Sermon
Making Righteous Judgment
April 21, 2002
Pastor Donald Sheley

Take your Bible and join with me in John's gospel chapter 7. If you're going to use the pew Bible it's page 720. We've arrived in our study of John at a moment when the cross is looming. It's about six months now ahead in Jesus' ministry, in Jesus' life. And Jesus has gone up to Jerusalem, that's the location where this event takes place, and he's gone there for a reason. He's gone there to be a part of a moment in the annual events of the nation of Israel.

As you know, the nation of Israel had numerous festivals and events of which they celebrated and one of them was called the Feast of Tabernacles. It lasted from Sabbath to Sabbath and it was the occasion when everybody moved out of their permanent dwellings and set up little coverings made out of twigs, trees, and branches -- just coverings out in the front yard, the backyard, on the rooftop because they had flat roofed homes -- wherever they could build this temporary shelter. It was much like going on an eight-day camping trip with the family, but it was right the front yard. And the idea was that during those days they would remember God's gracious provision for them as a nation while they were making their journey from Egypt into the promised land. They were out there and that desert, you remember, for 40 years.

God so miraculously had provided on so many different occasions in wonderful ways so every year the nation would go back for eight days and just remember God's graciousness and they celebrated. It was a wonderful time of remembering God's provision. They called it the Feast of Tabernacles. So Jesus has arrived there and we've come to the portion in our text, we're in chapter 7 of John and we're at verse 20 where we're going to start today. It reads like this:
The people answered and said, You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill You?
Jesus answered and said to them, "I did one work, and you all marvel.
"Moses therefore gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath.
"If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath?
"Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment."

Let's stop there because that's about as far as we'll get today. Let's take our notes and I'll just quickly move along. We've noted where the event takes place and Jesus now has gone to that celebration. He didn't go to celebrate, He went to teach. His teaching so amazed His listeners that they marveled, saying, "How does this Man know letters, haying never studied?"

You remember in our last lesson we learned that if you were going to be a rabbi or a Jewish teacher you had to be tutored by a rabbi, an older rabbi, who had been tutored by an older rabbi, who had been tutored by an older rabbi, who had been tutored by an older rabbi. That was the procedure of preparing for your teaching ministry with that nation.

To their knowledge, and they were right, Jesus had never been tutored by a rabbi. Paul had. He had Gamallel to be his teacher, but Jesus hadn't. And the implied was that if you had not been taught with a rabbi, you don't have the qualifications to be a teacher -- so why do you have your mouth open? We really shouldn't be listening to you because you don't have the credentials to qualify for your teaching.

Jesus though taught differently. He taught as one having authority, not as the scribes who always referred to the teachings of the ancient Rabbis. Jesus would say, "You have heard it said, but I say unto you." Now that was unique in Jewish teachers because their authority came from the rabbis. Jesus' authority came from himself; You've heard it said, but I say unto you.

Jesus spoke with authority without relying on license or degree to legitimize His teaching. Jesus did not dress like a rabbi, but He applied the Scriptures as no rabbi they had ever heard. In fact, at the closing verses in chapter 7 of Matthew when the record is made there of the Sermon on the Mount, it said they marveled because He taught with authority not as the scribes.

Now Jesus then begins to explain about His teaching. I'm at the top of page 2. He proceeds to tell them where His teaching is from..."My teaching is not Mine, He says, but His who sent Me." Jesus is saying what I say originated in the very heart of God. He kept saying that God had sent Him. That means not only that God had acted in love in the past and that He would act in love in the future, but that He was acting in love now. The mission of Jesus meant that God was taking action to bring about salvation, and that colored everything He said and did. Specifically, His teaching was the teaching of God who sent Him on His mission of salvation.

Jesus, then, is saying that His teaching should be accepted because it was God's teaching. He knows that, but how are His hearers to know it? He says it is a matter of the will. The set of the life is important. If anyone really "wills to do His will," that person will know the truth of Jesus' teaching. It is a matter of being completely sincere. It's the genuine person, the one who simply wants to do what is right and who wills to do the will of God, that's the person who will have an inner certainty. The truths of Christ are eternal truths.

We'll get there in just a few weeks, but in John chapter 9 is the story of the man who was born blind, and he meets Jesus. You remember, Jesus spits in the sand, takes the spittle and clay and dabs it to his eyes, and says to the man go wash. Now there's the will of God. There's the command of Christ, do something, go wash. The Bible says that he went and he washed, and he came back seeing. Now here's a divine truth folks, it's this, what Jesus is saying -- do and thou shalt know.

In other words, when we are confronted with the great truths of God, when we come to the service, when we read the Bible and God confronts us with a truth, our response should be to do what the Bible says, and in doing, that truth becomes a transforming power that changes us. And we know that to be true because we've done it. Some of you walked into church, or wherever it was, and you heard that if you'll just put your trust in Jesus Christ, if you'll just claim Him as your savior, if you confess your sins, turn your life over to Jesus -- if you'll do that, marvelous things begin to take place within the heart and life. The spirit of God begins to work within you and that transforming power of grace, and you know that He said when you did it -- ended up in a marvelous spiritual change in your life. Jesus is saying if you really want to believe that what I say is true, then do it, and in the doing you shall know.

I'm at the middle of page 2. Jesus continues His teachings about the genuineness of character. In verse 20 He says, he who speaks for himself seeks his own glory. Now He's speaking primarily of Himself, for it is His teaching that is being questioned, but what He says applies in lesser measure to all who teach in the name of God. The person who has his eye fixed on "his own glory" will necessarily speak "of himself"; such an attitude is incompatible with speaking the message of God. As we see from Jesus' lowly life and from His lowly service in going to the cross for sinners, He had no self-seeking. His teaching was genuinely from God.

One wise man has said that it is impossible at one and the same time to give the impression that Jesus is a great Savior and that I am a great preacher. If the Christian teacher is anxious to draw attention to himself, he cannot point people to Jesus Christ. Jesus is simply saying if it was all for me then you'd understand that I was false, but I'm here to glorify my father.

On page 3 I give you three test to determine the validity of a man who is speaking for God:
(1) Their words should agree with, not contradict, the Bible in its entirety.
(2) Their words should glorify God and His will, not themselves.
(3) Their message should not only challenge our present way of living but also show us that in the light of the Bible what corrections need to be made in our own lives, in our attitudes, and in the way we live.

If the man is truly speaking the truths of God, truth, when accepted becomes a transforming power. That's why as we sit together and learn together and God reveals to us if we'll act upon them, those truths can draw us closer to Him and we'll be conformed into His image, be more like him.

In verse 19 in our chapter we're studying today, Jesus seems to change the subject and turn the attention on them instead of Himself. Remember, they have said, Jesus, why should we listen to you? You've never been taught by anybody. And when we get to verse 20 they even say he's demon possessed.

And Jesus makes this comment in verse 19, He said, let's talk about you for a minute. He's talking to His crowd. Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why are you looking for an opportunity to kill me? Jesus said now you've accused me of breaking your law. And here was the case, a year ago when Jesus was in town in Jerusalem He went down to the pool and there found a man who had been ill for 38 years. He walked up to that man and healed him and sent him home with his bed, and those religious leaders accused Him of violating the Sabbath. You don't heal on the Sabbath according to their religion. And not only did they accuse Him of breaking their Sabbath, He made some statements that made His person equal to God and thus they accused Him of blasphemy. And they haven't gotten that out of their craw. That's a year ago.

Now He's back in town and they've got a contract out on His life -- find Him and bring Him to us. And so Jesus is talking to these people who prided themselves on being law keepers. He said you've got a law that was given to you by Moses, and you don't even keep it. Now what was that law? Let's find out.

Set your notes aside and take your Bible. Frequently in the New Testament Jesus refers to the law, Paul refers to the law, it's often referred to so it's best that I know what they were referring to. Go with me to Deuteronomy chapter 4. In your pew Bible is page 126 and 127. We're going to find out what that law was that Jesus said, Moses gave it to you and you don't even obey it. Well here it is. looking verse 44 in Deuteronomy 4.

Now this is the law of which Moses set before the children of Israel. So we're in the right place in the Bible. He's going to tell us what this law is, the next verses tell us where it took place as they're crossing on the other side of the Jordan, and then we get down to chapter 5 and we're at verse 4. The Lord talked with you face to face on the mountain from the midst of the fire. What Moses is saying, I went up on a mountain and while I was there talking to God that mountain was covered with fire and smoke.

Verse 5: I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord; for you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up the mountain. This is what He said -- now here's the law: I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land as Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other God's before Me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it You shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it made be well with you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.

These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly, in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and He added no more. Finished. That's the law of God. Back to our text.

Now this is what Jesus is saying, Moses gave you the law, and you don't keep the law. What are you doing looking for an opportunity to kill Me? If you say you're a law keeper, and that's what they prided themselves in, why are you standing there violating a very serious part of those commands? You would murder Me if you could. Now Jesus then does something very interesting to me -- He's a rabbi, remember, He's a teacher. So He uses rabbinic argument in the next two verses, and here's what He says: let's get to the point, He said, the fathers gave us the right of circumcision. Now circumcision was a practiced by the Hebrew nation and that marked the male child as a covenant child, under God's covenant. Strange, but that made them different than any other peoples of the world. Their male children were circumcised, and in that circumcision it marked them as God's child.

You say, why did God choose to do it that way? I don't know. I'll ask Him when I get there and I'll tell you. But that's the way God did it. Now here's what Jesus is saying, in your Mishna, which was the scribal law, it says if a child is born then eight days to the hour you take that child and have him circumcised. And the Mishna goes on to say, and if that event happens on the Sabbath, the Sabbath of set aside and circumcision becomes the priority. So here's Jesus, He saying look at, I know you have strict regulations regarding the Sabbath, but you've got an event, you've got a rite, a ceremony that when it's needful to be done on the Sabbath you set aside the priority of the Sabbath and you do your rite of the circumcision, and that's work.

Now He said, what you do that's a violation. In essence, you diminished the importance of the Sabbath in comparing it with the importance of circumcision, and what do you do? That little lad you to bring him pain; you take from him. I went to a pool and found a man who was ill, and I made him whole. He had been there for 38 years, and you're telling me that you can justify what you do when yours is an act that's been determined by your law, and I did an act of mercy, healed a man, I didn't diminished him in anyway. I made him whole.

When Jesus walked into the religious scene He found religion terribly burdensome. Here's what had happened. We know what the law says. We read all 22 or 23 verses and it says when God finished, it was finished. But here's what man did. Men always mess up God's plans. God said here's the simplicity of it; this is what I want you to do. Then what happened, down through the centuries, these scribes kept going back and tried to bring meaning, interpretation. In other words, God says you shall not work on the Sabbath. So these religious leaders said, well, what we've got to do is define what work is. So they start writing the pages, and I think there are some where around 50 plus pages, for a definition of work. They said if you carry a burden that weighs more than 3 raisins, or whatever it was, that's work. Or, if your home was at a certain distance from the synagogue and it was work to go more than, I think it was three-quarters of a mile, a Sabbath day's journey, you had to move here on Sabbath eve so that on Sabbath day you didn't violate the law by going to the synagogue.

That's religion. And what Jesus walked in to was a world of legalism, rules and regulations, and it was cumbersome. They had taken this whole situation on the Sabbath and they had added it up; and Jesus, finally, He said, I am the Lord of the Sabbath. I'm in charge.

You know, when I think about this aspect of religion folks, I think about the great subject of legalism. You say, what's legalism Pastor? Legalism is when man defines religion in terms of rules and regulations, and if you do these rules and regulations you're in, and if you don't, you're out. And most of those regulations are man-made, and it isn't Christianity it's religion. I was raised in a legalistic church as a little boy. And as a little boy we had those rules and regulations and if you did them you're in, and if you didn't, you were on the shortcut to hell. They were that serious. You're going to lose your eternal life if you violate these. What where they Pastor? What was so important?

Well, if the ladies came to church and their blouse had short sleeves they were sinning. They would send them out. When I arrived in Russia a few years ago, a lady walked into the service and because her arms were exposed they threw a blanket over her to cover up her sin. I was raised in a church where Christianity wasn't fun. In fact, it was burdensome. I look back now and I understand now why most of those young people never went on serving Christ, because religion had been brought to them as rules and regulations. Don't do this. Do do that. Don't do this. Do do that.

So as your Pastor I made up my mind it's never going to be that way in our church. We have a mission statement that's seven words long and it defines why we're here. Helping people fall in love with Jesus. That's it. If everything we do, everything we plan has that goal, that brings our people closer to Christ and in a more intense love with Him then we've accomplished it; and if it doesn't, we're not going to do it. Because we've learned that the greatest force in the world is love. And if you love someone you're going to live to please them, and if we can help you to fall in love with Jesus we're going to have a wonderful church -- right? (Congregation applauds)

When a person falls in love you don't have to tell them how to act. When I fell in love with my gal 48 years ago, nobody had to tell me to throw away my address book. I had only one address to go to. Why? Because I was in love, and I didn't have to have somebody else to tell me how to plan my schedule. I wanted to be there, at that address, as frequently as possible. I was in love.

Christianity is that beautiful love relationship where I'm falling in love with Christ. I tell you, we only have one do and one don't in this church. Do you know what they are? Do love Jesus with all your heart, and don't do anything that hurts Him. That's good isn't it? That's all the religion we've got here. But I'll tell you, when you live it out it's fun, serving Christ with a freedom and a joy. Falling in love, I keep falling in love. Remember that song we used to sing? I keep falling in love, falling in love with Jesus. That's what Christianity is all about. It's not don't do this, do do that, and don't do that.

Jesus walked into a scene that was miserable. So verse 24, and we're getting to the end of our lesson today. He's got their attention. They know He's right. They know that He had healed a man and they criticized Him for it. They judged Him for it. If you're using your notes, I'm at page 6 now. I skipped a lot of the pages. Verse 24, Jesus says, do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment. Jesus said, you've made your judgment, you've made your accusations of Me, but they've been unfair. You've called Me a violator of the Sabbath, and all I did was heal a man and make him whole. You've been unfair with your judgments.

In our notes I make this observation: At the first sight, it may appear that Jesus' words here in this verse contradict His teaching in Matthew 7:1, but upon careful reflection, there is no contradiction. Here is what Jesus said in Matthew 7 about judging: "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you."

Jesus preached against judgmentalism, the act of condemning others by comparing them to our own superior behavior. Such self-righteousness would not fit with kingdom values. This teaching condemns false judgment based on outward appearances, superficial and physical interpretations. Jesus said you judged Me for healing a man, but you didn't have to lay on that mat for the 38 years. You didn't have to suffer the frustration of trying to make it to the pool and everybody pushed to back. You didn't have the feeling of hurt of a man who couldn't go home to his family and his children for 38 years. And I healed him, and I sent him home, and then you judge Me for violating your religious rules. That's unfair judgment

Now I think He's got their attention. When you take this whole subject of judgment, folks, there's only one that qualifies as a judge, that's God. Judgment, making caustic, critical evaluations of other people is ungodly. You never know what that other person is going through. You don't know how they've been hurt in life. You don't know the tensions they're wrestling with. You don't know what's going on inside. You didn't walk in their moccasins, and yet we're so quick to pass judgment, critical judgment, on somebody else and we're so unfair. What Jesus is saying is you guys stand here and you judged Me, but it's unrighteous.

I want to close our lesson with a personal story. I learned this lesson of not judging 38 years ago. I'll tell you about it. Our little church was located over in Daly City and was about five years old. I'm taking some mail to the post office and I've got my hands full. I drive up in front of the post office, and as I park the car I noticed this man there in the flower bed doing his work. He's down on his knees and picking the weeds one at a time. I stand there and I think no wonder our postage rates are going up so high if we hire people like this to weed the garden and we've got to pay them, so charge more for stamps.

I'm letting this thing really agitated my spirit. So I go into the post office and I'm known. And I say to the postman, no wonder our rates are going up if you hire people like that out there in the garden it's going to get costly to do all this landscaping. By this time he's getting red in the face, and he made sure everybody in the post office heard. Pastor! He said, I know you. You never went to war. In fact when the war was announced you went to school to get out of going to war. He was right. I was a draft dodger, and I hid in a college that relieved me from having to do active service.

Pastor, he said, while you were writing thesis in your classroom that man was in a foxhole in a war fighting for you. He said, somebody threw a grenade and it went off right beside him, and he lost his hearing and much of his mental capabilities. All he has, Pastor, is the mind of a little child, and that's all he can do, but he does it well. He gave up his brains and his hearing so you could avoid going to war.

I tell you folks, I knew that moment I had lost all credibility in that post office. Ungodly -- unrighteous. I said to him, I apologize Sir. But that didn't heal the case or cover the multitude of sins I had committed. And I went out there beside my car and I stood there and cried, and I said, God, please help me never to judge anybody else. You never know. We don't have all the facts.

Jesus is standing here and saying you made an unrighteous judgment on Me. I healed a man and he went home to his family, and that's not fair judging Me for doing an act of mercy. Ladies and gentlemen, if there is a lesson we've learned today it is this; Jesus says, judge not. Don't pass harsh judgment on another because to the same measure you run around judging everybody else, they are going to dump bucketfuls on you and you're going to be judged with the same measure. And I've come to the conclusion that righteous judgment is silent.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we're guilty. We passed harsh words against others and we didn't know all the facts, and we didn't take time to find out because we didn't care. Please forgive us. Please forgive us, and please help us never to judge again. In Jesus' name, amen. God bless you.