shall receive the congregation,
my immediate thought,
and I'll tell you why in a moment,
because verse number three
seems to be at the end times.
My immediate thought goes toward the rapture,
the resurrection.
When God gathers his elects, okay,
into heaven,
when so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Now he says,
when he comes to receive the congregation,
he will judge uprightly is what he said.
And what we see here in second Corinthians,
chapter five, verse number nine,
Paul is telling the church that,
wherefore we labor.
This is,
he says,
this is why we labor.
This is why we serve God.
This is why we preach the gospel.
This is why we teach his word.
This is why we teach doctrines of the Bible.
This is why we labor.
He says that whether present or absent,
present,
the concept of this present means alive
or absent being passed on.
Okay.
Having passed on,
having died.
He says we may be accepted of him.
He says everything we do in our life,
you know,
whether we're in the living
or whether we're amongst the dead,
we want to do all things to be accepted of him.
Not everything that we strive to do in our labor and work
ought to be for God.
You guys know I preach this over and over again.
You know,
your workplace ought to be a place
where you please God,
not your boss.
You please Jesus.
Your family ought to be a place
where you please God.
You know,
every aspect of our life is a place
that we ought to please God.
All right.
And then he says,
well,
for what purpose?
Why do we want to be accepted?
Why do we want to make sure
that our works are acceptable to God?
This is why,
because verse number 10 says,
for or because we must all appear
before the judgment seat of Christ,
that everyone may receive
the things done in his body,
according to that he have done,
whether it be good or bad.
We saw in verse number two,
Psalm 75 verse number two,
God says he would judge uprightly.
Well,
you know,
all of us will one day stand
before the judgment seat of Christ.
We're all going to have to give an account
to Jesus Christ,
not for our sins,
not for the,
for the,
you know,
the wickedness that we've done,
because that's already been judged
in Jesus Christ,
right?
The father damned the son
and he took on our sins upon himself.
He was punished for us,
not for our sins,
but the things done in our bodies.
Those are the things
that are not sinful.
The things that we've done
to try to please him,
to be acceptable unto him.
But I want you to notice that
each one of us are going to do that.
And I want to remind the young people,
you know,
I know sometimes mom and dad,
they bring you to church,
whatever it is, right?
Mom and dad are the ones
that try to tell you,
hey, read your Bibles
and make sure you pray before the Lord.
Make sure you give thanks before you
partake of a meal or what have you.
You know,
parents want to encourage you in the Lord.
I want to encourage my kids in the Lord.
But at the end of the day,
you're going to have to stand
everywhere, everyone,
each individually
is going to have to stand before Jesus
and say, Jesus,
these are the works that I've done
to be pleasing to you,
to be acceptable to you.
You can't hide behind your parents.
You can't say,
well, I was at church
and you really didn't want to be there
because your parents dragged you.
Or my kids can't turn around.
Well, my dad was a pastor,
so obviously I'm going to get rewarded
as I get judged by Jesus Christ.
This judgment is of course
not judgment for our sins.
It's not a judgment
whether we go to heaven or hell
or anything like that.
This is a judgment where Christ
wants to give us great rewards,
eternal rewards in the millennium
and into eternal life, everlasting life.
Treasures that we can lay up in heaven.
But I do believe again,
just looking at this from,
you know,
that we're all going to be standing
before the judgment of Christ.
I do also believe,
and I've sort of taught this
through the book of Revelation,
that I believe that judgment
follows the rapture,
follows the resurrection.
Because in verse number 2 again,
Psalm 75 verse 2,
when I shall receive the congregation,
I will judge uprightly.
And again, I guess you could apply that
in any aspect,
but I do believe the Bible is quite clear,
or at least my understanding is quite,
you know,
I feel it is quite clear
that the rewards,
the judgment of God,
God being our judge as God's people,
you know,
the rewards we get
must take place before the millennium
and most likely following the rapture
of, you know,
of Jesus Christ.
And come back with me to Psalm 75.
Come back with me to Psalm 75
in verse number 3.
And this is why again,
you know,
I see this tied into the end times.
In verse number 3 it says,
the earth and all the inhabitants
thereof are dissolved.
I bear up the pillars of it,
Selah.
So it sounds like the judgments,
like I can't separate verse number 3
from verse number 2.
Like if we're going to be judged by God,
it appears to me
that the judgments taking place
while the earth and the inhabitants
are being dissolved.
So what does that mean?
Well come quickly with me
to 2 Peter chapter 3,
2 Peter chapter 3,
2 Peter chapter 3.
And while you're turning to
2 Peter chapter 3,
I'm going to read to you
from Revelation 22 12,
which says,
the words of Jesus,
it says,
And behold,
I come quickly
and my reward is with me
to give every man
according as his work shall be.
Christ is excited
to reward us for the work
that we've done for him.
This is why we better make sure
that what we do pleases him.
Look, I know you're the same as me.
We've done things that please ourselves,
that we know that wasn't for Jesus Christ,
that was for self.
That was selfish.
Yeah, you're not going to get
any eternal rewards
for your selfishness,
but your selflessness,
your service to Jesus Christ,
he'll reward you for it.
And he wants to,
like when he comes quickly,
he wants to bring his reward
and say well done,
thou good and faithful servant.
Look at second Peter chapter three,
verse number 10.
But the day of the Lord
will come as a thief in the night.
We know that speaking about
the coming of Jesus Christ.
In the which the heavens
shall pass away with a great noise
and the elements
shall melt with fervent heat.
The earth also
and the works that are therein
shall be burned up.
Seeing then
that all these things
shall be dissolved.
The same wording that we see in Psalm 75.
And so let me just repeat Psalm 75
while you say them in second Peter three,
and in Psalm 75 verse three it says,
the earth and all the inhabitants
thereof are dissolved.
I bear out the pillars of its sealer.
So the earth and the inhabitants
will be dissolved.
This to me,
speaking of the end times,
where the entire earth
is going to be on fire
and we see when God
pours out his wrath,
there's going to be great fires
on the earth.
There's going to be great destruction
that takes place on the earth.
Let's continue verse 11 there.
In second Peter three, verse 11.
Seeing then that all these things
shall be dissolved,
what manner of persons
ought ye to be
in all holy conversation
and godliness.
All right.
So God is reminding us
that everything is going to burn up.
Okay.
Your house that you've been laboring hard.
Well, not all of you.
Okay.
Paying that mortgage down
is going to be burnt down.
That car that you've worked hard
to maintain and keep clean,
it's going to burn.
Okay.
Everything, anything,
any physical possession
that you might hold some value
or just some sentimental worth
is all going to perish.
And so why do we labor for these things?
Why does the world labor for these things?
It's all going to be dissolved.
And so we're reminded
that we ought to be holy
and have holy conversation and godliness.
This is what's going to last for eternity,
not our possessions on the earth.
And then that's where the reminder comes in,
in verse number 12,
looking for and hasten
unto the coming of the day of God,
wherein the heavens being on fire
shall be dissolved
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.
So I just want to show you
the connection with Psalm 75,
where the earth and the inhabitants
are all shall be dissolved.
It's all going to burn up,
but God's reminding us,
Hey, no, no,
don't worry about all being burnt up
because he wants to judge us.
He wants to reward us.
He wants to show us
the good that we've done for him,
the things of eternal matter
of value.
You know, as we've seen,
like this is what I believe.
I believe that as God is pouring out his wrath
and we've seen the fires destroy the earth
and we're seeing, you know,
the waters turn to blood
and we're seeing earthquakes decimate cities
and our former homes and all that.
You know, yeah,
that might be a bit upsetting to us,
but what if we're being rewarded by God
in the meantime?
You know, here are your eternal rewards.
Here are your treasures laid up in heaven.
You know, our mindset is going to be
on eternity right there, right?
Our mindset is going to be glorified
and praising God,
giving him thanksgiving
for the rewards that he's given us.
And so I think we see here in Psalm 75.
Well, I think it is what we see here.
You know, the difference between
setting our hearts on the earth
and setting our hearts on our Lord God.
You know, we started praising him,
thanking him for who he is.
Back to Psalm 75 and verse number 4.
Psalm 75 and verse number 4.
And before I read verse number 4,
one thing that I clearly see in the Bible
is that if I could,
if you could say, pastor,
what is the like the one sin
that God is just so angry about?
Like what is the one issue
that is like the main issue with man?
We know we have a sinful nature
and all of that.
Now you could make an argument
that it's our lack of faith,
our unbelief.
But what I see in the Bible,
just constantly,
and I don't know if this is
the Lord God speaking to me
or I'm just seeing it,
right, is pride.
Like pride is like the number one issue in man.
In fact, pride was the number one issue
with the devil, right?
When he wanted to be like God,
he lifted himself up
and you know, wanted to be God.
And then because of his pride,
he's taken down.
And then he offers Eve
to eat of the tree of knowledge,
good and evil,
that she will be like gods.
They will be like gods if they,
it's like wow,
this knowledge, I want to be like that.
Pride always is this issue.
And I realize, man,
like when I think about
all the different sins,
and I know I've said this before,
but pride is such like a silent,
you don't even know it.
And it's there in your life.
It's just there.
It's like it's almost as part of our,
just it is,
I mean, it's part of our
fallen human nature
and our corrupt nature.
The desire to want recognition
or to be lifted up
and seen above others,
or that our words,
our experience,
our opinions mean more
than what others have to say.
And so,
obviously, if Jesus Christ
wants to reward us,
he wants to judge us,
he's going to judge us
based on what we've done for God,
not what we've done for self.
And pride is all about self.
It's all about self-gratification
and wanting to be seen
as someone higher,
you know, in the eyes of others.
And it's why God says in verse number four,
I said unto the fools,
you're a fool if you do this, okay?
God says to the fools,
deal not foolishly
and to the wicked,
lift not up the horn.
Lift not up your horn on high.
Speak not with a stiff neck.
Think of a stiff neck.
Can't be moved.
I'm right.
No one else is right.
I'm going to be stuck in my ways.
That's pride.
I know, as I read the Bible,
I can say in my Christian life,
I've grown, I've matured in the Lord,
but there's still a lot to work on.
And I find as I get older,
it's harder to change.
You get stuck in your ways
and that's pride.
It's stiff neck.
You can't say,
Oh, Lord, you know,
if I knew that truth 20 years ago,
maybe I could have made the change.
No, no, no.
You say, God, with your help,
I can make the change.
Lord, break my stiff neck.
It's like lifted up stick.
Oh man, this is an issue with man.
This is an issue with the wicked.
This is an issue with the foolish.
When you think of the word horn,
lift up, not the horn.
You know, the horn,
like on an animal is,
think of a bull or something, right?
It's got two horns
and that horn makes it look taller
because it's elevated up.
Usually horns are doing that, right?
That horn speaks of elevation,
being lifted up,
being prideful.
Not only that,
when it says lift up, not the horn,
it's kind of like we would say,
you know, toot your own horn.
You guys know that saying?
Toot your own,
because in the past,
in order to make a horn
and you know that instrument,
they would take literally the horns of animals
and turn that into an instrument
and blow in it.
Like, you know,
you want everyone to know about you.
You know,
look at all the achievements
that I've done in you.
That's what we call tooting your own horn.
Now, I want to show you a story
about tooting your own horn in the Bible.
Keep your finger there.
Come with me to 1 Samuel 13.
1 Samuel 13.
And I want to be careful.
I don't want pride to creep in
from me in this story,
but I've been told over the years,
Kevin, you've got to toot your own horn.
I've been told that at work many times.
I've been told that in the ministry.
Pastor Kevin, you've got to do more
to promote yourself.
I mean, I just came back from New Zealand
trying to work on a documentary.
But do more to lift, promote yourself.
And this is why, to me, this is a life verse.
And I hope, I hope you're seeing me,
a man that doesn't want to toot my own horn.
Like, I am so fearful of tooting my own horn at church
that I've done a coffee with Kevin Sundays.
I've done a coffee with Kevin Sundays
to talk about other things
where they're kind of just my opinions
and my thoughts, you know,
because I want to bring that into God's word
and somehow make it appear
that what I have to say is at equal value.
Anyway, we need equal value God's word.
I am nothing without God's word behind this pulpit.
And look at 1 Samuel 13 verse number one.
Now, let's talk about King Saul.
And, you know, let's talk about pride and King Saul.
You know, when King Saul was chosen to be the king
when Saul was chosen to be the king, he ran away.
Did you know that story?
He ran away and they couldn't find him.
He was a very tall man and, you know,
he was very humble and he didn't want the position.
But I want to show you how quickly pride
can creep into someone's life.
Because in 1 Samuel 13 verse number one, it says,
Saul reigned one year
and when he had reigned two years over Israel.
I'll stop there for a moment.
If you know King Saul, again,
know Saul before he became king, very humble man.
You know, definitely chosen by God for his humility.
Now he's two years into being king.
I want you to see the change of attitude
very so quickly in his life.
Verse number two,
Saul chose him three thousand men of Israel,
whereof two thousand were with Saul in Michmash in the Mount Bethel,
and a thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin,
and the rest of the people he sent every man to his tent.
So Saul's got this plan, okay, to defeat the Philistines
and he takes with him two thousand men
and his son is the other captain, all right?
And his son gets a thousand men.
So you would think, boy, that's a bit unbalanced, right?
I mean, shouldn't it be at least a thousand five hundred each
or something like that?
So, you know, his son gets less, less,
less soldiers to fight this battle against the Philistines.
Anyway, verse number three,
and Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines
that was in Gibeah, and the Philistines heard of it.
So, did Jonathan succeed in his mission?
Yeah, he went out there and they defeated a whole garrison.
That's big news.
And this is when you'll say,
hey Jonathan, you need to toot your own horn, Jonathan.
Let everybody know how great of a captain,
how great of a warrior you are.
But what happens instead?
And Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land saying,
let the Hebrews hear.
So Saul wants everybody to know, all the Israelites know,
we defeated this garrison of the Philistines.
And look, this is Jonathan's dad, right?
The father and son.
Like, I think in my heart,
if my son was able to do something like that,
I'd be like, hey, man, my son,
praise God for my son, I think.
My son, I think.
Look how Saul, look at the news,
that they guards out throughout all the land.
Verse number four,
and all Israel heard say that Saul had smitten a garrison of the Philistines.
So Jonathan does the work, right?
He has the victory, right?
He's risked his life.
And instead of him tooting his own horn,
Saul, his father toots the horn.
And all of Israel hears,
wow, did you hear about Saul?
He defeated the Philistines, he defeated that garrison.
This is what pride does.
You should be giving credit to Jonathan.
People should be going, man, that Jonathan, your son,
what a great man.
But instead of the news is going out,
boy, that King Saul, what a great man.
And look, this is the way of the world.
Like the world thinks in order for you to get ahead,
in order for you to be popular,
in order for you to be accepted,
you've got to toot your own horn.
Let everybody know of your achievements.
And not only that, if you have a chance,
this is the world, and I know it.
I've been in business, I've seen it,
where people will steal your credit,
they'll steal your hard work,
and they'll toot their own horn
to make it appear, look what I've achieved.
I've gone through that.
I don't know if you've gone through that
in different aspects of life.
I would even say I've gone through that even in ministry.
You do the work, you labor, you serve, you minister,
and someone else will come along
and take the credit for it.
Happens.
What do we do when this happens?
It can bother you, right?
I defeated the Philistines.
And I want you to recognize pride
when it creeps into your heart,
maybe it's happened to you.
It's happened to me many times in the workplace.
Because I said in my heart
that I'm just going to serve Jesus,
and I'm going to do the best I can.
I don't care if I get the recognition.
And others, because I wasn't getting the recognition,
they took it.
Look what I've done.
And my boss is like, Kevin,
you've got to toot your own horn.
You defeated the Garrisons.
You made it happen.
And look, did it bother me?
Of course it bothered me.
Like you don't get the credit.
But I started to realize something.
When it starts to bother me,
it's because that pride has crept in
once again into my heart.
It should be me.
I should get the credit.
I should get the recognition
that starts to creep into your heart.
Now Brevin, we started with verse number one
with thanksgiving to God.
I want you to remember that.
And I'm telling you now,
you need to get this.
You need to learn this lesson.
Whatever you accomplish, whatever you do,
you want to be rewarded by Jesus,
don't you?
On judgment day.
God is the judge,
the title of the sermon tonight.
I want to be rewarded.
I want God to lay down the treasures in heaven.
But if I want the recognition
and the praise of even my own success,
instead of giving the recognition
and the praise to God,
I'm going to be left with nothing in eternity.
We do it for Jesus.
Who cares who gets the credit on the earth?
Jesus sees it all.
He knows I did it for him.
He knows I did it for his kingdom.
I'm not going to let it bother me
because that's pride.
Let pride creeping destroy my heart.
No, I don't want that.
Lord, I want to serve you.
I want to serve you in whatever capacity
you have me to serve.
If I succeed,
Lord, I don't want the recognition.
I don't want the wrong motives to serve you.
I want you to be honored and praised.
And Lord, if someone steals my credits,
it's not mine anyway.
It was yours all along.
Because what am I without you?
If you've utilized me to do something great
and someone steals it away,
it wasn't stolen from me.
It was stolen from you.
Because you're the one deserving of worship,
praise and thanksgiving and honor.
Not me.
I'm just grateful that you can use me
in whatever capacity you can use me, Lord.
And so this is definitely for me,
you know, something I had to learn in my life
in my 20s, 30s, even today.
So I have to remind myself,
boy, you know, anything we do.
You know, go to New Zealand
and peep out of that documentary.
It's for Jesus.
I want him to be honored.
I want him to be praised.
I don't care if I don't get recognition.
He cares.
Jesus sees it.
In fact, we'll see like it's hard.
Like the natural man goes,
but we need something like we need,
like we put the work in.
Surely we want something in return.
And we do.
But don't forget, we want it in return in heaven.
We want the interest to be added in heaven, right?
We want the streets of gold
and whatever it is that God has for us.
The precious stones of silver and gold.
The eternal economy.
The eternal bank system, whatever it works,
whatever that system it is in heaven.
We want that to be, you know,
and we want our labor to be deposited up there.
100 fold.
100 interest rates, right?
Percentage interest rates.
That's where we want it.
Again, why?
Cause everything's going to dissolve on this earth.
You get some praise on the earth.
You get some blessing somewhere.
Praise God for what we get on the earth,
but it's going to be gone.
You know, one day we're going to wake up.
I don't know if,
we're probably not going to sleep in our internal bodies,
but one day there's going to be a day
where the world as we know it won't exist.
Like for us, every day that we live,
this is, this is the world.
We know kind of how it works.
We're trying to find our place in the world.
All right.
And our place before God.
And one day, all of this is not going to be
the real world anymore, the real life.
We're going to be worshiping Jesus in the millennium.
We're going to be in the eternal state
in the new heavens and new earth in new Jerusalem.
And that will be our everyday life.
That'll be just standard life.
Everything else dissolved and perished.
All that's going to matter for eternity
is our love and our service,
thanksgiving to Jesus Christ.
So let's get in the habit today.
Not toot our own horns.
God hates it when the wicked do it.
He says it's foolish.
And that's what you are.
You're a fool when you're promoting yourself.
Back to Psalm 75.
Psalm 75 and verse number six.
Psalm 75 verse number six.
And then we're reminded.
God says for promotion.
Who promotes you?
Who gives you credit?
We think about a promotion on the job.
We think of maybe an extra pay
or a better position or something like that, right?
But you know what?
Our church, we're not a very big church.
I could say, well, how do we grow the church?
How do we promote the church?
Let me look this way.
Let me look at the Hillsong.
Let me see what they're doing.
Let me see what random Baptist church
across the street is doing.
Maybe that'll work.
Maybe that'll help us promote our church
if we apply what they're doing in life.
And that's why we're reminded here in verse number six.
For promotion cometh neither from the east
nor from the west, nor from the south.
And then verse number seven.
But God is the judge.
He put up down one and set up another.
Reverend, our promotion, our recognition,
we should not be looking to the earth.
We should not be comparing this church with that church
or this pastor with that pastor.
I don't want some worldly promotion
of New Life Baptist church.
I don't want it coming from the east
or from the west or from the south.
Obviously we want it coming from the north that way.
And God is the judge.
He put up down one and set up another.
And I've seen that in my life.
I've seen that.
I'm not going to toot my own horn.
And I feel like I'm tooting my own horn
by saying to you that I'm not going to toot my own horn.
Because, you know, I don't want to speak highly of myself
because it's God.
God's given me everything that I have.
12 kids.
What a blessing that's coming from the Lord.
You know, a beautiful wife that I love
and I love more today than I ever did
when I first married her.
It's a blessing from the Lord.
The provisions He's given me throughout life
and the ability to pass the two churches
and travel back and forth.
It's all from the Lord.
Why should I toot my own horn?
If there's something, some reward,
some blessing that comes out of serving the Lord Jesus Christ,
then I just want to put it back to Him.
Lord, the promotions come from you.
I don't want promotion.
I don't want recognition from the earth.
I don't want recognition amongst my peers.
I just want you to recognize what I'm doing for you, Lord.
Can you keep your finger there
and come with me to Romans 14, Romans 14.
And to be honest with you guys,
I don't know where that balance lies.
Like I told you, I've just gone to New Zealand
to do a documentary.
Okay.
At some point that's going to be put out
after a few months of editing.
And brother Shavai said, you know,
I'm going to make sure that, you know,
your church gets mentioned.
So if there's anyone in your area
that can hear about it and all that,
that's good.
You know, praise God.
You know, another part of this promotion.
What's the balance?
Maybe you guys can help me out later on,
but at the end of the day,
you know, if this church gets promoted
for whatever documentary or whatever conference
or whatever speaker we have here,
we want to make sure that those events
are purely focused on elevating and promoting God,
serving Him, naming Him,
thanksgiving to Him, to our Savior,
to our Lord, to our Creator.
Romans 14 verse number one.
Him that is weak in the faith receive ye,
but not to doubtful disputations.
I love this chapter.
You know, we're going to have
difference of opinions.
Doubtful disputations is what
the Bible refers to it as.
And just to give you some examples,
for one believer that he may eat all things
and other who is weak eat of herbs.
I'm actually glad no one's here.
That's eating herbs only.
But anyway, even if there was someone
that just wanted to be vegetarian,
we should receive them.
We shouldn't make them feel horrible
and like that, right?
It says verse number three,
Let him that eateth,
despise him that eateth,
sorry, let not him.
Let me say that properly.
Let not him that eateth,
despise him that eateth not.
And let not him which eateth not,
judge him that eateth,
for God have received him.
Who art thou that judgest
another man's servant?
Be careful brethren.
Now look, I want to again,
the balance of things.
There are a lot of churches out there
that will say, no judging,
judge ye not.
And they think it's a sin to judge.
No, we're commanded to judge.
You know, when you decide
what you're going to eat,
am I going to eat herbs?
I'm going to eat everything.
You're going to have to pass judgment
on that for yourself
and for your family.
But if brother Toby,
brother Toby says,
I'm just going to eat herbs.
Yeah, I might think a little bit,
I don't know, a bit weird,
but I love him.
He's my brother Lord.
The Lord has received him.
He's my brother.
I'm not going to judge him.
He's not my servant.
Is he my servant, brother Toby?
I don't know who brother Toby is,
but he's not my servant.
He's not, doesn't belong to me.
I have no authority over him.
Verse number four again,
Who art thou that judgest
another man's servants?
To his own master,
he standeth or falleth.
Yea, he shall be holding up,
for God is able to make him stand.
We are commanded to judge.
Okay, a hundred percent.
But some then,
like because we live in a society
in a Christian world
that says never judge,
then sometimes the pendulum
swings all the way
and I'm just going to judge everybody
for everything that they do.
And I'm going to tell you about it,
how I feel about you doing eating herbs.
I'm going to tell you what I think about you
celebrating Christmas
or not celebrating Christmas.
I bet it,
I'm going to give my two cents
about you and your life.
You're not my servant
and I'm not your servant.
We're his servant Jesus Christ.
He is the Lord.
Hey, yeah, pass judgment for yourself.
And for those that God has put under your authority.
But when we start to judge one another
because there are different opinions
on this or that,
remember we're doing wrong.
It's wrong to do.
Drop down to verse 8.
For whether we live,
we live unto the Lord
and whether we die,
we die unto the Lord.
Whether we live therefore or die,
we are the Lords.
You know the guy eating herbs,
he's doing it for the Lord.
The guy not celebrating his birthday,
he's doing it for the Lord.
The guy celebrating his birthday,
he's doing it for the Lord.
Or whatever other little issues
people like to argue about.
Verse number 9,
it's pulled to this end,
Christ both died and rose and revived
that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.
But why dost thou judge thy brother?
Or why dost thou set at naught thy brother?
For we shall all stand
before the judgment seat of Christ.
What's really interesting about verse number 10?
And I know how the pendulum swings
in our Christian world.
All of these churches,
they never judge.
They don't preach against sin.
They don't want to offend anybody.
But you know what?
No one's going to hold me back.
I'm going to be unfiltered
and I'm going to let everybody know.
I'm going to rip their face
and let everybody know
what I think about them.
It happens.
And when you judge your brother,
the Bible says,
Why dost thou set at naught?
Naught is zero, nothing.
You know, when we judge one another
because of our doubtful disputations,
you're saying to your brother,
you are nothing to me.
I have the authority to judge you.
You're nothing.
My opinion trumps your opinion.
You're nothing.
What you have to say is nothing.
I mean, I know you probably don't feel that way,
but that's what you're doing.
By your actions, by your judgments.
No, remember the title of the sermon,
God is the judge.
And I promise you this,
when I preach the Bible,
I don't have in my mind,
I'm preaching against brother Toby tonight
and his her beating problem.
Right.
I don't, I don't,
I just want to preach you God's word.
And I know like if I'm preaching God's word,
it's going to touch someone's heart.
Not because I'm the judge,
because God is a judge.
His word is the judge.
And then you take the judgments
and you decide,
am I going to follow his judgment?
I am not.
And if I make a personal judgment,
a personal opinion,
you can forget about it.
But what God judges,
you better say to yourself,
I better do what God says.
Or I know I'm rebelling against his word.
That's up to God.
That's between you and the Lord.
He's your master.
He's going to judge you.
You're going to stand before him one day.
And I want him to reward you handsomely.
I want you to be,
I want you to get maximum rewards in heaven.
Because instead of sitting at naught to your brother,
you said, you know what?
I'm doing it for my Lord God.
I'm serving my Lord God.
I'm going to praise him.
I don't need the credit.
I don't need to toot my own horn.
I don't lift myself up.
I don't want to be prideful.
I don't want to be stiff-necked,
stuck in my ways.
I want to be fluid for God's purpose.
Lord, you want me doing this?
I'll do that.
Lord, you want me going this way now?
I'll do that, Lord.
Instead of being stiff-necked,
like the Jews of old.
I often read about that.
The Jews, stiff-necked people.
And then I think about myself,
yeah man, but I'm so am I sometimes.
Like how many times are the Jews referred
to as stiff-necked people?
And we think, oh yeah, the Jews, the nation.
Yeah, they were, of course,
but they're human beings like you and me.
We get stiff-necked.
Right?
When you hear God's word preach.
And when I preach God's word,
and you and I say in our hearts,
yeah, not now.
We've been stiff-necked.
We're not able to be moved
by the Holy Spirit of God.
To do His will rather than our own will.
Can you come with me to Luke 14?
Luke 14.
Luke 14, verse number seven.
Let's just look at this parable.
Verse number seven again.
But God is a judge.
He put us down one and set us up another.
You know, promotion comes from God.
I want you to remember that.
Employees, work hard.
Work hard on the job.
In fact, work smart.
I would say work smart.
Working smarter is better than working harder.
What I'm trying to say to you is that
don't waste your time.
You know, you sign the contract.
You're going to do these many hours.
Do those hours.
Don't look at the East and the West
and go, well, those are lazy employees.
I'll just be up to their standard.
I want you to stay in your heart.
No, Lord, I'm going to serve you tomorrow
when I go to work.
And if I do twice as much work as my colleagues
East and West, so be it.
I do it for you, Jesus.
And look, I believe the promise.
I believe God will promote you.
I believe God will give you everything you need.
He'll take care of you or every need
if you put him first in your life.
But Luke 14, verse number seven.
And he put forth a parable to those
which were bidden when he, sorry,
when he marked how they chose out
the chief rooms, saying unto them,
when thou art bidden of any man to a wedding,
sit not down in the highest room,
lest the more honorable man
than thou be bidden of him.
And he that bade thee to him
come and say to thee,
give this man place,
and thou begin with shame
to take the lowest room.
But when thou art bidden,
go and sit down in the lowest room,
that when he that bade thee cometh,
he may say unto thee,
friend, go up higher,
then shalt thou have worship
in the presence of them
that sit at meet with thee.
For whosoever exalts of himself
shall be abased,
and he that humbleth himself
shall be exalted.
That's a promise, is it not?
He that humbleth himself
shall be exalted.
Like that's not maybe,
it's you definitely will.
That's where pride comes in.
It's just, no, no, no, no.
I want to take the higher seats.
I want to be seen.
I want to be recognized.
I've done the work.
I've done the labor.
Give me recognition.
Oh, someone's stolen my recognition.
Someone's stolen my credit.
It belongs to me.
No, it belonged to God always.
Look, I have this problem.
I mean, not so much now,
but again, I've seen this problem.
I see in my heart the pride,
the bitterness, the stiff neck,
you know, and then like I go,
Lord, man, I hate it so much,
and yet I see it in me.
And I don't know if you think hard enough,
you'll see it in yourself as well.
It's just this sin, this pride being lifted up,
tooting your own horn.
You just want to be recognized.
I'm going to take the attitude,
I just want people to recognize Jesus.
If I accomplish something great,
I just want people to go,
wow, that's because he loves Jesus.
He honors Jesus.
Come back with me to Psalm 75 and verse number eight.
Psalm 75 verse number eight.
I believe the Lord will promote you
if you just stay humble, stay lowly,
just serve him.
Don't worry about the results on this earth.
Don't worry about what east and west
and south are doing.
Don't worry, I'm going to focus on you, Jesus.
I'm going to serve you.
I'm going to praise you.
I'm going to give you thanks.
Whatever I achieve or accomplish,
whatever great precious gift comes from above,
I'm going to praise my heavenly father for that.
I'm going to give you all the credit, Lord.
And I believe he'll give you everything you need.
He'll promote you.
He'll give you more than you need.
Verse number eight, Psalm 75 verse number eight.
For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup.
And by the way,
this is why you don't want to lift yourself up with pride.
And it's not talking about believers so much here now,
it's talking about the wicked,
it's talking about the world in general.
That toot their own horn, that lift themselves up.
This is why they shouldn't do this.
For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup.
And the wine is red.
It is full of mixture.
And he poureth out the same.
So the illustration here is that God has a cup of wine.
Grape juice, all right?
Now we've talked about this before,
that once you crush the grapes, you want it well refined.
You want to take out the leaves.
You want to take out the particles, right?
The little pieces there
and make it easy to be consumed.
Pleasurable to be consumed.
You want to get rid of all that.
Well, this cup is full of mixture.
It's full of it.
It's got all the seeds and the skin and the whatever,
all the bits and pieces.
And it says the important about the same.
So the ones that drink this cup isn't getting a refined grape juice.
It's getting all the froth, all the other stuff
that makes it not as pleasurable to consume.
It says here, but the dregs thereof,
dregs again is just sediment or leaves.
All the wicked of the earth shall wring them out and drink them.
To wring out is like to twist.
God is saying everyone on the earth, every wicked one
is going to receive this cup full of his judgments.
Full of mixture.
All the dregs, all the sediments, all the weight products that has no benefits.
They're going to drink the whole cup.
So what does that talk about?
Well, let me quickly read to you from Isaiah 51 17.
This is when God was angry at the southern kingdom of Judah.
He says, awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem,
which has drunk at the hand of the Lord, the cup of his fury.
There has drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling and wrung them out.
To run or to wring.
Is the same illustration.
This is a cup of God's fury.
We saw that the whole world and inhabitants of the world will be dissolved.
You know, every single wicked person that's lifted themselves up.
You know what salvation requires of us to do?
Salvation requires us to say, not of myself, Lord.
Not of works, not of me.
I am nothing.
It is all of you, Jesus, and I accept that.
To be saved, you cannot be prideful and be saved at the same time.
Like in prideful, I'm good enough.
I hope I've done enough.
I've done my best.
That's pride speaking.
You got to lower yourself and say, Lord, can't do it.
Can't save myself.
It is only you.
All glory goes to Christ and his suffering.
These people haven't done that.
These wicked, they've lifted themselves up.
Well, they're going to receive God's full wrath.
All of it.
God's not going to hold back, whether in the end times or in hell.
What a scary thought to be buried in hell
and be facing the full brunt of God's wrath for your wickedness.
But the Psalmist says instead in verse number nine,
but I will, so he's not one of these guys.
He goes, I will declare forever.
I will sing praises to the God of Jacob.
So he started with Thanksgiving.
He ends with Thanksgiving.
He knows whatever he's done as a Psalmist.
Whatever he's achieved right in this chapter of the Bible.
He goes, it's because of you, Lord.
I'm not going to be like these wicked.
I'm not going to toot my own horn.
I'm not going to lift myself up with pride.
Anything I achieved, I'm going to give you praise and glory.
Verse number 10, all the horns of the wicked also will I cut off.
But the horns of the righteous shall be exalted.
We're all going to be exalted.
There's coming the day in the millennium,
we are average Joe Blow.
We are average nothing in the world compared to,
you know, the rich and the famous
and the powerful people on the earth.
One day we will be exalted
with those new resurrected bodies
made like unto Christ, serving him in the millennium,
the kings and the priests of the world.
That is a promise to come.
And brethren, the last reminder here is just to remember
who we are in the eyes of God.
We will be exalted.
Why do we want to exalt ourselves on this earth?
What's the point of having earthly recognition?
What a waste of time.
There's no rewards for that.
But if we give God all the honor and the praise,
we humble ourselves.
You say, pastor, I never received that promotion.
You told me that if I humble myself, the promotion will come.
It's coming, don't worry.
In the millennium, you'll be someone amazing,
someone special.
God will lift you up and you're going to have authority
over all the earth reigning with Jesus Christ.
Title for the sermon was God is the judge.
And I'm glad he's the judge.
And I'm glad I'm not the judge of you.
And you're not the judge of me.
I'm glad he is the judge.
I'm glad he's given us his word.
The right thing to do, brethren,
is to stop putting our own judgments on people,
but allow God's word to be the judgment on our lives.
Let's pray.