hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place.
And labor, working with our own hands, being reviled, we bless.
Being persecuted, we suffer it.
Being defamed, we entreat.
We are made as the filth of this world and are the off-scoring of all things unto this
day.
I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons, I warn you.
For though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you have not many fathers,
for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.
Wherefore I beseech you, be followers of me.
For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the
Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways, which be in Christ, as I teach
everywhere in every church.
Now some are puffed up as though I would not come to you, but I will come to you shortly
if the Lord will, and will know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power.
For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.
What will ye, shall I come unto you, with a rod, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness.
Brother Jason, why don't you go ahead and pray for the service.
Dearly Father, I thank you for this day, Lord. I thank you for everything you've done for us. Lord, I pray that you please open our hearts to the preaching of your word, and fulfill, brother, of me with your spirit as he preacheth, and give you the same. Amen.
Amen. You guys are there. In 1 Corinthians 4, we're going to look in at verse number one, where the Bible says, "Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God."
And the title of my sermon this afternoon is "Judge Not, Judge Nothing, Judge Everything." Let's pray.
Dear Father God, thank you so much for everything you do for us, God. Thank you so much for the opportunity to preach, God. Thank you so much for everybody that showed up tonight, God.
I just pray that you would deliver the message well that you've put on my heart, God, and help me to deliver the message in a way that edifies people, God, and that would help everybody be better after they hear the sermon, God.
I pray that you would keep me from saying what you don't want me to say and help me to say what you do want me to say boldly.
I just pray that you fill everybody up in here with your Holy Spirit.
And me included as I preach this sermon. Just need to pray. Amen.
Telling my sermon, like I said, is judge not, judge nothing, judge everything.
We're here in 1 Corinthians chapter number four.
And last week we kind of ended off with this idea from chapter three where Paul is tying back the main idea to what he had rabbit trailed off into.
Because just like me, he rabbit trails off a lot.
And I brought that up last week and I do think it's important to point that out because Paul does do that a lot in his letters.
He does it a lot.
And I think if you're aware of that, it'll help you when things seem to just be out of nowhere or out of context.
When it's a letter written from Paul, which is a huge chunk of the Bible in the New Testament, obviously, you can look ahead and see what he's foreshadowing to or see what he's alluding to or see why he's bringing something up.
Seemingly out of the blue, because the thing about the Bible is nothing is just there by coincidence.
Everything is there for a reason, so you should just realize that.
And God obviously uses, you know, the human authors to write down the Bible under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, so everybody has, you know, the different authors have their own flair to it, if you will.
But it is still the inspiration of the Holy Ghost behind every single word that's written in the Bible, so it's all perfect.
We're there in verse number one, though, because he kind of ties this idea that he was really building off of in chapter three,
which was that he's not special. He's nothing at the end of the day. He's just a minister of Jesus Christ.
And he finishes that thought right here, and he also transitions into a new thought in verse one.
I'll read that again. It says, "Let a man sow account of us as of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God."
Now, go to Mark 10, 45, if you would, and keep your finger there in 1 Corinthians 4, verse number one.
I've talked about this idea of Paul being a minister of him being a servant multiple times now, but there's two things about that.
One, I'm going to come at this from a little bit of a different angle right here.
But number two is that, again, this is just like in Romans when he brings up salvation by faith over and over again.
It's like, "What am I supposed to do? Just, like, not bring it up?"
It's like, "Yeah, we've heard this before. Let's just keep moving," right?
If he's bringing up this idea that he is nothing, that he's just a steward, that he's just a minister of God,
it's because it's important, obviously.
He wants us to understand this, and people would do well to understand this because pride is something that can always be preached against.
Truly, pride builds up in people, and you have to level people down, and you have to de-puff them up.
Okay, and that's why Paul is bringing this up over and over again.
But he does kind of conclude this thought here.
But I want you to see, because I'm going to take this from a different angle. In Mark 10, 45, it says this.
It says, "For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many."
We see here that in Mark 10, Jesus Christ, who is the King of Kings and who is the Lord of Lords,
said that He didn't come to this earth to be ministered unto, which means to be served.
He came to minister, and He came to serve others.
And what you should realize and what you should learn from this is that if you want to be a good leader,
you should adopt this same mindset from Jesus of servant leadership.
And people sometimes when you say the word leader, they think it has to be an official position,
but you should just realize as a dad, you are the leader of your family.
When you go to work, your boss is the leader over you there.
When you come to church, you have a church plant leader, you have a pastor that's your leader.
But truly, if you're a man in here, or even if you're a mom, if you're leading your children when your husband's away,
then you can take this principle and apply it to yourself as well.
To be a good leader, you have to paradoxically be a servant first and then a leader.
That's why it's called servant leadership.
Because people think that leadership sometimes is just barking orders, just yelling at people, just screaming at them to do things.
And I would say as an obvious thing that we should realize from that is that part of being a leader is comfortable to do.
That's a fact. And not every time that a leader tells you to do something, he has to do that same thing necessarily.
But I do want you to realize that when it comes to Jesus Christ himself, he commands us a ton of things.
God commands us a ton of things in the Bible, but it's not things that he could just never live up to or never do himself.
Jesus Christ came and lived a perfect life for us.
You know, he obeyed all the commandments to a T, and therefore he's our example of how we should live as Christians.
That's like the perfect example of servant leadership.
He's not just telling us what to do.
Jesus Christ showed us what we should do.
He's an example unto us as Christians.
And you should realize that that's true leadership.
At the end of the day, that's people, like people we will respect you as a leader.
Your wife will respect you as a leader.
Your kids will respect you as a leader.
If you actually imply, excuse me, apply this principle of servant leadership to the way you lead things.
People think, sometimes people think this is like weak leadership, I feel like sometimes.
But this is what Jesus Christ himself is doing.
He's an example to us of how we should live.
He's our example because he did first what he then commands us to do.
So I don't think you should criticize, I mean it would be stupid to criticize this kind of leadership.
But again, Jesus Christ isn't just barking orders.
He's not like the scribes and Pharisees where they bear burns on men, grievous to be born,
and then they won't even touch them with one of their fingers.
He says here, you should do this.
The reason why is because I did it first.
That's why you should do this.
And we see this with God.
We should love others because He loved us first, right?
And we should love God because He loved us first.
You kind of see that over and over again in the Bible.
And this is kind of when you think about it deep down, what the leaders that you respect the most.
Because if you think about someone like even David in the Bible,
especially back then when they're actually going to fight in a physical war,
back then leaders, they couldn't just sit at home and just be chilling out.
I mean sometimes you see this, but the leaders that people respect in history,
especially when it comes to like war and a conquest,
are not the ones that were just sitting in their palace.
It was the ones that were on the front lines fighting alongside their men, right?
Not just leading from the back of the line, but leading the front of the charge.
That's what leaders do.
I mean you think about like someone like David obviously or Alexander the Great
or so many of the Caesars back then, it's like they're leading the fights.
They're leading the battle.
They're not just barking orders at everybody that they're, you know, that's under them.
And you even see with the story with David, when he goes to fight with Absalom, his son,
because he's rebelling against him, they have to make David stay at home.
They're like David, do not come to the battle.
And the only time that we see David stay away from the battle besides that is when he's backslidden
and then he has the situation with Bathsheba.
So that should be an example to us that, you know, a leader should be leading from the front,
just not barking orders from the back.
I mean, how would you have any respect for me in here if I just was like, you guys need to read your Bible.
And then I was reading my Bible where I was like, you guys need to go soul winning.
What are you doing? And then I just never went soul winning.
How could you have respect for me? Right.
I want to say, hey, guys, you should go soul winning because I'm going soul winning too.
Like I'm going to lead the charge in this area.
Let's go and do these things. Right.
When this is a side note to this, but man, I was thinking about when I was writing this,
how like with these presidents that just will snap their fingers
and just send like hundreds of men off to war to get blown up
and to face like all sorts of like tragedy in this world.
Like how many wars do you think or just conflicts?
Because they don't want to call it a war because then it's like, you know,
it's just a little conflict that we have over in Vietnam.
OK, then they'll go back and rewrite it as a war.
How many of those do you think would have been stopped if like the leader of the United States
actually had to go fight on the front lines in that battle?
It would stop a lot of these warmongering people when if they had to risk their own life
to make the conquest that they wanted to see.
Go back to 1 Corinthians 4 if you ever left there, verse number 2.
This reminds me of a story though, a good example of leading by example,
is I had a guy in Vancouver who was my boss, he's a 65 year old man,
and he was pretty rough around the edges I would say.
I have a lot of respect for this guy though, I mean he's a trooper, he's a hard worker.
For being 64 years old, I mean he's a little bit older now,
but I mean he was working like the best of them out there, you know.
And this is the same guy actually, if you remember this story,
where I was telling you guys that when I had the on-call phone,
I had to stay up like all night and then bleeding to work the next day.
I was like, "Man, I was up all night and didn't get any sleep."
And he was like, "Aw, welcome to the water department, Remy."
He's just like, super like doesn't care, he's like, "Yeah, join the club, buddy."
"I've been working a 72-hour shift, unpaid, you know, breaking my bare hands."
That's kind of the, that's a meme, but that's kind of the kind of attitude he kind of portrays sometimes.
But this guy, one of the things he did that made me really gain a lot of respect for him,
is when I was first working for him, there was a job where it was just a terrible job.
We had to get inside this meter box and take this thing apart, which is really tight.
And you have to fix it live so the water's gonna be blasting.
And the water, since the meter box is only this big, when it blasts like that, it blasts back at you.
And full of dirt and full of rocks.
So we knew what was gonna happen and I was like, "Okay, I'll do it."
And he was like, "No, no, no. I got this one."
I was like, "No, no, no. I'll do it."
And he was like, "No, no, no. You gave me the tools. I'm doing this one."
Okay, so he gets down there. He's fighting with this thing.
It's blasting water and mud in his face.
And he's this old 65-year-old man. I'm like a 20-year-old, so I feel bad.
I'm like, "Why am I letting this old guy get soaked right now?"
I don't want to say old disrespectfully, but just like, you know, I'm letting a...
What is it? Do I say gentleman? What do I say for an older person?
An elder? I don't know.
Something? Okay.
This elderly gentleman is in the box fighting with this thing
while it's blasting him with water and mud.
And then he finally got it fixed, and he came back to the truck.
He's just soaked. He's full of mud on his clothing.
And I was like, "You know, I would have really done that one if you'd let me just get in the hole."
And he was like, "You want to know why I did that one, Remy?"
And I was thinking to myself, like, it's probably because he thinks I suck or something like that.
Like, he just doesn't trust me, okay?
But I didn't say that to him, though. I was just quiet.
He was like, "It's because I want you to know that I will never tell you to do something at work that I won't do myself."
And it just made me, like, my respect levels for him just went off the charts.
To this day, I respect the heck out of him because, I mean, like, he's like,
"I'm not going to just be barking orders at you."
He's like, "Anything I tell you to do here, I will do myself."
And he didn't just -- I wasn't just to believe that.
He showed me that by his own example.
So all that to say is that if you want to be a good leader, you should lead by example
because that's how God leads us.
That's how respectable leaders lead their people.
1 Corinthians 4:2, it says this.
It says, "Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful."
Now, if you're an OG to this church, you'll know that this was the --
this was the verse I used to preach my most popular sermon ever.
It's still never been topped for me.
On the old channel that got nuked, not the one before this, but the very first one.
It had a ton of views on it, and it was a sermon I preached out of this verse right here,
which is not like a very clickbait verse.
And even the title of the sermon was just like, "Being Found Faithful."
I was like, no Joe Jones title or anything like that.
It was just, "Being Found Faithful."
But what it was is that people thought that because I just had a conflict
with a certain someone that you guys all know, that I was just going to come up here
with an iron fist and just start ripping him from behind the pulpit.
So they're getting all the haters involved in this.
They're like, "Oh yeah, he's going to rip on me in this sermon."
And I just preached like a sermon that had nothing to do with anything.
It was just like being a faithful Christian, like the most basic thing ever.
The views are like off the charts on that one.
But I just thought it was funny that they like, I don't know, they think I'm a fool or something?
Like you guys think I would be doing something that dumb?
I'm just going to come up and rip on someone just because I got an argument with them?
Like just be super carnal about it?
But that brings me to this idea that I want to bring up before I get into this verse proper
that I think is very applicable from a book that I read by Pastor Jack Hiles called "Teaching on Preaching."
He brings up this point, I think I've kind of touched on this before, but I think it's good, a good point to know.
Because something you should know about me, and I talk about this a little bit on Sunday,
that I will not just come up and preach a sermon carnally just to diss on someone,
just to get revenge on someone as the main point for a sermon, or even like 10% of a sermon.
That's not my vibe. Now, that's not to say that I won't name people's names, because I'll let you know right now,
I absolutely will name drop people, I do not care about that.
But my point in a sermon is never going to be just to get revenge or to beat someone over the head,
because that is carnal, that is weak, that is not what people showed up for when they came to a church service.
And if you are showing up for just drama, then you're showing up for the wrong reasons.
And that's not an attitude that I want to give to people.
But I'll explain this a little bit later on, a little bit more.
But this is what Pastor Jack Hiles said in his book, "Teaching on Preaching."
He said, "Never preach to individuals.
In 1960, on Sunday night, I preached to an individual.
The next Wednesday night, I asked my people to forgive me.
And from that day until this, I have never used my pulpit as a whipping post
or a place to single out individuals or a place of revenge or vengeance.
If I'm preaching on a certain subject and an individual comes to mind,
I immediately jump over that thought to the next one
because I do not want to be guilty of using the pulpit
with which to carry on a private feud or as a place to retaliate.
The wise preacher will never attack someone's sin, but he will attack sin itself.
He will never attack the individual.
The pulpit should be a place of action, not a place of reaction.
It should be a place of defense of the truth, not a place of defense of self.
And I took that line from that book and it has always really stuck in with me
because I really think that's a good principle to live by.
You should not just come up behind the pulpit with the intention of battering people.
That is wasting everyone's time. It's carnal and it's not profitable.
That is not the point of preaching.
Now I will say though about this that I agree with most of this and in theory I agree with all of it.
But I will say that I do think that there is a time to name names though. I really do.
I think there's a time when you can reference a certain situation where you can name people,
where you can allude to people very obviously.
And I will do that and I have done that and I will continue to do that because I think it's biblical.
But I want you to know that you shouldn't just preach a sermon to get at someone though.
That's the difference. The modifier there is just.
Because people think that, I've seen people do this where like if you drop someone's name, they're just like,
"Oh yeah, this is what they're wasting time preaching on is something that's not profitable."
But I would just show you that from the Bible itself, Paul and many people name names all the time.
And the Bible's, like you wouldn't just say that the Bible's not profitable because it's addressing someone.
So why would you say that about a sermon?
There is a world where you can address a situation or a person and still make that edifying to everybody in the room.
And that's what you should do and you need to balance and make sure that that's what you're doing.
And again, a good litmus test for that if you're preaching in here is that if the cameras were off
and nobody was ever going to see the sermon, it should still be edifying to every single person in this room.
That's my litmus test. That's what I think a sermon is edifying and that it helps people out.
But you should just realize that these things are not mutually exclusive to bring someone up and to be edifying.
But I'll be honest with you, this just sometimes people mess up though when they go up to preach and they are very carnal
and they don't balance this out. But if you're doing things biblically, then it still can't be edifying.
Did you guys go to 2nd Timothy 414? I don't know if I ever had you guys go there.
But if you didn't, I'll just read while you're turning there, 2nd Timothy 4, verse number 14, it says this,
"Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil, the Lord reward him according to his works."
I want you to notice here that Paul is naming a direct name, and it doesn't just point it out to Timothy right here who this letter is written to,
it's for everybody of all time to see the name Alexander the coppersmith.
Paul's obviously being edifying here, but I would point out that Paul, this is kind of random in Timothy if you really think about this.
Alexander the coppersmith has nothing to do with Paul what he's been talking about, but it should show you that there are reasons to name drop people.
Number one, Paul's trying to warn Timothy of this guy who's obviously a scumbag.
And it's also number two to show us, in my opinion, that there is a time to name people.
And it's also to point out that evil people will do bad things to even the best of people.
Do you also see names like Diatrophes and Hymenes and Philetus mentioned in the Bible?
But here's the thing, even in 1 Corinthians itself, the book that we're reading,
in the very next chapter, Paul makes a very obvious call out, okay?
He says, "There is fornication among you, as is not even a common among the Gentiles,
that one should be with his father's wife."
Who could he be talking about? He's being very general right there.
Like, surely they're all just like, "Who could this guy be?"
It's like, no, he's naming this guy out purposely.
Because this is embarrassing, and he's bringing this to the forefront
so that everybody knows that he's calling that guy to the carpet.
And so you should realize that there's just nothing inherently wrong
with just naming a name in the first place, or even referencing a situation.
But Paul isn't just bringing this up to embarrass this guy,
and he's not just doing this to bash on this guy.
There is a greater picture behind him bringing this guy up.
Like, you know, the fact that they need to kick him out of the church,
and the fact that he needs to repent and get right for his sin right here,
but it's not just to smash this guy so that he can embarrass him,
because that would be a waste of time.
Go to 1 Corinthians 4, verse number 2 again, if you guys have left there.
All I have to just say, there is a time to name situations,
and to name names, and to be specific.
Sometimes it's a little uncomfortable, but I'm sure as heck
it was uncomfortable for the people here.
I mean, like, this guy is in the Bible for all eternity
for fornicating with his father's wife.
It's embarrassing, but this guy actually gets right
if you read the rest of the story, so there is
there is a benefit in calling people out sometimes.
1 Corinthians 4, 2, I'll read that verse again.
It says, "Moreover, it is required in stewards
that a man be found faithful."
Paul's saying to be a good steward
you have to be faithful.
What is a steward, though? A steward is basically
someone that, like, oversees properties
or oversees someone's
wealth, their finances, their business
as a servant, though.
So, Paul is saying it's necessary
to be faithful to be a good servant,
to be a good steward. And he's
referring to this as being a steward of Jesus Christ.
Verse number three, though, it says this, "But with me
it is a very small thing
that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment.
Yea, I judge not my own
self, for I know nothing by
myself, yet am I not hereby
justified, but he that judges
me is the Lord."
So, Paul is saying here, if you all want to understand
this, that he's referring to himself
as a steward here. And then he says
that it's required in stewards that a man
be found faithful, so he's saying he needs
to be a faithful person, but he's
saying, "But if you guys at this
Church of Corinth are judging me," he's like, "It doesn't
mean a lot." He's like,
"It's a very small thing that I could be judged of you
guys." Why is that? Because he says, "I'm not
even judged of my own self." He's like, "I don't even
get to determine how good of a person I am."
The one who's going to judge me at the end of the day
is God Almighty, is what Paul says
right here. And so this
should do two things for you as a Christian. Number one,
this should comfort you in the fact that
when people are lying about you, when they're
falsely accusing you, when they're slandering you,
that God sees
through all those lies. He sees
through all those accusations, and He will
recompense those things, and He will judge
those things in His time.
So you should take that to heart. But also
number two is that you should, this should
scare you as a Christian if you're one of these people
that, you know, plays
this role or pretends to be a faithful
Christian. And I'm not talking
about salvation here, though that could be kind
of adjacent in this. Adjacent,
not adjacent, okay.
That could be adjacent in this, though.
I'm not talking about salvation, I'm not talking about pretending to be a faithful
Christian. I'm talking about these
people that will, you know, put on
a big show on Sunday, they'll come in,
they'll talk to lingo, and they'll kind of act,
you know, how they know they should act.
But then the rest of the week they live like the world,
but then when it comes back to Sunday
or to Wednesday again, they put
that costume back on, they put that mask
back on. And what I just described
to you is kind of like a stereotype,
but it is a stereotype that's true
for some people, that they really do these kinds
of things, that they'll be Christians that go to
church and they walk the walk, they talk
the talk, but then when they go home
and when they're out of everybody's sight, they act like a
completely different person. And again,
I'm not talking about salvation, I'm just talking about
someone pretending to be like a
zealous person, or pretending to be a faithful person.
Someone might be thinking, you know,
this doesn't happen, though.
It absolutely does happen.
I've grown up in church since I was
a Baptist, or since I was six years old, and I have seen
this happen with my own eyeballs. People
come to church, they like,
there'll be men that come to church, and they're
amen-ing the sermon, there'll be women that are nodding,
or waving their hankies in the air,
agreeing with the preacher,
and then, and then when they go
home, it's like they just flip off the switch.
It's like the church switch in their life, they just flip it off,
and they're just like, okay, nobody's here to watch me
anymore. You'd ask,
like, why would someone do something like this though?
It's kind of, it's because they're caught in a
rock and a hard place is really why. It's because this
is that if they don't play
the role, if they don't play the part, then
people will know that they're backslidden,
or they'll know that they're struggling
with sin, or they'll know that
they're not as spiritual as everybody thinks they are,
and that hurts their pride, it hurts their ego,
and it hurts their social
standing, so they'd have to put on this role.
But then on the flip side, they also don't want to just
actually be a good Christian because that takes work,
and they don't want to obey the commandments because
you know, whatever, they want
to cleave to their sin, or they just
like the double life that they're
living. But this is
what should scare you away from that, is that God
knows who you are
and why you do what you do
at the end of the day. That should scare you
from being a fake Christian because you can fool me, you could
fool everybody in this room, but you'll never
get one over on God, because God is not
mocked, and you should just realize that
God knows both what you
do in your life and why
you do what you do
in your life. He's a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart. That should make you
step back and examine yourself and be like, do
I just put on a show at Sunday? Do I
like, you know, just pretend
like I'm like, you know,
trying to search Jesus Christ
for everybody so that everybody thinks I'm a really spiritual
person, they don't know that I'm really back sitting
behind the scenes or that, you know, I'm
struggling with a bunch of sins in my life.
You should really take a step back and examine yourself because
there is no profit in
the long run in fooling
people. All it does is delays, you know,
your inevitable chastisement from God
because you're never going to get one over on God.
You can fool everybody but you can never
fool God. Going
on from this though, the kind of last
two things I wanted to say about these
two verses right here is this,
is that you shouldn't worry
what you're doing as far as serving
God if you're doing what's truly
right in your own eyes and in your own
conscience according to the Bible, okay?
This all has to be under the branch of
being under the word of God. Hopefully you all
understand that. But if you're doing what
you think is genuinely right, genuinely
in your heart, you're not convicted of saying,
you're not convinced that something that you're doing
is bad, you should not worry about what
other people think about you at the end of the day
because God will judge you. And I brought this
up in Romans 14,
but I just think it's important because people really
lose their mind on this and they like, they act
weird. Like, I think I used that example with you guys
about my dad preaching against
a little bit about country music. This was like
way early on in the church
and he was just talking about how
not all country music, but he was saying that there's certain
songs that people promote a lot that they have false
doctrine in them. Like, they'll be like, you know, working
hard to get to heaven.
Heresy, damnable heresy, okay?
Who even sings that song?
Who's it? Alan Jackson. See,
brother Jake knows. That's who he's talking about.
No. But Alan Jackson,
he brought up, and thank you for that,
because he brought up Alan Jackson, and he was like,
yeah, he's teaching this works-based salvation,
working hard to get to heaven,
and he was talking about how there's a lot
of things that slip through the crack with that
in country music.
But then he kind of cabulated himself and was like,
but not all country music's bad. I mean,
there are good songs that teach
either doctrine or that are just
neutral or something like that.
So one of these bows that our church did
is he took that point and he threw out
all of his country music because he was like,
"I just don't want the pastor to think
that I'm sinning or something like that." So he threw out all of his
country music without being like,
you know, thinking about it very much.
And then that's one of the things he
cited again when he left our
church. He was like, "This is such a cult because
the pastor made me throw away all my
country music." It's like, no
he didn't though, because I was in the sermon
like, I was watching the same sermon
that he was. And I was like, and I know my
dad didn't go over to his house and was like,
what are you doing with these bro?
And throw them in the trash or anything like that?
It's like, he made this decision on his own
and it's clearly a decision that he wasn't willing
to make yet. But I'm bringing this up because
if he genuinely thought all that stuff wasn't
bad, if he didn't think there was anything
sinful with it, then why did he throw
it all out? That's his own decision
to do that. He's doing that though
because he's concerned about what other people are thinking
about him. That's why he did that. When instead
he could have just been like a logical person, been like
let me get rid of the garbage songs
and then I could keep the ones that I really want
to if that's what you want to cleave to.
But I just want you to realize
that as a Christian you can say no.
This is not a cult.
Let me just give you an example of this right now.
What if I just got on a kick and I was like
the devil's the prince of the power of the air so you know what
cell phones are just wicked. They're evil.
Because what do they do? They connect to the lines
up in the air and that's satanic.
Cell phones are of the devil.
So you know what? Everybody needs to brain
their cell phone up here right now. I'm going to smash it on the phone.
Brother Jason, bring me your phone up here real quick
and I'm going to smash it, right?
What could he do?
He could say no.
I don't want to do that.
Because I'm not your lord.
I'm not your god. I'm not
anything like that. I mean I lead
this church but I don't delve
into your life. Our pastor doesn't
delve into your life. And if
you think that something is an overstep or
if you think that something is wrong and you don't agree
with it, you can say no. You can
just not do it, okay?
If I come up here and say cell phones are wicked, you
could be like, yeah, he's stupid on
that. And I would be stupid on that if that's what I was teaching
you, okay? You can say, no, he's out to
lunch right there. And who cares? I don't know.
People get so worked up about other people's
opinions and I just don't understand this. I think it's weird.
Okay. I also want you to
realize that people, this is Paul the Apostle
talking about being judged. So you should
just realize, even if you're the best Christian on the face
of the planet at that time, you will still
be judged by people. People will still say
that you're a terrible Christian. When Paul
is the best example of a Christian
in the New Testament at this point,
you're like, "Paul's lame, he's weak,
he's backslidden.
Is he even really an Apostle?"
Yes, he is the Apostle Paul,
okay? He's the last
Apostle, actually, okay? That Jesus
Christ gave the Gospel to.
He said that he was revealed the Gospel
by Jesus Christ.
That's the man that people are judging. So they're
going to judge you as well. So you should realize that as a
Christian, you're never going to escape
judgment. The second thing about
that is that you should realize that you should
worry about your own life. Again, we talk about this in Romans
14, but it's still applicable. Don't be a
Karen with other people. This does bug
me, okay? And I probably said this before, and I'll say it again.
Like, it bugs me when
people are just obsessed with what other people are
doing. And this is what bugs me more about
it, is that people don't do it in a way that's
straight up, they do it passive aggressively.
Like, they'll make like a joke out of it. Like,
"Oh, you went to the pumpkin
patch?" Like, pumpkin patches are kind of
wicked. I mean, can't you grab a pumpkin
and then carve it and make it a
jack-o'-lantern? Is it not an appearance
of evil? Isn't that wicked because you're
participating second-hand, third-hand
in the wicked, evil holiday
of Halloween? And then they'll be like,
"Just kidding, uh..."
It's not funny though. That's lame, is what it is.
It's like being passive aggressive. Like,
just say your actual opinion. Be a man
about things if you believe. I get so sick of that
with people. Like, when they're just passive
aggressive about stuff. Say what you
want to say with your chest. Be a man
about things. Confront people if you
want to confront them. But what that takes
to do that is to actually have some guts
behind you. To be a man about what you want to say.
If you want to actually judge someone
which you shouldn't be in the first place,
about gray areas, about dumb things
that are your own opinion, at least
have the courtesy to go up and confront
them face to face about it.
Because don't you love them then? Because that's what
they'll always say, "Well, I'm just doing that because I care about them."
If you really cared about someone though,
you wouldn't be passive aggressive, you wouldn't make it out
to be a joke. You'd actually tell them
what you're thinking in that moment.
It's weak, it's cowardly. I hate that
attitude that people have. And really, in
reality, you should just worry about your own life
as a Christian. Stop being a Karen.
That's so annoying when people are like that.
Spiritual Karen is like, "Oh, the sign
at the park says you're not supposed to feed the ducks!"
"Shut up! Mind your business!"
Who are you? Are you the deputy?
I mean, if they have some power, then respect it, right?
But it's like, if you're just random Karen
at the park, it's like, "I will feed
these ducks if I want to, okay?"
"Take a hike! Why are you concerned?"
'Cause that's the thing, it's like nothing, like
they're worried about the ducks.
I don't know, I'm using a random example there, but
there's so many areas where it's so applicable
where it's just like, "Well, I think
shut up! Who cares what you have to say
about this? I surely don't."
Why are you bringing it up? People just
they're Karens about stuff. It's cringey to me.
Especially my personality, I'm just very chill,
just very kind of like, "Eh." But like
people just sometimes they get all worked up
about dumb stuff. Just mind your business,
okay? And if you're really worried about
someone doing something sinful,
then tell them lovingly, kindly,
not passive aggressively,
not like a weasel. Where are we even
at here? We're lost in the sauce a little bit.
1st Corinthians 4, verse number 5,
here's this kind of idea that bleeds into
not judging other people.
It says this, it says, "Therefore
judge nothing before the time until the
Lord come, who both will bring to
light the hidden things of darkness, and will make
manifest the counsels of the
hearts, and then shall every
man have praise of
God." I've seen some people do some
silly goofy things with this verse
here in tandem with a couple other
verses in the Bible, and
they'll try to say that this is teaching that
you should never, under any
circumstances, in any situation
judge anything.
Period. He says, "judge nothing."
And then they'll go to Matthew 7 with Jesus
and they'll be like, "judge not, you be not judged."
Therefore, therefore, judging
period is evil. There's a couple
problems with that though. Number one is that Paul has
just talked about judging in the same
book, just two chapters earlier. You can go to
John 7, 24, and I'll read
for you guys. First Corinthians
2, 15. You guys are going to
John 7, 24. First Corinthians
2, 15. We're talking about judging. It
says, "But he that is spiritual
judges all things, yet he himself
is judged of no man." And people will
lay out, "You just can't judge
anything." Paul says, "He that's
spiritual judges all things."
John 7, 24, it says, "Judge not
according to the appearance, but
judge righteous judgment." What
people like to do specifically with
the subject of judgment, because
people don't like to study the
Bible out, and they just like to
throw out one-liners. That's why
atheists all the time will be like,
is that they'll try to use the
subject of judgment to make the
Bible contradict itself,
excuse me, and they'll pin the Bible
against itself with verses about judging.
And I guess to be a little bit fair,
I guess if you were just taking it all
into context it would be a little bit weird,
but you just need to realize the Bible
works together as a whole. You compare
spiritual things with spiritual. You
never just isolate one verse in the
Bible. It all needs to fit together.
And so what I'm trying to bring up,
and my point in bringing that up is this,
is that when you have a verse like
John 7 24 that says, Judge not a career
of the parents, but judge righteous judgment,
you can't just turn around and quote
Matthew 7 1, that you be not
judged and be like, well, this is the
verse that I'm sticking with instead. What you
have to do is you have to reconcile both of
those verses together. And if they're going to
take a super liberal interpretation of Matthew
7 1 to say that you can never judge
anything ever for any reason,
you have to reconcile that with
John 7 24, which is
Judge Righteous Judgment. And they
can't do that. So that's where there are. That's where you can see
where things are a false interpretation.
Because you just realize you don't like take
a verse in the Bible to debunk another
verse. You debunk a bad
interpretation that surrounds
that verse. That's what you should realize. Because the
Bible doesn't contradict itself. It's a perfect
book. But the same thing is
true for us as well. When we see
a verse like 1 Corinthians 4
5 in the Bible, we need to realize that
we can't turn around and do the same thing.
When someone uses this verse, you can't just say
well, John 7 24 says
"judge righteous judgment." You need to
reconcile these verses together and give it an
interpretation that reconciles these
things together and that makes all these things
work out in harmony. And I'm bringing this up because
I think this is really important to realize
especially when you're out soul winning.
Because I think a blunder that people make when they're out soul
winning, and again,
I was talking about this last Sunday as well, that
when I'm using
situations like this sometimes, people always
think it's like, somebody must have
just done this recently, that's why he's bringing it up.
Refer to what I was saying earlier, I don't
use the pulpit to just beat people over the head with the Bible.
When I'm talking about stuff like this, it's
general, okay? It's things I've seen in my life.
And even if I am
bringing up something that was like, you know,
a specific example, or
something that was to do with the church,
I'm not going to bring it up in a way where it's obvious
who I'm talking about, okay?
All that to say is this, is that
it shouldn't really matter why I'm bringing something up.
You should look at what I'm saying, not
why I'm saying it, okay? Look at
and take me from my word, because
even this is a good example. I've not seen someone
at the church do what I'm about to show you, or
what I'm about to tell you. I have just seen
this in my life experience of being a Christian
though, okay? And that's this,
people, when they're out soul-wanting a lot of times,
someone will bring up a verse like
James 2, and they'll say,
"Hey, the Bible
says faith without works is dead, to debunk
us." And what a person will do
a lot of times is they'll just be like, "No, no, no.
Romans 4, 5, John 3, 16, Ephesians
2, 8, 9," you know, and they'll just
hit them with all these scriptures about that.
But the thing about that
is that no matter how many
scriptures you show them, you still need to
explain the original verse that they're
confused about at the door, okay?
So if you just, if someone is confused about
James 2, and you hit them with
every single faith verse in the Bible, it's not
going to do anything unless you explain
what James 2 means
in harmony with all the rest of the scriptures in the Bible.
You guys understand what I'm saying?
So, and especially with James 2, because
James 2 is somewhat easy to
explain in the sense that you can prove
that Abraham wasn't saved
while he was circumcised,
he was saved before he was circumcised,
which proves that James 2, when it's
talking about him offering Isaac up on the altar,
or when he was going to,
is not about his salvation. Period.
At the end of the day, there's no way you can argue against that.
So all that to just say is make sure that
when you're talking with someone at the door
and they bring up a verse to you,
show them other verses,
because a lot of times if you do show someone
a bunch of verses, and then they only have
one verse that's opposing that,
then you can be like, "Well, this one verse
must obviously be out of context."
But when you do that, make sure you explain that verse.
That's my point in bringing this up right here.
Where are we at here?
1 Corinthians 4,
verse number 5.
We are going to end
early-ish, okay?
So just don't be scared again.
I'll probably sit everywhere tonight for the rest of my life, okay?
But don't be scared because we are going to
not go crazy long.
1 Corinthians 4, 5.
I just read that. Here's how I want to reconcile
these verses though. 1 Corinthians 4, 5
with John 7, 24.
Number 1, you can do this by explaining
the verse properly because the verse defined
itself within the verse itself, okay?
Look at verse number 5. It says, "Therefore
nothing for the time until the Lord come who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness
and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts and then shall every man have praise of God."
So you'll see with this verse that when Paul is talking about judging here he's talking about
judging nothing concerning like what's inside men's hearts or their motives. Things that you
can't see or things that you can't prove or things that you can't know is what Paul is talking about
right here and we know this because you you line up all these scriptures in context. Go if you would
to 1st Corinthians oh excuse me go to Romans 15 verse number 22 Romans 15 verse number 22.
Paul is talking about when he says judge nothing he's talking about not judging things too early
because when you're judging things without proof or without knowing someone's motives actually
you're just assuming them that's not judging righteous judgment that's judging according to
the parents right which is what Jesus was rebuking in John 7 24 and so you just need
to realize as a Christian though as you guys are going to Romans 15 that you can't judge people's
hearts and their motives perfectly now there's going to be exceptions to that so pause don't
don't go off on that rabbit trail just bear with me for a minute when I'm saying this because there
are exceptions to this rule but what I mean by that is a situation like this say a homeless guy
comes to church he tells us he's homeless right but that's all he tells us he comes in he looks
homeless and he tells us that he's homeless can you tell me why that guy is homeless from just
that information no right because someone could say well clearly he's homeless because he's on
drugs because he's lazy because he's a bum because he wants a handout now that could be true but it
could also could not be true what could be is that uh he you know maybe he's disabled maybe he has
mental health issues maybe he uh is gotten off drugs and he's trying to work better for his life
now or maybe he does work a job and he just doesn't have enough money to have a house there's a lot of
things you could say there my point showing you that is that this is that if you're judging him
based on just that limited information you're judging according to the appearance not righteous
judgment that's the judgment that paul's rebuking here he's saying judge nothing before the time
in the sense that you shouldn't judge people's hearts and their motives without proof without
uh uh without like proper evidence is what is basically what paul is saying right here
um another good example of this is like someone saying like oh like someone coming to church and
work clothes is a good example okay um i've done this many times in my christian career because
i mean as a man when you have to work late what are you gonna do you like either skip church or
you go in your church clothes now some people can look at you when you come in and they could
be like i mean what is he doing he looks like a bum he's all dirty i mean clearly he just doesn't
care about the house of god he doesn't care what god thinks i mean he just comes in all raggedy
it's like or maybe he just got off work and he had the choice between going home and showering
and changing or coming to church you know what i mean like you're judging someone's heart and
their motives in that situation we have no idea what's going on and that's that's wicked to do
also you see the story with jobes uh friends that they judge him they're like surely job must have
done something bad that's why all these bad things are happening to him except he didn't do anything
bad he was he was a perfect man as the bible says and obviously perfect and complete not that he was
without sin so but you see that just judging people's thoughts and their see here's the thing
the bible is the discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart you are not okay god is the
judge his word is a judge you are not so if god is the judge let him do the judging and since you're
the servant you should work you should focus on the serving on the ministering okay we're in your
role in that regard uh an exception to this though because i will say this is that intentions can
reveal people's hearts and you know someone telling you what their intention is can reveal
people's hearts like if a guy if i got a church like he embezzles a bunch of money he's a pastor
or whatever and he embezzles a bunch of money and then he runs off you can't you don't have
to look at that and be like man i just wonder what was in his heart what's up with that like
i can't judge him though at the other day i mean he could have you know it's like dude come on
that's obvious right because his chins bleed out what is in his heart or if someone tells you like
in that example with the homeless person what if someone came in here that was homeless and you're
like getting on the benefit of the doubt and then they were like yeah i just came for a handout
though i don't even believe in god i just know that churches give people stuff when they come
be like okay well then i don't have to assume in that situation he already told me what his
intentions are yeah so you should understand that as well as a christian uh first i i had you guys go
to romans 1522 i guess you guys can uh stay there but i want you to realize that um paul gives an
example the reason why he's bringing this up is because these are what the corinthians are doing
to him if you understand the book of corinthians and second corinthians you'll know that there's
like a sect of these people here that hate paul that think he's a scumbag that think he's like
just a false apostle or a false prophet basically and we kind of see this in the text you guys stay
in there in romans and i'll just read um first corinthians 417 it says this for this cause have
i sent unto you tomotheus who is my beloved son and a faithful in the lord who shall bring you
into remembrance of my ways which be in christ as a as i teach everywhere in every church now some
are puffed up as though i would not come to you but i will come to you shortly if the lord will
and i will know not the speech of them which are puffed up but the power which is bad to the bones
he's saying that okay he's there's some fire behind the pen after he's writing that okay
but the quran could never none of these fake holy books could ever compare to the real
true writing of the bible okay but i want you to notice here that this was always what people were
doing to paul they were throwing out all these random accusations to him and you see this in
romans you just need to understand that paul because the the church of corinth i'll kind of
explain a little bit more but paul just didn't have all this time in the world to just be dilly
dallying at every church and be like hey i'm just going to stop in he's busy guy there's a lot of
work to be done and there's at a time in history where you can't just travel immediately and that's
where i have you guys at in romans 15 this is a constant problem with paul that he has you see
it says for which cause also i have been much hindered from coming to you but now having no
place in these parts and having a great desire these many years to come to you see it's taking
years for him to get out to the church at rome and i bring this all up because i want you to
understand that what these people are doing at corinth is they're basically just falsely accusing
paul and they're judging him uh because he's not going out to see him and for a couple other things
that i'll get to a little bit later on in corinthians but they're basically like paul doesn't
care about us paul doesn't even he's not even a real apostle in the first place his speech is
contemptible he just he's powerful over messages but in real life he's he's he's just a little
worthless guy and they're like paul i mean at least apollos and timothy come and visit us paul
where is he at i thought he cared about us what are they doing in that situation they're judging
his heart and his motives when they have no evidence and they have no proof behind what
they're saying and that's what paul is rebuking them for here and that's why he's been saying hey
it's a small thing if i'm judging you you know why because he's like god knows my heart and god
knows everything that paul did to be blameless on the side of these people and it still was never
enough for them so that should again show you that you can't always win with people but you always
win with god because he knows your heart at the end of the day so don't worry about what other
people think about you in that regard the second way i want you to realize that uh that we can
reconcile this with john 7 24 though as we're coming to the end of the sermon is by going one
chapter over okay uh go to first corinthians 5 3 first corinthians 5 3 because we've already seen
in chapter 2 that paul says the spiritual man judgeth all things so that's the like two chapters
before chapter 4 and then in chapter number five verse number three you see this verse he says this
for i verily as absent in the body but present in this or in spirit have judged already as though
i were present concerning him that hath so done this deed like is paul just having a biden moment
here he's just like you guys the just so the spiritual man does with all things and then chapter
four he's like don't judge anything what are you guys thinking and then in chapter five he's like
i've already judged this guy like it's like it's not that he's having a biting moment is that this
is a perfect example of why you have to take verses in their proper context because he's not
just forgetting what he's writing one chapter later it's that people rip paul's teachings and
many teachings of the bible out of context and and try to make them say what they want them to say
but that's why it's so important to read things in their proper context here is something that
people will say though they'll say no no you guys are wrong and they and they do this especially
with first corinthian six when you cite that to them they'll say this is talking about two types
two different kinds of judgment there's two different kinds of judgment here they'll say
there's a difference between judging a situation and then judging a person like based on how you
feel about them now the thing about that is that that's true okay there is a difference between
judging a situation and then judging the thoughts and the heart of a person but this is where they
err they'll say first corinthians four is saying we should just never judge people at all no matter
what they do but in first corinthians five paul is saying that he's he's just judging this situation
at this church blatantly not true though okay because you guys are there in first corinthians
five three look at verse number 12 at the end of this chapter you'll see why this is wrong it says
for whatever they do to judge them also that are without do you not judge them that are within but
them that are without god judges therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person is
he just judging the situation here he's judging the situation and he's judging the person he's
saying this guy is a wicked person what does that prove that when he says that to judge nothing he's
not just saying you could never judge anybody for any reason he's saying you shouldn't judge
people when you don't know their motives when you don't know the full situation when you don't know
someone's heart but with this situation where he's getting witnesses to say that this guy is
fornicating with his father's wife he can judge him he says i'm not even here but i've already
judged this guy already he says get out from among yourselves that wicked person throw him out of the
church sounds a little judgmental right there yeah because you can judge when you have all the facts
in front of you though i mean uh the time would fail me to show you like there's a book in the
bible called judges i mean god appoints judges the system of the judges that was god's original
system so i just think that's kind of nonsense we will go off and all that where are we at here
we're in first crinthians 15 13 this is where i met in the sermon at in the last verse in first
crinthians 4 6 first crinthians 4 6 it says this it says in these things brethren i have in a figure
transferred to myself into apollos for your sakes that you might learn in us not to think of men
above that which is written that no one of you be puffed up for one against another so what is it
the paul transferred to himself and to apollos in this situation that's what i may get into next
wednesday because we are out of time right here and because i didn't write this down in my notes
because i was already planning to take a break right here okay so you're getting a cliffhanger
it's like uh i don't know like a like a baptist show or what would you say you know on tv they
leave you on the cliffhangers okay that's what this is yeah see you next time next wednesday
okay now you have to show up to figure out the rest of the story uh something i want to take
home from this though i want everybody to take home from this is this is that when we're judging
people we should make sure that we're not judging according to the parents but we're judging
righteous judgment that's a huge thing in the bible and we should realize that you shouldn't
be judging people uh based on just a lack of information like you you shouldn't be telling
people or telling other people what you think someone's heart and what their motives are if
you don't have any proof behind it that's wicked that's what paul is saying not to do here that's
the error of the church of corinth and he's but that is not to be confused with the fact that when
you do have things laid out to you when you do have facts when you do have evidence when you can
see someone's actions when they tell you what their heart's intent is you absolutely can't
judge them and that's what we see from paul here so just keep that all in mind when you're balancing
these things with that all being said let's pray dear father god thank you so much wonderful day
thank you so much for anything you do for us god thank you so much for this church god thank you
so much for your word god and thank you so much for a great chapter that we can read in your word
and a great book that we can read in your word that uh can just give us so much wisdom and so
much knowledge in our life i just pray that you would uh continue to uh send labors to the harvest
of this church and help people uh that have needs at this church god i pray again that you be with
brother kyle and with the hanson family with their new baby and with miss victoria and her
health god i just pray that you would um be with uh all the needs of our church god and that you
would bless us and help us to do more and more works for you uh in the future do you say i pray
amen all right if you want to take your hymnals and turn to page number 169 page number 169
"Come Thou Fount" page number 169 I bless in my heart to sing thy grace, streams of mercy
ceasing call for songs of loudest praise teach me some songs sung by flames of praise the mouth
mixed upon mouth of the deeming lonesome sing everybody brother ryan did you please close this
this one word of prayer.