Collide – Playing God

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

Do you ever find yourself searching for something bigger than you? For a community to be a part of? A place founded on truth and love. A place to worship the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, and the Son of God. Welcome to Founded in Truth, where we're more than just a fellowship. We're a family, so welcome home. It's been a couple weeks since we've seen each other, and I'm just super excited to be here. So it's good to gather together with a community of believers in Yeshua once again. And the last few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind. No? Anyone? Maybe? First we had a hurricane, and then we had Sukkot, and then we just had another hurricane. Typical. And it's not just whirlwinds as far as life stuff, but all the other pressures that we have in life—it's just been a whirlwind. And I'm excited to be back here today.

Rehearsing Eternity

You see, when we gather together on Shabbat, it's not just a ritual that we do, it's a rehearsal. It's a rehearsal of eternity. A time when all believers will gather together and we will lock arms and the only thing we will be able to proclaim is that we serve the King Yeshua. That's what we do here every single week. We rehearse eternity. We rehearse the Olam Habba. We rehearse the day when God's glorious kingdom will be fully manifest throughout all the world. And that's why fellowship is so important. That's why I'm so blessed to be here with you today. And we are continuing our Collide series that will never end.

It's a series in the Sermon on the Mount, and we've crept through it. And it's amazing because I did not expect when we started the series—I was thinking it was going to be a four-part series because, I mean, I know we can dive deep in the Sermon on the Mount, but here we are in part 12. We're not done yet. And I think it's good because something that most don't realize is that this is the most powerful sermon that was ever preached in history on this mount by this rabbi from Nazareth.

Keeping the Torah from the Heart

And as we explore these words, it's very powerful because what Yeshua is essentially saying is he's teaching on how a people actually keeps the Torah, not simply with their hands, but through their heart—actually keeping the Torah as if it was really written on your heart. And this is what he's demonstrating as a new covenant people. This is what God's people look like when they keep his law and his reign from their hearts. And so without further ado, we're going to jump in. If you turn with me to Matthew chapter 7, we're entering into this final section of the Sermon on the Mount. And yeah, chapter 7, verse 1. For some people, this is their favorite verse. For others, it's not. For some, it's their favorite verse for different reasons.

Judge Not

So Matthew chapter 7, verse 1, I believe I do have it here. There we go. "Judge not that ye be not judged. So judge not that you will not be judged. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, hey, let me take that speck out of your eye when there is a log in your own eye?" Yeah, so we read this verse. We're very familiar with this section of Scripture. But how do we typically read this section of Scripture?

Does it typically go something like that? We just kind of black out the rest of the chapter? Judge not, judge not, or you'll be judged, right? And this is part of Yeshua's sermon that has been taken all kinds of out of context in the past. But especially in this day and age. In a day and age where tolerance is boasted as an unfailing acceptance of a moral compass whenever it's presented. An age where good is boasted to be called evil and evil should be accepted regardless of your opinion and judgments. You should tolerate whatever anyone wants to do as good because the Bible says don't judge. Has anyone ever been confronted with this explanation of the verse?

The Emphasis on Hypocrisy

And I'm not going to completely dismiss this aspect of the verse because it plainly does assert don't judge. But there is a warning. There is a warning about judgment, but the emphasis—the emphasis of this section of scripture, I feel, is something much, much deeper. It's much weightier than what Yeshua is trying to address here. And I believe what Yeshua is trying to address here is something that many of us, we only wish that this verse was actually just about judging. The emphasis here actually orbits around hypocrisy. And once again, we're approaching the same dynamic and motives that pertain to the last two chapters of the whole Sermon on the Mount, where Yeshua is not necessarily talking about all these other people that you're dealing with in your life.

He's talking about you, and he's talking about your heart. And here, he's specifically speaking about hypocrisy and what happens when we truly somehow convince ourselves that we are God and that we have the ability to play God in God's own good creation. Yeah? Yeah. Judge not, for you shall be judged. And the tension rises here with this first section of Scripture. When we read these verses, it should cause us to turn our head because it's nuanced, if you will. What does that mean? I know that can't possibly mean what I want it to mean, but how far does it extend out? Does anyone like to judge others?

I've got a couple people. A couple people admit it. That's fine. Let me put it this way. Does anyone like to people watch at Walmart? No. We enjoy sometimes making judgments about other people. And most of the time, it's not in an evil-hearted, I can't wait to look down on someone kind of way. Most of the time, we people watch because people, including us, are just so dang plain funny. It's true. It's true.

The Sardine Can

When I was on a plane to this youth camp, I went to Messiah, Texas, which was just an amazing experience. It's a youth camp they hold in the summertime in Lubbock, Texas. Anyone ever heard of Lubbock, Texas? I never heard of Lubbock, Texas. So you know how different states and different areas will not allow certain things in? Like New York, guns—can't have any guns in New York. And over here, can't have... In Lubbock, there are no hills allowed. It's just... It's just the old west. So I flew in on this big old plane to Dallas, Texas, big Dallas airport. I'm like, yeah, I'm fitting in with Texas folk. This is great. And then I go to my gate and I look out and I don't see what I would call an acceptable definition of an aeroplane. I see something that looks like a toy sitting there waiting for me to be seated in. I walk in. Is this thing safe? It'll turn the corner.

So most planes, you have two or three seats on each side of the aisle. No, sir. You have two seats on this side. At the hospital, we have these special chairs in all the lobbies, right? And you'll notice they're bigger. They look almost like a love seat, but they're not. They're meant to be comfortable, and they're actually called obesity-sensitive seating because for people who might... Yeah, it's more comfortable. These seats in this airplane did not meet this criteria. So they had two seats on one side and they had a single seat on the other side of this aisle that I was stuck in. There was no sitting.

And the aisle was this big. Not sensitive to anyone of any size in America. And the aisle was this big, and I thought it was funny because I'm sitting here bumping into people. After the first two, you say you're sorry, and then you're just laughing, hitting everybody. Excuse me. You can't walk straight into this aisle. And I became seated, and then I began to people watch. And I began to see the fear stricken on people as they walk in, and they see a plane that's becoming more and more crowded that they cannot walk down this aisle. And there was a black gentleman that walked in, and this man was huge.

And he was not huge because he had eaten too much or become obese. He was huge because I swear by the day he was born, he went to the gym and began preparing for anything that could be sent his way in life. And he was never going to be defeated. Anything that came to him, he was going to overcome any obstacle in his life. Just big, muscular. This man turned the corner, and the expression on his face was that I have not been trained for this. I cannot overcome this obstacle. And it was—humanity is funny. Because we are people, we can relate to other people, and that fear and nervousness, he was funny, and he was chuckling trying to get through, because everyone knew like we're trying to fly on a sardine can here that was not made for people.

Enjoying Judgment

And so, most of the time when we people watch, it's not for the sake of judgment. But sometimes, sometimes it is, isn't it? Sometimes we catch ourselves looking at other people, their situations, their decisions, their circumstances, and we enjoy the feeling of thinking about how much better we are than them. We do. We enjoy looking at their circumstances and then we enjoy painting a story about them, that they're in a situation in their life and if they had only finished college like I did, if they had only worked harder like I did, if they had only made the sacrifices like I did, if they had only been able to defeat their flesh like I have, if they were only as good of a Christian or follower of Yeshua, if only they kept the Torah as strict as I do.

God's Perspective, Not Ours

And the tension we feel when we read these words that Yeshua is addressing here is heavy because when we read the Bible from Genesis 1 all the way to Revelation 22, we read about the prophetic evaluations of the sins of a people that are supposed to be in covenant with God, right? And we see this divine perspective from God's point of view when we read the Scriptures and in this narrative. And as such, sometimes we're led to hear and to see in the Scriptures this is what God thinks about other human beings. And this is something the biblical authors intentionally wrote in there. They wanted you to look through this perspective of God looking at humanity and humankind.

And the issue comes in when we read the Scriptures. The issue comes in when we forget that this is God's perspective and not our perspective. And the issue comes in when we forget that this is God's perspective on us and not our perspective on others. The struggle is when believers dive into God's word with such passion, sometimes we begin to think like God concerning other people. Mark Allen Powell is an author and professor at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Ohio. And he wrote a fascinating book called What Do They Hear?—written for pastors to try to understand that different demographics and different cities and different types of people, when you preach and interpret the scriptures a certain way, sometimes different demographics hear things differently.

It's a fascinating book. But one thing that he points out in his book in the empathy section is a trend among Bible readers. He says that pastors and teachers and leaders and the most dedicated Bible readers—anyone in here like a dedicated Bible reader? You would consider yourself pretty dedicated in reading the Bible. Anybody? We dive into it. We love God's Word. We're in it every single day. That's great. I set you up. So he says that the ones who are engulfed in the Bible tend to identify with Yeshua or God instead of lesser characters in the Bible over time. Whereas the lay person in the church or fellowship tends to empathize and identify with the lesser characters in the Bible.

So a great example would be in the story of the wilderness and the wandering. Israel's wandering through the wilderness and Israel begins to moan and groan and rebel against God. Now, some of us would look, and we see God's wrath and anger against the people, and we're like, yeah, that's right, you need to get them, God, you need to get them. Wipe them, right? And then some of us would likely identify with, man, that's the story of my life, constantly groaning against God and constantly rebelling against Him. You see how one would identify with the other, and the other is the other.

The Temptation to Judge

And his observation is that essentially those who are most familiar with the biblical narrative tend to identify with God more than other characters in the Bible. And those most familiar with the Bible are also the most tempted to end up thinking that they are God when they look out into the world as a result. And that's a scary observation that he made. It really is. And it's likely that Bible readers, because they absorb God's perspective in reading the biblical narrative, are most easily transformed into judges of others despite the biblical warning over and over and over again of not being judges and condemners of your fellow man.

In the gospel account, who does Yeshua tend to accuse of hypocrisy and condemnation the most? The religious or the outsiders? And this is a big warning that the scripture lays out for us because it's so easy to do. It's so easy to look down on others with a heart of arrogance, pride, superiority, and somehow justify those feelings because you have granted yourself to be God. You can excuse those feelings. You can excuse evil from your heart while looking at others. Only God has the authority to do that. Hence, sometimes we tend to play God when we look at other people. And I'm not going to dare stand up here and try to act like I'm innocent of this.

James chapter 4, 11 through 12, he kind of recaps this section of Scripture as if he's given a commentary of this section and many other points of the Sermon on the Mount. He says this: Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. Don't speak evil. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law, the Torah, and judges the Torah. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but you're a judge. You're superseding. You're a judge. There is only one lawgiver and only one judge. He who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

James speaks of judging, and he speaks of slandering as a result because of said judgment. And it is obviously slanted towards their brother. You know, it's easy to do when you can think and you can manipulate yourself into thinking that God is always on your side. Has anyone ever done that before? When you make a judgment, a condemning judgment against another brother or sister, it's always as if God is right there agreeing with you. As if you're hanging out and God is like your buddy, like your co-pilot, if that's just that perverted bumper sticker. Like God's the one sitting in the seat next to you and no one is allowed to sit around you, but you both, whenever you make a judgment, it's like, yeah, God agrees with me on this.

Is that not the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard when you say it out loud? How many of us have done it? How many of us have looked at the Bible and used it as a weapon instead of a life raft for someone? Oh, because God has my back. The don't judge that James speaks about here is when you begin to judge for the purpose of condemning others. And you're assuming the posture of God as a result. And there is really only one problem with that. It's that you are not God.

You Are Not God

And in assuming this posture, you have usurped God in his own good creation and positioned yourself as the judge of good and evil. As the judge of the outcome of that. As the judge of the entirety of a human heart condition. As the person who can weigh it and understand the condemnation that needs to go forth. And you find yourself identifying what evil and what is good in the world. You're indeed playing God when you do that. And again, when you read the Bible, the more you read the Bible, the easier it is to think in this perspective. It doesn't mean that you are. If you read your Bible today, I'm not saying that you're all playing God.

I'm saying it makes it easier. It makes it easier. It's more of a temptation. But that's exactly what all the warnings are for. Entering into God's perspective of the biblical narrative does not make you God. And that is an aspect of what Yeshua is saying here on the mount. You, you are not God. You are not God because of hypocrisy, because of the sin, and because of the frailty of the human heart that resides within you. That's why you're not God. Yet you choose to dismiss all of that, labeling evil and labeling good to your own life, so that you can take up the divine posture and define and condemn others for evil and good.

David and Bathsheba

There's a familiar story in the book of Samuel. 1 Samuel chapter 12. You can turn with me there. This is a great example. And I'm going to try to bring you into the story. It's about a man after God's own heart. Come on. Who was it? David. So this is a story about David. And David is looking out his wonderful window and he sees something beautiful on the roof next door. And it's a woman who's bathing. And so David decides to send for her. And oh wait, she's married. But her husband's away, so he decides to send for her. He decides to have his way with her. And then when her husband shows up, he attempts to deceive him to cover up his sin.

And when that doesn't work, he sends the man to the front lines for the purpose of being killed with the intent of murdering him, and he succeeds. This is a story about David manipulating or exploiting his role as king in an adulterous affair and becoming a murderer as a result of the situation. That's the backdrop and this is the story of David and Bathsheba. You're all familiar with it. The chapter opens when the Lord sends a man, Nathan. And Nathan comes and wants to tell David a story about another man. Now David doesn't know that anyone knows about this sin yet. And here's the backstory. I don't know if you can read it.

1 Samuel chapter 12. The Lord sent Nathan to David, and when he came to him, he said to him, David, there are two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. And the rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb that he had bought. And he raised it, and he grew up with him and his children. And this lamb shared his food, drank from his cup. This lamb even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for this traveler just passing through who had come in to him.

Instead, the rich man went to the poor man and took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him. You see the story? Really emotional. Really emotional story. A rich man comes, steals the only piece of this man's livelihood, the thing that he has invested so much in. This one lamb that he has that's become a part of his family, sleeps in his arms, sleeps in the kids' bed, eats his food. Oh, you're thirsty? Shares his cup with this little lamb. And this rich man comes, takes the man's lamb because he doesn't want to give anything from his life and he kills the lamb and feeds it to this traveler that's just passing through.

How's David respond? This is great. This is rich. David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, as surely as the Lord lives, this man who did this must die. He must pay for that lamb four times over because he did such a thing and had no pity. Then Nathan looked up and said to David, David, you are the man. You are the man. This is what the Lord God of Israel says. I anointed you, David, king of Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul, and I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms, and I gave all of Israel and Judah. And if all of this was too little, I would have given you more.

Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eye? Was this a wake-up call for David? Would this be a wake-up call for you? We dare not empathize with this situation, right? That's just too sinful, a wake-up call. And here David thinks that he's in a position to judge the evil of another person. So David takes up this posture as the ultimate judge, condemning a man to death, completely excusing and not regarding adultery, deceit, and murder that he had just committed. Then Nathan brings it all back by telling him, actually, I'm talking about you all along, David. We may very well know what God thinks and what God feels through what the scriptures say, but we are not God.

We're not. Yes, we need to hear from God, and then we need to be responsive to that, to the world around us.

You Are the Man

And all this leads to exactly what we need to learn when reading this passage accurately. Yeshua is asking us to check our hearts and to make sure that we are pursuing moral discernment separate from our personal condemnation of others. Essentially what Yeshua is doing in this section of scripture is he's saying, yeah, all that condemnation that you want to put towards everyone else, I really want to turn it back on you to make you better. Because you're not representing me well by ignoring how corrupt you are and going around judging everyone else and condemning everyone else and measuring everyone else's heart. And that's what makes this section of scripture hurt so much because here we are.

Yeah, go Yeshua. Yeah, teach us Yeshua. Yeah, go. Alright, so all this sin in the world and all this stuff and bad stuff, bad people. Yeah, all those bad people and all that sin in the world. Here's a mirror. And if that doesn't hurt you, I don't know what should. Because as human beings, we tend to push out judgment like it's candy, like it's some type of light that we're pushing out towards others. And Yeshua puts a mirror in front of us. Look at yourself. I want you to take that condemnation and put it on yourself and just sit there and just take it for a minute. Take it for a minute. Who are you? Who are you?

A Mirror Held Up

This enables us to see what Yeshua is actually prohibiting in these verses. So the Greek word here for judge is the verb krino, and judgment, the verb krino, does mean to bring about a judgment, right? Typically, when we hear about judgment, we have negative feelings because we think of a judge. We got a speeding ticket sometime in our life, and we got judged by a judge and had to pay a fine. That's not necessarily what this word in scope means. Pretty much in its root, it just means to make a decision, right? Krino—make a decision. You have to make a decision. And it means to decide. I want you to decide.

And so what Yeshua is not telling us, because we get lost in King James Version and many other translations with this word, because of our own English translation. What Yeshua is not telling us is he's not saying as a follower of him that you never get to make any decisions in your life again. That would be a little ridiculous and is not consistent with the message that Yeshua preached. Yeah. He's not saying that. And he's not saying that you can never ever look at something and say that this is good or this is bad. No.

What Yeshua Is Not Saying

When Yeshua invites us to follow him, he wants us to grow in integrity in how we make decisions. He wants us to become better, make better judgments in our life. And he certainly wants us to learn and grow how to identify sin and iniquity and transgressions in the world. Why? He said we visit this in chapter 5 so that we can confront sin in the world. Yes, there are judgments that need to take place in the world. But what Yeshua is saying here is that there is a way you should be able to judge someone righteously and then there's a way that you can do it that throws mud on God's kingdom. For example, has anyone ever done anything in their life that needed to be corrected?

I love how there's roughly 15% of the fellowship that's totally engaged, yes, and everyone else is. So let's say you did something, and someone came to you and said, hey, so that thing I want to talk to you about, because you did or said X, Y, Z. And here is the appearance of XYZ. And here is why I want to bring it up to you, because that really did not seem like a kingdom pursuit when you did XYZ. Anyone ever had a conversation like that with someone? And you were the one who did the XYZ. How did it go? Did it go kind of okay? Did you leave totally offended? Or was it an acceptable way to bring correction into your life?

Two Ways to Judge

If it's brought with love, you can tell, right? Right? Let's say, judge not that you may be judged, for with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. So Yeshua is expecting you to have judgments here. He's expecting you to identify sin and confront sin and bring it into the light. But he wants you to understand the weight and severity if you judge the wrong way, if you judge with the wrong heart, or if you're so blinded with something that you don't even know what you're doing, you just think you are. There's a way to judge in love, and then apparently there's a way not to. Has anyone ever had that experience?

Hey, you did X, Y, Z, which means you are an X, Y, Z, right? No one? And it means that you're a pagan, you're a sinner, you hate God, and just so you know, God hates you because you're an X, Y, Z, and you did X, Y, Z. Has anyone ever been exposed? Anyone ever had that brought against them? All right, going to flip it. Has anyone ever brought that against someone else? See the difference. One is you not becoming a judge and pronouncing condemnation but an emissary of the kingdom. The other is you representing God in a way that he said not to and becoming judge dread of the kingdom of God. You are not the executioner nor are you the condemner of souls.

You don't have the authority to place the heart on the scale. Did it go well whenever that was an experience of yours? No, it never goes well. You can tell. This heart is not coming at me from a divine love being portrayed.

Scales of Justice

We've all seen the radical believers on TV, right? Anyone seen radical? We see them on TV sometimes in downtown. So they have very passionate feelings towards the lost. But instead of finding a way to engage the lost, the best way that they can do it is to wear billboards that condemn people that they've never met, portraying the message that God loves us but hates you. Literally, that's what they said. You have no hope, and therefore there's no way that you can ever be in an intimate relationship with God that I am. So God hates you. Anyone ever seen those rallies across the country? Are both scenarios calling out and deciding, deciphering what good and evil is? Allegedly, yeah. What's the difference? One is doing it with the scales, the measure. Measure some scales here for justice. One is doing it with a scale of love, and one is doing it with a scale that's slanted towards condemnation, like a rigged court system. That's what Yeshua says. You're a hypocrite, and you're not of me. This is not a heart that portrays Jeremiah 31 people.

The Speck and the Log

Defining verses 1 and 2 is slightly elusive, isn't it? Judge not, for you shall be judged. What does that mean? How can we truly tell if we're judging accordingly? I'm glad you asked. Enter verse 3 of Matthew chapter 7. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? No one cracks a smile. Hyperbolic language is supposed to be funny. Yeshua made a joke. That's right. That's what we do. Log in your own eye? What are you talking about? Why do you see a speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take that speck out of your eye when there is a log in your own eye?

You hypocrite. First, take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Then you can engage, then you'll grow to the point where you can actually, actually be an emissary for God's love to a sinner and someone who's lost. And let's say you see something in someone else's life, and this is what Yeshua is warning about, and you see something in their life that is bad, and let's say you have a zeal to expose that thing.

The Hypocrisy of Judgment

So you want to tell them, and you want to tell everyone else about their speck that's in their life, but you yourself are a failure in being a servant in your own marriage. Or you struggle with gossiping when you get around your friends at fellowship. Or you yourself look at pornography. Or you yourself are a drunkard. Or you yourself take long bathroom breaks at work and smile because you know you're getting paid for them. It's called being a thief. Thief, you're a thief. The list goes on. I once knew a man who came out that he had committed adultery against his family. His wife's marriage was destroyed after many years.

Children were highly affected, and all the relationships established since they said I do. A couple months later, I saw him post on social media during a political high time, as happens many times in our country. He was posting about the liberal homosexual agenda and how all of these homosexuals are against God and they're trying to ruin our country and they're trying to drive our country down into a godless nation. I get it, but did you just excuse that you have literally destroyed the lives of multiple families, not just your own, by your actions? Never once repented, never once acknowledged that it was wrong.

Instead, you're turning around and you're dismissing all of that to become the judge and condemner of the lost. Does that seem ridiculous? It does.

A Lesson in Humility

Let's try this. We're going to change the atmosphere. We're going to try to bring back the comedy of Yeshua. So Daniela agreed to play a game with me up here, and I'm so excited. Here it is. Has anyone ever played this game? What's the name of the game? Because we are going to use what? Some tweezers. And we are going to operate on... What should we name him? George! We're going to operate on George. Daniela, I will let you cheat a little bit if you want to. So, not yet. Hold on. We're going to make this more fun. We want everybody involved and engaged with this. There we go. So we have all of these things in his body, right? And they're very small. Would you say that they're a speck? They're specks. So I would like for you to get a speck out of George's eye, if you will. You got one? Everybody, she got the speck out. So Yeshua talks about getting the speck out of someone's eye, right? Which, if your eyes are clean, then yeah, you should be a person of integrity as a believer in repentance and sanctification, to be able to go to another believer and be like, hey, let me do that.

There's a part of this game I did not tell Daniela about, and I would like for you to join me in telling her what was the other condition that Yeshua said we sometimes tend to do. We sometimes try to take the speck out of everyone's eyes with what? In our own? A log. Oh yeah, there's goggles attached. So Danette, I would like for you to put this on. Now, it is going to be too heavy to wear with the goggles, so you will have to hold it with one hand. And I'm going to hand you these tweezers right here, and you just go for it. Go down. Go, go, go, go, go, go. If we had this hooked up to a car battery, this would be short-lived. All right. So, I think that's good enough for the example. Can you smile at everybody? That's great. Everybody, thank you so much. Thank you.

The Weight of Our Own Sin

This looks absolutely absurd and ridiculous to try to do this, right? To try to play Operation with a two-by-four in your face. This is how ridiculous you look to Yeshua when you go to condemn others as if you're not in need of a Savior. That's how ridiculous you look. Yeshua knows about the things in your life. He died because of the things in your life. And he's looking at you and he's like, dude, I spend 24-7 with you. You are not qualified to pick up these tweezers and try to go in there. And you saw what happened when she couldn't—poor George got ripped open by Danielle because she was not qualified with a 2x4 over her face, right?

Guys, the fact is, the only way you would think that the 2x4 is not in your face is if you convince yourself that there's no 2x4 there to begin with. There's no reason to deny it. You can see clearly. And when we do that with sin, we play God. And this is what Yeshua was trying to portray. Hey, you're a sinner. You didn't do that right. Hey, you got that thing in your life. It's that itty bitty speck right there. You're not righteous. You're not righteous. You're not righteous. You should repent. Guys, what are some of the things in this message? See, this is the point where Yeshua turns it. He wants it to be a comedy at first. But as soon as you realize the depth of what he's saying, it should impact you that this is not funny at all, right?

Naming Our Sin

So let's go ahead and just make this real. I brought a Sharpie. What are some of the things that we as believers have in our lives that we like to turn our eyes, we like to ignore, we like to pretend and play God? Hatred, would that be one? Any of us ever had it? How about lust? Anyone? Lust? Lust? How about judgment? Any of us ever judge someone else? Falsehood? How about, what else? Pride. Greed. Oh, and jealousy. Unforgiveness. So let's try this again. Let's try this again. Hey, I'm a representative of Yeshua, this rabbi from Nazareth, and he says that you can have eternal peace and life. You can have the eternal kingdom in your life right now.

Your sins can be wiped away. You can start again. You can be a new creation. You can experience the peace and the joy and the love of God, Father. But you need to get rid of these things in your life. You need to ask for forgiveness right now, and God will forgive you. Come with me. I'll show you how. I'll pray the Lord's Prayer with you. I'll show you how you can be one with the God of Israel. Here, follow me. Look, I'll show you his Torah. This would be great. You can keep his Torah, but you're not keeping it now. Therefore, you're a sinner. You need to repent. See how serious this gets.

The Authority to Judge

Yeshua told a joke. It wasn't funny for long because this is a reality. Is it not? That's the reality. Can a lay person condemn others in a kingdom? No. Who's the only one who has the authority in a kingdom to condemn and pass executive judgment? The king, Yeshua. What's amazing is in John 3.16. We know that, and starting in John 3.17, it says that Yeshua came, but he didn't come to condemn. He didn't come to—he could, but he didn't. He came to save. Why? Why did he come to save? Because John says that you're already condemned in your sin. You're already there. Death is already among you because of your sin. Yeshua came to give you life. You're already condemned because you don't know true life. All that you've experienced in life is the hell that you've created. That's our king. And as followers of the king, we're called to act, to love, not act the part of God.

Why the World Rejects Us

What Yeshua is saying is that you're forbidden to judge someone else in regard to evaluating their standing with God. Guys, the unbelieving world doesn't dismiss the existence of our God because of things like evolution. The unbelieving world does not dismiss the existence of our God because of things like the shape of the earth. The unbelieving world does not dismiss the existence of our God because of dinosaurs. They dismiss the existence of our God because we claim to be ambassadors of a one true kingdom and we're telling them that they're the ones in need of a Savior, and they look at us and they see this on our face. And they're like, your God couldn't even fix you. Why would he fix me? That is what an unbelieving world finds simply unbelievable.

The Nuance of Discernment

Yeshua's words are hard when we understand the full impact of them. If we turn to the Gospel of Luke, we find an identical statement here to Matthew chapter 7. It's Luke chapter 6, verse 37. And Luke uses the same word, krino. And he states this. He says, Judge not, and you will not be judged. So Luke tends to mesh krino with condemnation, which is what we've been discussing. In other words, in the context of Matthew 7, it has to do with judging people with such condemnation, like your God. Condemn not, for you will be condemned by God if you do. There's this nuanced distinction between discernment and condemnation. When we as a people of God blend these two things together—discernment and condemnation—we run the severe risk of having no foundation for moral judgment while bypassing the severe warning against assuming yourself as God. What Yeshua is saying here is kind of complex. Before you judge and are called a hypocrite, you are to examine yourself. You are to examine yourself. Don't ignore yourself. You must examine yourself.

The Path to Helping Others

Clean up your own act by removing the plank from your own eye. And then, and only then, when you can see clearly enough to not posture yourself as God, then you can go to George and you can say, George, do you want help with this? Because you've got an issue in your life and I want to help you. I want to help you. And I've had issues in my life too, George. A lot of issues in my life. George, I'm still struggling with issues in my life. But George, I know of a Redeemer. I know of a Savior, and I know the power of God, and this can give you strength. This is what Yeshua is saying. When you're humble enough to examine yourself and grow in repentance and taking care of your own issues, then you grow in discernment on how to represent Yeshua in a kind of way that can actually help other people.

Yeshua created a selfexamination and promotes a self-judgment, which is one of the most mature things someone can do, and this leads to humility. And this leads to repentance, which leads to sanctification, which leads to a type of humility that treats other sinners with mercy. This is how the kingdom expands throughout God's good creation. By creating a nation molded not by condemnation, but by humility, love, and forgiveness. A kind of nation Yeshua said is birthed through only Him. And as Christians, we have a vision of God's kingdom manifest on earth. We do. We read about it in Yeshua. But we're not called to simply stand by and wait for this kingdom to manifest.

It's not what we're called to do. No, we're called to live it out now. We're called to live it out now. We're called to show the world what Revelation 21, what the end of Isaiah looks like. We're called to show the kind of world that is coming, that has already been birthed through us in our allegiance to Yeshua.

Living Out God's Kingdom Now

A world where all relationships are reconciled. A world of peace. A world not of condemnation. A world where condemnation is not something that we do, because in God's good kingdom, there is love and forgiveness and reconciliation. That's what Isaiah presents. That's what the end of Revelation presents. That's the kind of world that we're supposed to invite people into. At least that's what we're charged with. And this looks like what Yeshua speaks about in our words and our actions and our behaviors, but most importantly, it was rooted in our hearts. In this future kingdom that is coming, led by this Davidic King Yeshua, guys, there will be a community of peace. A community that is joined together through one focus, and that is the love and forgiveness of God, and the glory of God. So Yeshua here is not simply promoting some sort of twisted tolerance mindset. Far from it. He's actually reaching into the future kingdom and showing us what it looks like now and how deeply it can impact and change the human heart in the now.

God's Kingdom Beyond Politics

It has nothing to do with politics and tolerating people. No, you are perverting the scriptures if you're trying to mix today's politics with the Bible. Stop. Stop. God's kingdom is not a democracy. Stop. Stop. Yeshua is reaching into the future when the entire world is consumed by God's glory and God's kingdom. And he's saying, here, this can be in your life now. Take it. Show the world. Teach other nations. Do it now. Paul speaks of this in Romans chapter 2— exactly what he's talking about. He says, you therefore have no excuse. You who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself.

Because you who pass judgment do the same things. Yeshua has equipped us with his love to go to the world and show them. Not iron. Not iron. Worship team, you guys can come up to conclude services. Paul's speaking about being a people, thriving, thriving to be a people that's truly set apart, not just in actions, but in our hearts. And guys, Yeshua here is giving this comedic image, of course, that makes us laugh, but he's dead serious about the reality behind it. This message is not simply about judging others. It was always meant to examine yourself, and to put the mirror in front of you, to look at yourself, to recognize the shortcomings in your own life, to recognize the sin that has manifested in your own eyes, and it was made for you to admit in humility the brokenness that exists even in your own life here now.

I Don't Know Your Circumstances

And I don't know what you're dealing with in your life—I don't claim to. I don't know the circumstances surrounding your life. I don't know if you're in a place of doubt about God's faithfulness or if you're stuck in a place of unforgiveness toward someone else. I don't know if you recognize the issues in your heart that need to be taken care of, or if you're just hurting, hurting because of the brokenness and pressure that exists in the world surrounding you. But I invite you. During this time of worship, I invite you. We're going to have a prayer team just off to the sides. Guys, I invite you to take advantage of that and engage them.

You can go home today without prayer from someone in the prayer team. You can go pray at home. That's okay too. You can go home and read your Bible. Maybe it'll be okay. But what we offer here with a prayer team is an advocate for you, to stand alongside you and support you, not simply as a stranger asking God to impart wisdom or his will into your life, but what you have here is a brother and a sister who care for you and is willing to grab your hand and say, we can do this together, let me help you take the first step.

Taking the First Step Together

And so I invite you, during this time of worship, we're going to go ahead and conclude services the same way that we started, and that's through praise and through worship. So please stand with me as we do that. And if you'd like to take the first step in whatever it is in your life, I invite you. Prayer team will be off to the sides here. Shalom. I'm Matthew Vander Els, and I hope you enjoyed this message. Founded in Truth exists to cultivate a fellowship of image bearers that live the redeemed life only Yeshua can give. If this ministry has been a blessing to you, we would love to hear from you. Send us an email through the contact form on our website and tell us how God has used this ministry to edify your faith and relationship with Him. If you'd like to see more messages like this one, subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking here. If you'd like to donate to this ministry and be a part of what God is doing through it, you can donate through our online giving portal here. We thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to next time. Shalom.