Outrage is Not a Fruit of the Spirit

            The outrage machine is currently turned up to 100 over Duck Dynasty. In case you've been under a rock for the last 24 hours, here’s a recap: Phil Robertson, the patriarch of the Robertson clan, stars of the A&E reality show “Duck Dynasty,” has been suspended from the show for remarks he made about the sinfulness of homosexuality in an interview with the magazine GQ. Some of what he had to say was a simple restatement of historic Christian beliefs. Some of it was, to be honest, pretty crude. But the purpose of this post is not to re-hash what he said. Others can, and will so much more eloquently. The purpose of this post is to talk about the Christian reaction to this “scandal.”

            Let me preface what I’m about to say with this: if you are upset about this issue, that is absolutely your right. I’m not telling you not to boycott A&E or not talk about it on Facebook or not tweet about it until your fingers hurt. My concern is people who scream about “Christian values” on the internet, but whose lives don’t reflect those Christian values anywhere else. Social media activism is not the same thing as sanctification. But very often, we believe if we are angry about the right things, then that proves we really do love Jesus. That’s not how it works.

            If you are screaming about A&E’s attack on the faith today, you’re a hypocrite if you’re not in church on Sunday. If you’re eating at Chick-Fil-A because of their stand on Christian morals, but you cheat on your wife and beat your kids, then it doesn't count for much. If you tweeted about Hobby Lobby yesterday, but are fudging on your time sheet at work today, then you really don’t get it. If you spend half your time reading about the latest Christian controversy on the internet, and the other half looking at porn, then something is not right.

            Growing in grace has nothing to do with posting, “Like if you love Jesus, keep going if you love Satan,” on your wall. I’m afraid we have far too many “Facebook” Christians, who live one life on their social network, and a completely different one in the real world. Maybe they can’t tell the difference between the two.

            The bottom line is this; let your reaction to culture be informed by your faith, but please don’t let it be the whole of your Christian faith. Growing in grace is not mainly found in what we’re angry about. It’s mainly found in how we love, how we serve and how we share the Gospel with the world. Outrage is not a fruit of the Spirit. 

The Trinity and Metaphors

            I had an interesting conversation about, of all things, The Trinity, with my children, who are 8 and 4, last night. Now this is a subject that the most learned among us should tread carefully with, so it’s especially interesting when children are involved. Nuance is important when discussing the Trinity. Nuance is not something that most children get. My 4-year old, Lydia, brought the conversation to a halt with, “So Jesus and God are just smushed together!” We all started laughing and well, that was that. Not sure we got any closer to understanding the Trinity, but it was worth a try.

            For thousands of years, theologians and teachers have been trying to explain how the Trinity works. How can one God be three persons at the same time? This seemingly contradictory statement is the clear teaching of scripture. Again and again, God proclaims himself to be one. Again and again, we see the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit all claiming to be or being portrayed as God. And we see them all together at one time, as they appear so clearly at Jesus’ baptism.

            So before we go any further, let’s make sure we understand the facts about the Trinity, and then I want to tell you why all metaphors fall short, often heretically short, of the true teaching of the Bible. The Bible teaches that there is only one God. The Bible teaches that this one God is found in 3 persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Bible teaches that these three persons have always existed together. The Bible also teaches that all three of these persons are fully God. But the Bible teaches there is one God. Head hurting yet? If it’s not, go back and read those last few sentences. It is no simple matter, and all attempts to make it a simple matter miss something.

            But that fact has not stopped people from trying to make it easier to understand. Over the years, we’ve seen multiple metaphors used to try to explain this difficult mystery. Let’s look a couple of them, and think about why they cannot be.

           

1 – One of the most popular metaphors for the Trinity is that it is like H20. H20 can be water, ice, or steam. So God can be the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit. But this metaphor falls woefully short of the truth of scripture, and falls into the danger of a heresy called modalism. Modalism says that God manifests himself in different ways at different times. The doctrine of the Trinity says God is always the Father, always the Son, and always the Holy Spirit. Water, ice and steam don’t add up.

2 – I’ve heard people use the idea of a man who is a father, a son, and a husband. So its one man who has three roles. But the Bible doesn’t say that God is one person with three roles. It says he is one God with three persons. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not three jobs of God. They are three persons who God is. This metaphor takes away the distinctness of each person.

3 – I’ve also seen the idea of an egg used. That egg is shell, yoke and white. They’re all needed to make one God. But each member of the godhead is fully God. A yoke is part of the egg, but not the egg. Jesus is fully God, not part of God.

           

            Here is the bottom line when it comes to the Trinity and metaphors. Metaphors don’t work, because there is nothing else like the Trinity. This is what you would expect from time to time from God. There are certain things about God that we can see reflections of in the world, and there are certain things that we cannot, because, well, he’s God. His thoughts are not our thoughts. So until then, we’re going to all just have to kind of grope in the dark as we struggle to understand the doctrine of the Trinity. There is no real way to simplify it, and if you think you have found a way to simplify it, there’s probably a good chance that you have missed something very important about it. Let the metaphors go, and embrace the mystery.

Just Do Something!

Decisions, decisions. Daily, we are confronted with them. There is not a single person whose life is not full of decisions, and sometimes they can feel make or break. We worry that the wrong decision might set off a domino effect which causes our entire life to cascade down into a pit of despair. Where will I work? Whom will I marry? Where will I go to school? Where will I live? Paper or plastic? Take-out or delivery? We are confronted with so many decisions, on a daily basis, that it is very easy to feel paralyzed by fear. How do we know that we’re making the right decisions? How can we be certain that today’s decision will not lead to tomorrow’s disaster?

So this is what I tell people all the time: “Follow Jesus, and do what you want to do.” It sounds simple, I know, almost too simple. But I think this is what the Bible teaches us about our decision making, and this is the way the Holy Spirit normally works in guiding us in our daily lives. Notice, I said it’s the way the Spirit normally works, not the way He always works. But I think for the most part, in the mundane decisions of life, we needn’t wait on a still, small voice, or a burning bush from Heaven to make those decisions. We simply follow Jesus, we pray, we serve others, we battle sin in our lives, and we follow our God-given desires. Because this is what happens when we follow Jesus; he changes the desires of our heart to become the desires that he wants us to have. His desires become our desires.

Don’t believe me? Listen to what the Psalmist says: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4) That sounds an awful lot like, “Follow Jesus and do what you want to do,” to me. Here’s the way I believe it works itself out in normal, every day life. We follow Jesus, trust Jesus, serve Jesus, and in the course of doing that, we come to a fork in the road. We can take either of the two forks. Neither is inherently sinful. Whatever decision we make will be morally neutral. I can glorify Jesus whether I work at the bread factory or the bank. So what do I do? I ask myself, “What do I want to do?” And then I do that, and I count on God, in his sovereignty, to work out the details. I think sometimes we have this mistaken idea that God is sitting up in Heaven, fearing that if we make the wrong decision, if we decide to go to Mississippi State instead of Southern Miss, then our entire life and his entire plans for us are going to be ruined. That’s not the way it works. God already knows what you’re going to do, and he already has his plans mapped out accordingly. You’re not going to surprise him. So trust him, do something, and then continue to trust him.

Now, this doesn’t preclude us from praying, and seeking counsel from people who are wiser than us and have walked our same path. We must do these. I would argue these are all normal parts of following Jesus. So we ought to be doing these in the daily course of things. But it does preclude us from sitting, paralyzed, waiting for a sign from God before we move forward, when he has already placed these desires in our  hearts for particular things through the Holy Spirit.

Now, with all that having been said, many of us have probably experienced something like this before: we want to do one thing, but we feel very strongly that God is calling us to do another thing. Neither choice is inherently sinful, but one seems to be the righter thing, even though it's not necessarily what we want to do. So we believe God is leading us to do something we don't really want to do. What do we do in situations like this?

And here, I think is the answer. One of two things is probably in play here, and you need to figure out which one it is:

1 - The reason your desires and God's desires aren't lining up is because you are not following Jesus the way you should be following Jesus. Examine your relationship: are you serving Jesus? Is there some unconfessed sin in your life? Is your flesh creeping up on this particular decision? Maybe you know deep down that to follow Jesus in this particular situation is the right thing to do, and the thing that will make you most happy. But you don't want to give up some lesser thing to do it. Whatever it is, you need to confess it and get on with what God is calling you to do, and understand that it is what will ultimately make you most happy.

2 - But perhaps the reason your desires and God's desires aren't lining up is because they aren't really God's desires in the first place. I have seen this often. We think God may be "calling" us to do something, but what's really happening is that we're getting pressure from outside force: maybe it's a friend or a family member or church member. This is not what you want; it’s what they want. And maybe, quite possibly, they've pulled the God card on you, saying this is what God wants you to do. I've seen this time and time again in a variety of ways: maybe it’s about a way of dress, or maybe it's about getting married or having children, or having more children, or buying something or not buying something. Whatever the case, the pressure you're feeling may not be from God; it may be from some outside source that is trying to fit their notions of what God wants on to you. So in this case, you need to ask yourself: is what I'm feeling truly Biblical, truly Spirit led, or coming from some other source?

God has revealed himself to us through his Word. It is full of insight, both practical and theological; about those things we should do and should not do. And if you will follow his will, as he has revealed himself in scripture, he will place the right desires in your heart on the things that he hasn’t revealed specifically. And here’s the thing you can count on; even though whatever you choose, it might not work out exactly the way you planned, you can know that God wants your happiness, even more than you want it. The things he is seeking for you will make you infinitely happier than anything you could come up with on your own. So follow him, and let him change your desires, and then do something, just do something. Count on him to take care of the rest. If you will embrace this, it will be some of the most freeing news you have ever experienced.

For more on this subject, check out this book - "Just Do Something!" by Kevin DeYoung.

Dealing with Doubt

I am, by my nature, a doubter. Especially when it comes to God. I often find people are surprised when they hear that about me for the first time. As a teacher, writer and occasional preacher, I generally speak with lots of confidence and passion about God. But my confidence and my passion are fruits of many years of great struggles with doubt, almost to the place of despair, about who God is, about whether Jesus is real, and about whether Christianity is actually what it claims to be. Am I a Christian because this is something that is really true, or am I simply one because of the culture I grew up in and the people I now find myself around? Though it is far less often than it once was, those doubts will sometimes creep back up.

And I know that I am not alone. I'm convinced there are multitudes of people sitting in church pews every Sunday, serving in churches faithfully, giving of their time and their money, maybe even teaching the faith to others, who struggle with doubt from time to time. Far too often, our churches are not a safe place to have that struggle. And I do not think that is a good thing.

Let's be clear here first. There are two kinds of doubters. One is a sincere doubter who is truly searching for the truth. He is the kind of person who like the father of the child with an unclean spirit, proclaims to Jesus, "I believe! Help me with my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24) This kind of doubter wants the truth, he wants to believe, he simply needs some help. He is truly seeking. And Jesus has promised that all who seek will find.  The other kind of doubter is someone who does so because he is moving further away from certainty. Doubting is something he does, not because he wants the truth, but because he want the truth obscured. Deep down, he knows what is true. He simply doesn't want it be true, so he lives in his doubt, never desiring Spirit-filled confidence in the truth of God. He is the kind of man James calls "double minded, unstable in all his ways." (James 1:8)

There are times when I've been both of these. But for the sincere doubters, trying to come to term with the truths of the faith, the church ought to be a safe place to both express those doubts and try to work through them. I have a soft spot in my heart for sincere doubters, because I was once one of them. And overcoming this kind of doubt is no easy thing. It will require work.  But it will be worth it. No ounce of blood lost in sincere seeking will not be returned 10 times. The Spirit is often active in our tears and questions. So today, I want to give you one simple thing that I discovered, that did more to overcome my doubts than anything else. It is the one thing, again and again, I've come back to when I began to doubt. It's the one thing I can't figure out how to "explain away." And it has sustained me through every period of doubt I've ever had.

The question that haunted me, even during my darkest days, even when this whole Christianity thing seemed the least plausible, was simply this: "Why would the apostles die for a lie?" Here is what I mean. After Jesus' death on the cross, we find the disciples holed up in a room, hidden from the public, fearing for their own lives. They'd all abandoned Jesus. Peter had denied he even knew him. The only thing that even kept them together at this point was their common fear that the authorities might come for them next. At some point, they all probably figured they'd have to get back to fishing, or tax collecting, or whatever it was that they'd been doing before. But something happened that changed that completely. Within just a few weeks, they had come out of hiding and they were boldly proclaiming that Jesus was the Messiah! And they all went to their graves standing by this truth. Every one of them died a martyr's death, according to tradition. But before they died, they set the world on fire with their preaching and their witness, laying a foundation that still stands today, some 2,000 years later.

And what exactly was it that they were proclaiming? It wasn't that Jesus had come bringing some new morality, or a new religious order. They staked their lives on one simple, undeniable fact. Jesus was killed, but he rose from the grave. As Peter told the crowd at Pentecost, "This Jesus . . . you killed . . . God raised him up." (Acts 2:23:24) The reason they were so certain was simply this; they had seen Jesus die on the Cross, and then three days later, they had seen him walking among them, alive and more well than any of them. They had seen him, they had touched him, they had talked to him. And they went to their graves believing, knowing that this Jesus is alive!

And since that was true, then it changed everything. If Jesus is risen, then everything must be different. If Jesus has defeated death, then he is who he says he is. He is God in the flesh.  And if he is who he says he is, then any demands he makes of us are just and right, and we must heed them.

The testimony of the early church seemed to hinge on this one important fact; that he is indeed risen. Paul said that if Christ is not raised, then his teaching and our faith is in vain, that we are to be "most pitied." (1 Corinthians 15)  If the resurrection is false, then nothing else about Christianity matters. We should just go on about our lives. We all have better things to do on Sundays. We can find morality other places. We can find friends and community other places. What we cannot find other places is a God who has put on flesh and become like us, and then defeated sin and death for us.

Once I embraced that Jesus is indeed alive, then everything else just kind of fell into place. It didn't mean all my questions were answered; it simply meant that I knew there must be an answer, if I kept seeking. I hope and pray that if you are like me, and you struggle with these kinds of doubts, that you will begin by answering this question: did Jesus rise from the grave? Is he alive? Answering that question correctly will go a long way toward building a faith that will stand the test of time.

Reflections on Eleven Years of Marriage

Later this week, my wife and I will celebrate our 11^th wedding anniversary. Being married to her has been one of the great joys of my life. We are happier and more committed to one another today than we have ever been. Being her husband is probably the supreme pleasure God has given me here on this earth. If the rest of our marriage is as happy as we are at this moment, then I will live a happy rest of my life indeed.

But I would be lying if I said every day was filled with joy and pleasure. Marriage is often equal parts joy and pain, ecstasy and misery. And sometimes, the pain outweighs the pleasure. When two people come together as husband and wife, conflict is bound to come, and we have had our share of it. I’m not saying we’ve had more than the average couple; I am simply saying that every marriage comes with its share of pain and heartache and sadness included. After more than a decade together, we have eyes wide open to see this.

I often tell people who are considering marriage that if they knew just how hard it would be, they would never even consider it, but if they go ahead and do it, and commit themselves completely to it, they will never regret it. I also tell them to imagine their future spouse doing the most hurtful possible thing to them. Whatever it is, it is likely that they will either do it, or do something equally as hurtful, before the marriage is over. We are sinful, broken people, and all our relationships will reflect that sinfulness and brokenness. The question is this; are you willing to forgive and forebear despite it? If the answer is yes, then you may very well be ready for marriage.

I say that for this reason. Our society, even among Christians, has a warped view of what marriage is really about. We primarily see marriage as a path to happiness. It’s a way to add to our quality of life, like a new car, or a puppy. And if marriage is something that is simply two people coming together for the sake of their mutual pleasures, then if and when the joy ends, so should the marriage. This is, I think, the primary reason why so many marriages end in divorce. People become disillusioned when their partner doesn’t meet their expectations, when their husband or wife doesn’t still make them happy. And they leave. Now, if this is all marriage is, then that is completely understandable. If marriage is mainly a path to self-fulfillment, then it makes perfect sense that we would run when we are no longer fulfilled. But it was meant to be much more than that.

Christians believe that marriage was created by God for a particular purpose, and that purpose was more than self-fulfillment. It’s more than even procreation, or building a society. The Bible speaks of marriage as a “divine mystery,” meant to say something about the very nature of God himself. Look at what Ephesians 5 has to say:

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:31-32 ESV)

Notice what Paul does right here. He takes us back to Genesis, when God describes what marriage is all about. And he tells us that, from its very beginning, marriage had a higher purpose than anything anyone could see. It was a mystery, now revealed through the coming of Jesus. So in some way, when a man and a woman get married, and become “one flesh,” they are reflecting the relationship that Jesus himself has with the church he has purchased with his blood. Since its creation, the main purpose of marriage has been to be a pointer to what the relationship between God and man, redeemed through the Gospel, looks like. Get this; the marriage between man and woman is the shadow. The marriage between Christ and his church is the real thing. Earthly marriage is a reflection. The marriage of Jesus and his bride is the actual thing being reflected. This is one reason our marriages are all messed up to one degree or another. Shadows are never perfect. Reflections are always flawed.

Now, this understanding of marriage is revolutionary. It’s not what we would expect. But once we realize it, it changes everything about how we must think about it. Because marriage is meant to mainly be a reflection of this relationship between Christ and his bride, then we must be very careful about how we treat it. Christians who treat marriage cavalierly give a warped impression to the world about who Jesus is, and what relationship with him looks like.

Now, this is not meant to beat up people who have been through divorce, whether it was for one of the few reason that the Bible allows or not. It’s mainly meant for those who are currently married, or considering marriage. If you claim to be a Christian, this is what you are getting into. It’s not mainly about “happily ever after,” at least not with this man or woman you have chosen to spend the rest of your earthly life with. It’s mainly about pointing the world to something much greater.

Because when Christians decide to make marriage something that it is not; namely, when we decide to abandon it for reasons other than those very strictly prescribed in the Bible, then we tell lies about the nature of the very God we claim to worship. Why do we not abandon our spouse, even if they don’t make us particularly happy? Because God doesn’t abandon us. Why do we forgive again and again, despite sometimes great hurt? Because that’s what God does. Why do we love someone who seems to be unlovable? Because that’s exactly what we have received from God through Jesus, and what we expect to receive for all eternity.

And here’s the thing; when we primarily see marriage as something created for purposes infinitely greater than our own happiness, we often find that we get happiness thrown in. When we see marriage as a pointer to who God is, and what the Gospel is all about, we begin to find a satisfaction and a peace and a happiness that we never expected. When we forgive our spouse, and choose to love them despite their sins and shortcomings, we often begin to discover that we actually do love them in reality.

Because even 50 years of a terrible marriage will not compare to an eternity of happiness with Jesus himself. This is what God has promised us. We will experience hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of years of inexpressible joy and pleasure in Heaven, as a collective bride of a perfect king, who sacrificed his life for us so that we could have that relationship. And when a billion years are up, there will be another billion, and another billion and another billion, for all of eternity. And we will never get tired of it. And it will never grow old. And the pleasures will be one on top of the other, on top of the other. And we will never be unsatisfied again.

For this reason, I’m looking forward to not just the next 11 or 25 or 50 years with my wife. I’m looking forward to the next thousand years. And the thousand after that. We will no longer be married to one another; we’ll be married to Him. But we’ll do it just like we do it now. Together. And it will be glorious. Forever.

Christmas With an Edge

One of my favorite movie scenes is in the film Talledega Nights, the otherwise raunchy comedy about a redneck race car driver, played by comedian Will Ferrell. He and his family are gathered around a "bountiful harvest" of Domino's, KFC, and the "always delicious" Taco Bell. Ferrell's character Ricky Bobby is saying grace, directing his prayers to an, "8 pound, 6 ounce, newborn infant Jesus," wearing a golden diaper. After several "baby Jesus" references, Ricky's wife has finally had enough, and stops the prayer to remind Ricky that Jesus did grow up, and he shouldn't direct his prayers to a baby. He responds with this rejoinder:

"I like the Christmas Jesus best, and I'm saying grace. When you say grace, you can say it to the grown-up Jesus, or teenage Jesus, or bearded Jesus, or whoever you want."

You may wonder why I like this scene so much. You may even consider it sacrilegious. What you're really seeing though, is biting social commentary about Bible Belt religiosity, cloaked in Christianity, but stripped of it's offensiveness. It's cuddly Christianity, created by man to make us feel good about ourselves. It is far from the Christianity of the Bible. And I think many of us are prone to fall prey to the temptation of this kind of faith, especially around Christmas time.

There is much talk these days about keeping Christ in Christmas, and that is important, as far as it goes. But I'm afraid the Christ that many people are talking about this time of year is closer to Ricky Bobby's Jesus than it is the real one. When we think about Jesus at Christmas, it is the cuddly baby in the manger, awakened by lowing cattle, but too omnipotent to cry, as if he alerted his mother that he was hungry by simply clearing his throat. The fact is, there was no "Silent Night." We see angels and wise men and sheep, and we forget about blood and afterbirth and manure. But Christmas has an edge to it, a sharp edge that will cut deeply when it is truly understood for what it is, when we look past the postcard nativity paintings and more deeply into what is behind them.

The point is this; we are far too prone to sanitize Christianity, the same way we sanitize Christmas. You see, there was never a time in Jesus' life, even when he was a newborn baby, when everything was simply nice and peaceful, when he was not a lightning rod for controversy, when the specter of conflict and death did not hang over his head. Matthew 2:3 says when King Herod heard about Jesus' birth, "he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him." He immediately set out to have him killed. And with good reason. He saw Jesus for who he truly was; a threat to his kingdom. He's a threat to the kingdoms you have built too. Jesus' birth foreshadowed something big, and quite frankly frightening, for most of the world. God has come. He has come to set things right. The king has arrived. He has come to save, no doubt. But he has also come to judge. From now on, the dividing line between whether a man is on the side of God or not will be what he does with this baby in a manger.

As we celebrate the birth of Jesus this year, we Christians can do so with great happiness. We who follow Jesus can completely understand the "tidings of comfort and joy," that he brings with him.  But we cannot expect everyone to see it that way. This Jesus who came as a babe, and grew to be a man, who died on a cross and was raised from the grave, is no milquetoast Savior. He demands our allegiance. He demands our lives. He demands that we follow him, no matter the cost. And he tells us that is the only way to save our selves. This message has never been non-controversial. It never will be. It's not a message you can keep wrapped in swaddling clothes, nor is it one that will stay dressed in funeral garments.

To Judge or not to Judge?

“Who are you to judge? You’re a Christian, don’t you know one of the main commands you have is not to judge?” If you have been a Christian for any length of time, it is likely that you have heard something along these lines. Statements like this are especially common when Christians talk about things they think are right and wrong; especially when it’s about controversial things. And there’s a very real sense in which the people who make these statements are correct. Jesus did tell us not to judge. But far too often, I don’t think the people saying this understand what Jesus really meant by this. Quite frankly, far too often, many Christians don’t really understand what Jesus meant when he said this.

So what’s going on here? Are Christians to judge? Are they not to judge? How do we reconcile Jesus’ commands not to judge, with all the other commands we see in the Bible about what is right and wrong? Are we never to judge another person's actions or choices? Should we just sit back as people do things we know are wrong, and support them anyway? Is that what the Bible teaches us to do?

The answers to these questions can be found in the Bible, though if we’re going to get the sweet spot of what Jesus means, or what the Bible as a whole teaches, about judgment and judgmentalism, then we’re going to have to dig pretty deep. The Bible certainly goes deeper than one command, ripped out of its context, on this issue. The fact of the matter is this; judgment is not given a blanket condemnation by scripture, it is encouraged and necessary at times. Let me show you what I mean. Every single one of us judge, every single day. The question is whether or not we are judging in the right kinds of ways.

First of all, common sense tells us that we must make some judgments in life. When I look in the refrigerator and pull out those leftovers, I must make a judgment as to whether or not they are still fit to eat. It does no good to say, “Jesus has told me not to judge, so I’ll just ignore the green stuff growing on that casserole.” Furthermore, common sense tells me that I must make some judgments, not just about inanimate objects, but about other people. If you are a young lady, and the schizophrenic drug addict on the street asks you to marry him as you walk by, it’s probably best that you judge him as not fit husband material. Finally, we all must make some moral judgments. All of us agree that murder is wrong and should not be committed, or that child molestation is a horrible act. To not judge those things as wrong would be not only to misunderstand Jesus’ commands and misuse common sense, but to go against the basic moral compass that each of us have.

Secondly, scripture itself, and Jesus himself, tell us that it is right and good to make certain kinds of judgments, of both actions and people. Let’s take a little bit closer look at the passage in which Jesus utters those famous words, “Do not judge.”

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 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? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the 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. (Matthew 7:1-5)

Now notice this first of all. Jesus very clearly says, “Judge not.” And he says it for a reason. Do not judge, unless you want to be judged yourself. The way you judge other people will be the way that you will be judged. That’s the basic message of the first part of this passage. Now, let’s go a bit further. “Why do you not notice the speck in your brother’s eye, but not notice the log in your own eye?” (Verse 3) This verse is the key to understanding this passage. It gives us a distinction between making right judgments, and being judgmental. And judgmentalism is wrong. Jesus basically says this: “You are so quick to notice the sins in others, and so blind to your own sins. Worry about yourself first, and then come back and worry about what your brother is doing.” And this is important for Christians to understand. If you are constantly pointing out the sins of others, and you’re doing so in a way that ignores the depth of your own depravity, then you are simply disobeying Jesus.

This is where so many people who confess the name Jesus find themselves. They bark about the sins of others, and the sins of society, and they ignore their own. They show no repentance over their multitude of transgressions, but are quick to condemn the sins of others. There is no other way to describe this except that it is wrong, and is completely contrary to a direct command of Jesus.

But be careful before you throw away your judgment completely. Because notice what Jesus says next. In essence, he says, “Go take the log out of your own eye, and then you can help your brother get the speck out of his.” What does Jesus mean by this? He’s simply saying that we need to address our own sins first; see ourselves for who we really are, and then we can go back to our brother, and help them with their sins. Now, if we truly begin to address our own sins, and truly begin to see ourselves for who we are, we’re going to have a completely different attitude when we go back to our brother. We will be more humble. We will have no attitude of moral superiority. We will recognize ourselves as just as desperately in need of the grace of Jesus as the person with whom we are talking. And we might just be able to get somewhere with that person because of that attitude change.

So the real thing we need to on guard for is not judgment, but judgmentalism. What Jesus is describing here is not every day judgments we make about what is right and wrong, but our attitude toward people who are sinning. It’s important for us to get the distinction. Let me give you some ideas to think about.

-        It is not judgmentalism to believe something is wrong, based on what the Bible says.

-        It is judgmentalism to believe you are morally superior to someone who has a different sin than you.

-        It is not judgmentalism to tell a person what they are doing as sin, after you have examined your own life and repented of anything you are doing that is also sin.

-        It is judgmentalism to ignore your own sin, and then go after every sin you see in other people.

-        It is not judgmentalism to believe that you should not be involved in certain things, even if it is the Bible does not clearly condemn them.

-        It is judgmentalism to believe that everyone should live up to the standards you have set for yourself, even when the Bible is not clear that your way is the right way.

Let me end with this thought. If you are a Christian, this kind of judgment that confronts specific sins is mainly meant for other Christians. Listen to what Paul says as he talks about sexual sin in the church. “For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside.” (1 Corinthians 5:12-13) What is Paul saying? I think he simply means this: those on the outside of the church need to hear two things: they are great sinners, and Christ is a great Savior. It does no good to try to morally reform them without a Jesus-wrought change of heart brought about by repentance and faith. Once a person comes into the family of God, then humble, love-filled truth can be spoken about specific sins, and the need to turn from them.

So I hope you’ll keep these things in mind as you think about right and wrong kinds of judgment. It’s mainly about your attitude and your heart when you deal with these things. And take Jesus' warning seriously; you will be given the same kind of judgment you dish out to other people. How do you want to be judged? That is how you must judge others.