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00:01 Okay, I think we got a drift right this morning. We are going to do a really
00:07 loaded topic. Um, you'll be surprised how much the Bible actually talks about
00:12 this. Let me just uh uh expand it. Just now what you saw is a secular
00:19 examples. Let me let me take it to a Christian example. Let's just say you see one day you walk by Empire Shopping
00:26 Center. You see me and Richard and Peter over a bottle of Cavalan whiskey. Wow.
00:31 Two elders and one preacher all cheers. You see how can they they should set a
00:38 better example. Don't you know drinking is a can leads to drunkenness.
00:45 And then you make a judgment. So who's right here? Next slide. Oops. Let me go. I got I got it. You have a friend from
00:53 one church and he tells you, you know, you need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. You need to you need to feel
00:59 alive and the gifts are available for today. He passes you a book by the author on the left. You in return given
01:06 the book on the on on the left, right, left, get whatever. And you say, "No, the gifts have seized. You don't have
01:12 this anymore." You know, and then you say, "All these people, they are all charlatans. They're heretics. They teach
01:17 you prosperity, gospel. This is all self-centerness. It's all about me, myself. He accuses you. He says, "Your
01:23 church is dead. Everybody's not alive. Y'all cannot pray more for 2 minutes before falling asleep. A fight breaks
01:29 out. Who's judging who?" After this service, you decide to leave early. You find your car is blocked.
01:37 You call, you call the number and the guy doesn't come out. And this is not referring to anyone. Purely
01:42 hypothetical. All right? And you get hot and sweaty because your car is a nice car without you can't put an air con
01:49 because you got one of those nice sports car. After a while, a guy comes and you scroll him. You see, I've been waiting
01:54 for 15 minutes. He say, "What's your problem? You just turn to the left and then turn out like you know Cton for you
02:01 don't know how to drive a car and a fight breaks up." So, who's judging who? Today we're going to look at a really
02:07 really practical topic and it's extremely loaded and you'll be surprised how much the Bible talks about this and
02:14 I'd like to propose this is something we are all guilty of every single one of us in this room and so we really need to
02:21 approach this topic with a lot of humility. So let's come before God in prayer. Lord, we just ask that um you be
02:29 with us this morning. And uh as you have said in Matthew chapter 7, why do we
02:35 look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eyes and pay no attention to
02:40 the plank in our own eye? How can we say to a brother, "Let me take the speck out
02:46 your eye when all the time there's a plank in our own eye. You hypocrite.
02:51 Take out the plank of your own eye. then you'll see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eyes. So we ask this
02:58 morning that we are not here to judge others but to judge ourselves oh Lord and how and where we perhaps have not
03:06 done it correctly and we ask for wisdom and we say this in Jesus' name. Amen.
03:13 The text just now um the most famous text is Matthew 7. Let me just give you
03:19 a quick run through of the text that talks about judging directly. Then you have Romans 2 which talks very heavily
03:27 about in particular the Jews and the Pharisees. Then Paul goes to Romans 14
03:34 about brothers who are weaker in their uh uh conscience. Then 1 Corinthians
03:40 chapter 4 chapter 5 chapter 8 is huge. A
03:45 lot of chapters are all about judging. Now this particular text is quite interesting. Now if you look at the
03:52 Matthew 7 text what is interesting the Matthew 7 text is anchored within what is called the sermon of the mount at the
03:59 end of chapter 7 Jesus says this verse he says whoever hears my word is like what the what the wise man now you find
04:07 that the book of James a lot of the book of James is actually loaded up from the sermon of the mount and as much as the
04:15 sermon of mount has got to do with wisdom James has to do with wisdom and in fact the text we look at today is
04:21 coming off from what we call spiritual wisdom. And you find that the the spiritual wisdom when you look at
04:27 chapter 3:1 17 the wisdom that comes from heaven pure peaceloving mercy. What
04:32 is that? That's the biatitudes picking it right out the batitudes. Now here's the thing we want to start off with. If
04:38 I ask you do you judge objectively anything? Most of you will say yeah I do because
04:46 nobody likes to believe that you judge wrongly. So most of you if I said are you judgmental you say no I judge
04:54 fairly. So here's the first point. The point is we all judge and there are
04:59 three particular areas you judge in. Number one teaching and the text today is again taken from chapter 3 verse one
05:06 where not many of you should presume to be teachers. So he's really talking about teaching and evangelicals are very
05:13 quick to throw a stone to say see that church they teach prosperity gospel. see that person, he does this. Very quick to
05:19 do that. Number two, when you're in a fight, whether it's a parking car out there or you go home, you have an
05:26 argument with your wife, husband, or in your office, the quarrel breaks out,
05:32 words are thrown, you are judging one another. Then of course there's whole things about how Christians should live.
05:38 Should they drink? Should they keep ponytails? Should they listen to some kind of music? Can they go and watch Deadpool?
05:48 you know, whole things of this. So, the issue isn't judgment. Is it righteous or
05:53 unrighteous judgment? And in these two verses, they're quite interesting, often overlooked because what James does in
06:01 this particular verses is he ties judging with many other things. And
06:06 again, we must remember we are in the context of spiritual wisdom. And his proposition is this. Your judging may
06:14 not be as smart as you think you are. You are not as wise as you think you
06:20 are. And that's why Jesus at the end of the sermon on the mount says you have to be like the wise men. Let's pick this
06:26 up. The first thing he does in the first verse we read is that he ties two things
06:31 together. Slander and unrighteous judgment. Let's look at the verse again.
06:37 And he says, "Brothers, do not slander one another.
06:42 Anyone who speaks against his brother and other translations who say speaks evil about his brother." And here what
06:49 he says, "All judges him." essentially judging is slander. Now, of course, you
06:56 say, "Yeah, of course, if I if I judge you wrongly, I'm I'm misrepresenting you." But let's look at the context of
07:02 this. Now, where did this come from? And you see James isn't like Paul where he's
07:07 so structured. James thinkings appear scattered. But let's tie the two together. Yeah. Let's do a chart.
07:14 Slandering and judging. Now where did he come from? What is the basis of this? If you pull it back, it came from the first
07:21 part of chapter 4. Because at the beginning, what does James say? What causes fights and quarrels among you?
07:27 When you quarrel, you will slander. This is where there is a dispute. We
07:34 don't know what it was. It could be the fact that you parked your car out there wrongly or you complain about the food
07:41 from the caterer or you didn't like what brother Anna spoke this morning or somebody offended you in church but
07:47 there was a dispute. Isn't this common? Common. Now that is put back even
07:54 further because he's pulling it back to two kinds of wisdom. And he's basically
07:59 saying this that this wisdom look at verse 13 does not come from hemmed earthly. Why? Because there you find
08:06 what? You find disorder. You see the thing the trail from
08:12 disorder it goes to quarrels. Quarrels it goes to slandering and judging. Here's the simple thing.
08:20 If you don't like someone and I have some people I don't like. I've said it before. Rather be honest. If you're
08:27 honest, there are a lot of people in your life that have hurt you, backststepped you, done things to you.
08:34 Next time you hear that person is say going to a mission trip to Sabah,
08:40 would you be inclined to say, "Hallelujah, brother. Praise the Lord." Or would you say, "Ah, this fellow very tala one probably go there to rip people
08:48 off." You're quite inclined on the letter, right? Because the mind is already biased. This is what James is
08:55 saying. It is preloaded. You don't suddenly overnight get up and
09:00 slander a person. It comes from what? It comes from a thinking. And that thinking
09:06 again comes from a heart which is not broken. And it comes again from the
09:12 beginning of the beatitudes because you're spiritually not broken. And I've always said it, fix your heart,
09:21 then you fix your mouth or your words. And spiritual wisdom is the is the thing
09:26 that pulls it together. Here's a classic case. No, in numbers chapter 12, this is
09:32 what is written. Miriam and Aaron begin to talk against Moses of his cushet wife
09:38 for he married a Kushite. You know what's a Kushite? In simple English, Kush is an area north of Africa. They're
09:46 actually making a racist remark in simple English today is wow
09:53 he married an Indian you know racist right that's exactly what it is he
09:59 married an African but you see how it trails after that or
10:05 before that the author doesn't doesn't care which came before what he says this
10:11 has the lord spoken only through Moses what has that got to do with Moses mira wearing a kushai completely nothing
10:19 but it's slander. So what you see here is that look at that hasn't he also spoken through us
10:26 and you know after that God really judges Miriam that means there are two things here one there's an accusation
10:33 that Moses has done wrong by marrying an African for some reason that's connected to an
10:41 accusation of why only is God speaking through Moses aren't we important hasn't
10:49 he spoken through us but two completely unrelated things. But what James is
10:55 saying is no, they are completely related. Because brothers and sisters, this is
11:03 how you and I judge many things. Here's a classic case.
11:09 Few weeks ago, this went very viral on social media about a certain local
11:14 university who apparently plaggarized the work from some un works from these are the university names I will not
11:21 mention since I'm talking about judging this morning. Now the the the trail is very
11:26 interesting. It's very fascinating. If you are Chinese, you know, and you
11:33 got it in your WhatsApp, I bet you you do a survey, 99% of Chinese will have
11:38 prejudged that, yeah, this university did it. But if the same message went to a Malay,
11:46 the percentage will be much lower. Am I not right? Why?
11:52 Let's be honest. Because the Chinese have a resentment for this university.
11:59 We won't go to why but you see how it affects your judgment
12:05 and in many ways you have prejudged the university. What if they really didn't do it but because you have a dislike for
12:12 that university for practices which you feel discriminate against your children or yourself you prejudge. And now I I I
12:20 watch it in one my in one my WhatsApp group where this thing was posted and of course immediately all these people
12:26 start to make really derogatory remarks about the university and all sorts of things and how the university was stupid
12:33 mula etc etc etc and you know where you go after that right from making slander
12:39 about university guess where you'll go very obvious you'll see you'll make slander about the race
12:46 that is predominant in that university and then from that race you start to say that that race is also very stupid they
12:54 said that race needs to plaglearize I saw you know pop 30 me and there's no anger of letting and this
13:02 is what James is saying let me put it in simple thing and I really plead because I think all of us
13:10 fall in this category you see judgment is about wisdom
13:16 and what Uh uh James says, "Who is wise and understanding among you?" James 3:13.
13:24 This is his anchor verse. You know, show it by his good life. You think you're
13:30 smart. You think you you you don't judge badly. Show it.
13:36 Show it by this humility that comes with wisdom. That actually is the glue that holds the whole chapter. You know, show
13:42 it. And what James is saying is that your judgment is impaired. And I like to
13:48 propose four things that affects you external influences.
13:53 I met I met a Jehovah witness in Sabah. God has go there so often and I spent a lot of time. He was a really nice boy.
14:01 Dad was a big shot in a Jehovah Witness organization. He grew up Jehovah
14:06 winners. He swears by it. and and you ask him and you tell you know if if you
14:12 weren't born as a Jehovah witness and I put you out and I put you in I don't
14:17 know a Mormon organization or a Baptist background or a charismatic background
14:24 would you have turned out differently so so the external influences condition
14:30 us you see that's why going back just now to the university if you're Chinese you would judge a certain way you're
14:36 you're Malay you judge another way you you cannot cannot dispute it. So those of us who come from this church and the
14:43 conditioning of this church, we are in a culture. It will influence you. The second is obvious personal desires.
14:52 I wish to be healed. I wish my finances were better. I go to
14:58 a church. Let's not judge the church. The church teaches me I need to be alive. I need to, you know, pick myself
15:05 up and say I'm victorious. I I I I go out and I do well in my business and
15:11 they pray and they pray over my sick mom and me and and she gets healed. You
15:16 don't think that influences your judgment? You will read scripture entirely out of that. Which leads to the
15:23 next one, personal experiences and they can be both good and bad. If again that
15:29 same church you went there and you prayed and you didn't get healed that will influence you know what healing
15:35 doesn't occur or you went to that church and and your business went bankrupt. You
15:41 see, you see they both all influence you. And the last one to me the classic is this. to know this especially in
15:48 disputes. Five, five, five, five, five. You going to talk to A. You going to talk to B.
15:53 You know the classic answer. They will tell you, I have peace in my heart. What
15:59 I did was right. My conscience is clear.
16:04 So judgments are much more flawed. And we're going to use that in the same way
16:10 we see just now. Let me just take you back. This is how Paul what James is saying
16:18 when you judge it was already preloaded from a heart that was bitter then the
16:26 wisdom goes into it and then it creates it. So it is preloaded. Now let's see
16:32 now how it goes on. There is a spiraling effect. So let's put it this way.
16:37 Judgment becomes judgment only when you say it. Before that it's just in your
16:42 mind. So we can probably load it up this way. It's by the way guys it's going to be a bit depressing for 15 minutes. So
16:49 bear with me then we give you the good news. All right but let's do the bad news first then we do the good news.
16:55 After you say wow this fellow making me very feel really down really. Okay let's look at the second part. You see he
17:02 continues and says this anyone who speaks against brother judges him. We picked it up. He says something really
17:09 interesting. you know, speaks against the law and judges it like what? Speaks
17:14 against what law? The Torah, the Ten Commandments. And then he says, when you
17:19 judge the law, you're not keeping it, but sitting in judgment over it. It's a strange verse. Now, the way to pick this
17:26 up is to look back at James chapter 2 because you find the word picked up in
17:32 verse 8. He says if you really keep the royal law found in scripture is the same
17:41 Greek word. He's not talking about the ten commandments. He's not talking about
17:46 keeping the entire Torah. He's talking about the royal law. Now quite
17:52 interesting if you go back to James 2 and you see if really keep the royal law
17:58 and you look at one verse before that verse 7 you notice what he's saying. Are
18:03 they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of his whom whom you
18:09 belong? Interestingly, it's about slander. This is what the text is saying. And if you go further bit down
18:16 to chap verse 12 of chapter 2, you know what he says? Speak and act as though we
18:22 as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom. So chapter 2
18:28 many way picks up the same thing. Let me just pick it up to you and you find
18:35 there is a certain common denominator in all this. What is it? It's about judging
18:42 your neighbor in such a way that you are not what loving your neighbor.
18:49 So this is how James continues it and he's actually picking it up from Leviticus 19. Interestingly, 1916 says
18:57 the same thing is about slander. And you read the rest of the verses, he ends,
19:03 love your neighbor. This is the royal law which James is picking up about.
19:08 Now, why is this important? Because he's saying this, it doesn't
19:14 matter about who's right or who's wrong. Romans 14 and about disputable matters.
19:20 He says this, "Your brother distress about what you eat. You are no longer acting in love." So it's beyond about
19:28 who is theologically right or wrong. Is beyond about the quarrel whether who was
19:34 really at fault. It's beyond about whether you should drink wine or watch
19:40 Game of Thrones or listen to this kind of music. Is are you acting in love? Now you notice the counterbalance verse. He
19:46 says this. No, the first verse in Romans 14 is saying, "Okay, you know what?
19:52 If what you do is going to cause trouble, don't do it." Those of you long enough know if you saw me here last
19:58 year, I will have a tail. The tail is gone. I explained it before and I'll tell you
20:05 in some churches, they won't let a guy with a pony get up and preach. This church, I thankfully, is not legalistic.
20:12 But why did I cut it? Because I'm chaplain of the boys brigade. Can you imagine going and swinging your tail to
20:17 5 year old kids I'm chap not a good example not acting in love
20:24 that fire kid go back also have a ponytail why oh chaplain got tail so I can have tail so boys brigade they're
20:31 right you can't have a tail you're chap cut I want to say something I kept that tail
20:38 for 13 years you know 13 years
20:43 you don't simply cut your tail for 13 years without really cing.
20:48 But let's not ask why I had a tail. You can ask me that where we have a drink outside. But you don't simply cut the
20:55 tail without thinking twice. It was very difficult for me to cut it. I come tell you this because I it was
21:02 part of me. And after that go ask what happened to the tail? What happened to I went to work? What happened to tail? What
21:08 happened? I want to put a big sign out there. I became chapl. Thank you. I go to kick it. What happened to tail? How
21:14 are everyone looking like that? No, it was really irritating. But this is what James is saying. So
21:20 here's how we move. You have unrighteous judgment. It goes down to slandering.
21:26 From slandering, what does it go down? You're not loving your neighbor. Now you see there are two types of it.
21:33 You see on one hand he says this, but you see how Paul balances out. He say the kingdom of God is not a matter of
21:39 eating, drinking. We can also say the kingdom of God does not matter whether you have a ponytail. But what
21:44 righteousness, peace, joy, and the Holy Spirit. Look at James again. James 3. The wisdom that comes to heaven is first
21:50 of all pure, peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy. It's the same
21:56 thing. Peacemakers who sw in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. That's why
22:01 you don't quarrel. He balances the two. And this is where you go back to drinking.
22:06 you know drinking people are very vocal of this. I had a
22:12 brother from from Africa uh came up to me. He says you know my church we don't
22:18 drink. Oo I drink. I don't mind a beer.
22:23 Then he looked at me like oh like I was here and he was there.
22:28 You see there is a pro propensity in moral behavior to shift from the righteousness of God to what? To
22:36 self-righteousness. So this is how you balance it. You see Romans goes on this way say it's better not to eat meat or
22:43 drink wine to do anything that will cause your brother to fall. So in front of a brother like that who as conscious
22:48 like that I'm not going to drink because you offend him. But here's where you'll swing. Look at the next verse. Whatever
22:55 you believe about these things, keep between yourself and God because it's not acting in love. Because after that,
23:02 you know what you do? You will legalize it. You're not acting in love when you legalize it. I want to just briefly
23:10 speak on this. Number one, it is not alcohol, but the abuse of alcohol.
23:15 Scriptures clear. But here's the problem. If you come from
23:20 a family background where you see so much abuse,
23:26 you will probably come and react and says, you know what, ban it all. So there are two extremes. One is where you
23:32 go and drink your beer, your kabalan whiskey, your brandy, your red wine, and
23:37 you don't care. That's one extreme. That's not acting in love. The second is
23:43 when you swing to one side and say that anybody who opens up uh a tiger beer is going to go to hell. That's not going to
23:51 that's not acting in love. And there are quite a few people who do that. So one hand you have legalism.
23:59 On the other hand you have basically grace to such a point where you don't
24:04 care what anyone thinks. I just going to do it because I think I like to do it. The clearest example of what happened is
24:11 a bit of history. And you know what? All of us should read history because history will tell you this. You
24:16 know, in in America be in the early beginning of the of the 20th century and
24:23 there were a lot of saloons. You know, America came out of Waw Wa West, you know, and there was a lot of
24:29 drinking, a lot of gambling. And America was in a mess. This is
24:34 coming straight out of the civil war. and everybody want so families were broken up. So they went for a vote. Uh
24:41 they call them the dries and the and the wets. And I saw a lot of it. A lot of it was you know what our country is so much
24:47 of these problems. So much drinking. Families are broken up. Uh there's bad
24:53 for your health. And do you know who were the people leading this? They were called the American Temperate Society.
24:59 They were all the churches. Every Protestant church was involved in
25:05 this except the Espopolan church and the Catholic church who voted against it. And the Catholics are right. The
25:11 Catholic says, "Who are you to put your morality on the whole country? We are
25:17 not Protestant. We didn't come from the Puritans. You have no right." But this
25:22 movement was so strong. Can you believe it? On January 16, 1919, you cannot buy
25:28 a beer in America. But what happened after that? If you
25:33 follow history, you heard of a guy called Al Capone. Who is Al Capone? He comes from what is
25:40 called the mob. You know what happened after this? America develop organized
25:46 crime? Because it's very simple. When you legalize, it goes underground.
25:53 Why do you think certain religions that tell you you cannot do this, you must dress like that, you you do this, we
25:58 won't mention has the highest amount of incest, highest amount because you cook a guy
26:05 up, you see. And of course after a while it blew out and it did so much damage to
26:11 the church. So here are two extremes of it where you just do what you like or
26:18 you legalize it. Here's another example. It's one thing to write a book, you
26:24 know, to say, you know what, uh, we don't agree with this. And the language was very strong. It's another thing to p
26:32 continue and then to hold conferences. And this is what this author say. Let me read it to you. It is a sad twist of
26:38 irony that those who claim to be most focused on the Holy Spirit are the ones who are doing the most abuse, grief,
26:44 insult, misrepresent, quench, and to dishonor him. Put simply, charismatic
26:50 theology has made no contribution to true biblical theology. It calls a
26:56 Christian when itself ashame. Wow, that's loaded. You know, that's really
27:02 loaded. Now, let's not get it wrong. There's a lot of heresies within the
27:08 charismatic movement. But as John Piper says, there's equally, if not more,
27:13 abuse and heresies in the non-carismatic movement. That's why Matthew 7 is so
27:18 important. Don't don't pull out the the look at yourself. Look at the plank in
27:23 your own eye. Now, this backfired so badly. The church had to issue a statement, you know, and
27:30 and you should just go online and read this. But you see, it goes in so many areas where we move from what? From
27:37 unrighteous judgment to slander. From slander, it goes down to what? It goes
27:43 down to not loving your neighbor. Do you think this is loving the charismatic
27:48 church? It is not. How can you say that we have learned nothing? Our worship just now
27:53 was completely charismatic. Hallelujah. You should learn from the charismatics how to pray. Thank you very much. You
27:60 should learn from the charismatics the power of the Holy Spirit. Take the good, get rid of the bad. Sweeping remarks
28:07 like this are not loving. And here it goes to the most important thing. When you in a quarrel, you know, there's a
28:14 song 10 years ago. He says, "Can you practice what you preach? Would you turn
28:19 the other cheek? Father, father, father, help us. Send us some guidance from above cuz people got me got me
28:27 questioning where is the love?" Very famous song, black eyed peace.
28:32 And that is really it, isn't it? So this morning, I just want to I want to just pose one question to you. Where is the
28:40 love? Where is the love? So
28:47 say you don't like what I preach. Rebuke me in love.
28:53 Or you can go and get very angry and what say you have a fight. And I'll tell
28:58 you among church you put so many people in a melting pot. Sure fight one because
29:05 we all different. Some people very sensitive. Some people very thick skin correct know you put here you know it
29:12 could be anything you you know you you feel judged you know I did so much for the church and this is what they did to
29:18 me you misunderstood me and this and that and what James is saying is this is
29:24 the the wisdom that's spiritual in love
29:29 and before you get so worked up point it on yourself are you being legalistic about it and how about your own sins
29:37 And let us wrap up this session. Then we go to the good news. H and he ends with another strange verse. He says there's
29:44 only one lawgiver and judge. The one is able to save and destroy. But you who
29:50 are you to judge your neighbor? But look at verse 12. There is only
29:58 one lawgiver. Only who do you think he's referring to? God.
30:06 In the end, he says there's only one real judge, God. And this we go back to conscience in 1
30:14 Corinthians chapter 4 and Paul writes in the context of of of him being an
30:20 apostle and the church is very maligned by fights and quarrels and they are following Peter and following chapas and
30:27 all sorts of people. He says this, my conscience is clear. Look at what the next statement that doesn't make me
30:34 innocent. So here's to all of us who after a fight says you know I have peace in heart you know what that peace
30:39 doesn't matter God couldn't be bothered
30:44 and I hear this so often when people fight whether churches fighting or Christians fighting or husbands and
30:50 wives or friends or what my conscience is clear yeah your conscience is clear because your conscience is corrupted by
30:56 sin not just yours but mine it's all preloaded when you made that
31:02 judgment there was things before there was bi iousness. There was personal experiences. There was your own desires.
31:08 They were all interfering with it. And he says this, "Is it the Lord who judges me? Therefore, judge nothing before the
31:15 appointed time. Wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and expose the
31:22 motives of men's house. At that time, each will receive his praise from God."
31:28 Who are we to separate sheep from goats? Who are we to separate tears from wheat?
31:33 Only God does it. It's not our place. But very often you then move. So here's
31:38 how the chain goes. You start from judging wrongly. Not using spiritual wisdom but human wisdom. You then start
31:45 to slander people. A that fellow very cha. Hey this is like that like that. That is stupid preacher. Heresy. From
31:52 that it goes one step before that. You become legalistic and you be not loving in love. You're actually hating that
31:59 person. But then it goes one step below that. And the final end of wrong judgment is this word condemnation.
32:07 And who are you and I to condemn? You condemn. The only person who can
32:13 condemn, who is the lawgiver of life. And there the only person who can do it
32:18 is the lawgiver and judge God. He's the only one who can save and destroy. But
32:25 very often we put oursel in the shoes and we say, you know, this person is going to hell. Who are you to say that?
32:34 And and we see this again so tragically in church history. That's why church history is great. In before we're during
32:41 Martin Luther King's time, the the the black church attempted to integrate the
32:47 church. And see how this is so obvious. Look at the the play cards. Curse is the
32:53 man who integrates. Jeremiah 11. Now
32:59 when you look at that lady holding that she's obviously convicted and she's taking an Old Testament text that says
33:06 you know what you must be separated from the hidden you know you are called to be a royal priesthood now if you go to her
33:13 and open up the book of Galatians and says you know what God says remove the hostility there's no difference between
33:19 Jew and Gentile you think she'll believe you she says yes you can do that we are doing that but the black church can be
33:25 over there I don't need to mix with the black Why? You see, because at the bottom of
33:32 this this cursing, it comes from a very simple sin. The sin of racism.
33:40 White America doesn't want to mix with black America. White America thinks black America is dirty.
33:47 And from that, you go to slandering. From slandering, you're not loving your neighbor. And not loving your neighbor, you are cursing that person. All in the
33:55 name of God. And let's not before we throw stones at others, we are very much
34:02 guilty of this. Let me take you another level of history.
34:07 This is a slave galley. Slave galley. Did you know the Southern
34:14 Baptist Church endorsed slavery because the cotton industry was in the south?
34:20 Now we don't want to go into entire discussion of slavery because let me just add scriptural slavery is very
34:25 different because biblical slavery wasn't racial you know it's cultural you
34:30 slave the whole family goes to slavery you go and read it is is cultural among
34:36 the Chinese among every old culture if I was in debt I sell myself slavery
34:41 slavery in America is completely racial you go to Africa and you take black people Africa people and you make no
34:47 work in the cotton fields but let Let me tell you how the delusion goes. Do you
34:53 know what's the name of this ship? I'm going to give you three names. The first ship by Admiral Hawkins who is
34:59 considered a founder of slavery and by the way who calls himself a devout Christian. You know what was the name of
35:06 the ship? It was called the good ship Jesus or Jesus of Lubec. Lubec is a town.
35:14 And I saw another I Googled it. Another ship you know which also carries slaves was called the ship mercy. Can you
35:21 imagine a ship calling itself mercy and without
35:26 mercy going to Africa and taking people ripping them off the villages and
35:31 forcing them over to your country. And this is the best one I saw one. You know
35:37 what the trip was called? The grace of God. The grace of God.
35:45 I thought you going to be heavy before it gets light. But this is what Paul is saying. Sorry, James. Unrighteous
35:53 judgment leads to slander. Slander tells you you're not doing in love and it goes
35:60 to idolatrous condemnation. The immediate context here is two teachings,
36:06 but more important is about relationship one another. And I want to just express one thing. The key application for here
36:14 is how you and I relate to one another. Like I say, you put all of us here sure
36:20 got issues on or I want to ask you about if you have a conflict with someone you
36:25 love or you feel someone in your office is really giving you a hard time and I
36:30 think this is the chart to look at where if you have so much anger you lead to slander after that when you see that
36:37 person you just feel like you want to wall up the guy and after that you condemn him you know this is a slippery
36:43 slide now let's now go for some good newsh I want to go back to this and I want to
36:49 make a proposition again to all of us including myself. We are unable to make
36:55 neutral judgments. What is the evidence of it? Very simple.
37:02 How? Look at how the Christian church is split.
37:07 You have Protestants, Catholics, charismatics, evangelicals, and you have all the small churches who think
37:13 everyone else is wrong. You have the anti-denominational movements. You have this and that. Every church in Sububang
37:19 right now as you speak here, there are hundreds of churches out in Malaysia and
37:24 a lot of them think they're right, the other guy is wrong. So the evidence is this.
37:30 Now I want to suggest this now that and I'm going to move from James to be more scripture. I like to suggest you need a
37:36 filter or more accurately you need an anchor.
37:42 You need a center. Without that center to to hold you, no
37:48 matter how smart you are, how much you know your Bible,
37:54 you would move to become judgmental. I knew a friend who knew the Bible inside
37:60 out and upside down and whatever. But he came from a family where the father left
38:06 him. So he had a lot of emotional baggage. He you could see in his
38:12 language he was always putting other people down. Why? Because that baggage
38:20 put him in bondage. Now before you say that we all have those problems, you know they come in one form or another.
38:27 Bad personal experiences, our own desires, the church background. You need a filter. Now what is that filter? Some
38:34 people say the Bible. No, because you can read the Bible anything you like. like that that lady just show you about
38:40 racism misquing Jeremiah. You can say prayer but you can pray about all sorts of things. I like to suggest the filter
38:47 is the gospel. You anchor it with the gospel
38:54 because the gospel will tell you two things importantly. Number one that
39:00 whatever you do, you do it to glorify God. That is the chief aim of man. And
39:08 second, glorifying God is by what? Loving your neighbor.
39:14 Ensuring relationships are are are handled carefully.
39:20 So when you look at another person before you quickly want to judge, you ask yourself, do I love him? Is my
39:26 actions going to love him? Are the words going to really say that? Am I
39:32 condemning him? or you saying, you know what, I'm going to let God deal with it. So, let me break this down. There are
39:39 four things I think that involves in righteous judgment. One, studying
39:44 scripture in its totality. Anybody can pick any verse to say anything they want nowadays. Why do you think there's so
39:51 many different denominations? Because everyone can pick it up and that's where heresy come about. So, you
39:57 got to study scripture in context. Number two, you have to pray and let the
40:02 spirit discern. You have to talk to people. And most importantly, what Matthew 7 is saying, Romans 2 is saying,
40:10 go and look at your own life first. Don't judge others. Let us now go for another stepping. Huh?
40:18 Just now we had a slippery slide down. Now we going to have a road that goes up because one thing always leads to
40:25 another. From righteous judgment, just unrighteous judgment. We let it led to
40:30 what? Let's look at that. Unrighteous judgment leads to slander. So righteous judgment should
40:36 lead to gentler words. I don't say say gentle because something you need to
40:42 rebuke gentler words. And again this is a thing me and brother Yin put up put
40:47 up. Think is it true what you say? Helpful, inspiring, necessary, is it kind? And we had this memory verse.
40:53 Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. For man's anger
40:59 does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. And why is my next slide empty?
41:06 Because we are going to do memory verse again.
41:12 Fair. Right. So I give you one more chance. After that I'm not going to judge you all.
41:18 So that's the verse. There is a flash in the pan. Take a deep breath. You don't
41:23 want it. You can take the ESV New King James version. I don't mind. give you a chance.
41:30 Okay. And then one, two, three.
41:42 Dear Lord, teach me not to judge.
41:48 But you see my point, right? All right. But please, seriously, go back. This is
41:53 a great verse. Great verse. Okay. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Father,
41:60 man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Let scripture calm out your words. So we
42:06 don't slander, we speak blessings to others. Secondly, done humbly to love
42:12 your neighbor. And this is easier said than done. And that's why the cross is so important. This is where the cross is
42:17 so central because and whenever you want to do something, you you you tell yourself Jesus died for me. I am alive.
42:28 Ephesians do this. This is a charismatic church ask of you. Everyone say alive and everybody say alive. It didn't say
42:34 everyone say alive. Everyone say alive. So we won't do that. But I want to try to you are alive. You are not in bondage
42:41 to bitterness and judgmentalism. You are a person like W say you are set
42:47 free from sin not because you deserved it by grace. And you are here to love others.
42:55 And that's why uh the earlier verse he says this in chapter 4 verse 6, God
43:02 opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
43:07 Gives grace to the humble. I want to end with an example.
43:14 This is John Wesley, the founder of Methodism and Josh Whitfield. You know, one of the things people like to argue
43:20 about is, and it was very heated, is this theology called Calvinism versus Arminism.
43:26 If you don't understand any of that, don't worry. You didn't miss anything.
43:31 Let the theologist fight about it. But you'll be surprised how churches split over that.
43:38 And it can be very bitter. Now, John Wesley and John Whield had a fight which was so bad. And I heard I I read some of
43:46 the things especially John Mesley wrote who short of calling all Calvinist heretics. The language was really really
43:52 bad. This was a fight and they were good friendsh. Now what happened in their
43:58 later years they made up because they realized they had to love one another and they had to pursue God.
44:05 At his deathbed, George Whitfield, who is a very strong
44:11 Calvinist, gave two rings to the Wesley brothers, one to Charles and one to John.
44:19 And he says this, "In token of my indiscolable union with them, John and
44:25 Charles Wesley, in heart and Christian affection, notwithstanding our differences in
44:32 judgment about some particular point of doctrine. This is maturity."
44:37 And he was very sick at a time. And then George Whitfield died.
44:44 Guess who was asked to speak at his funeral?
44:50 Come on. If this is a charismatic church, I really got to aim. I want this church to be really take the good for
44:55 the charismatics, guys. We are supposed to alive in Christ. Guess who was supposed to speak at the funeral?
45:02 John Wesley. You know what he said? I'm going to read it to you. There are many doctrines of a less
45:09 essential neighbor with regards to which even a sincere child of God are and have
45:16 been divided for many ages. In this we may think and let think we
45:22 may agree to disagree. I want I was wondering whether we should do this. Everybody say agree to
45:29 disagree. Shall we do that? One, two, three. Agree to disagree. Really you got to really take have
45:34 discernment. Agree to disagree. Next you go home, you have a fight with someone. Say agree to disagree. All right. But
45:40 meantime, let us hold fast the essentials of the faith which one delivered the saints and which this
45:46 champion of God so strongly insisted on at all times in all places. And there are two things he said. His fundamental
45:54 point was number one, give God all the glory. Don't condemn. There's only one
46:01 who gives life and destroy. That's God. Give God all the glory or whatever is good in man. Think better of everyone.
46:09 Don't think don't think negatively of everyone. When you judge someone, try to extract some good out that person. And
46:15 he say this in the business of salvation. Set Christ as high.
46:22 You and I are salt and light of this world. We are here to set Christ as high and
46:29 men as low as possible. And this I'd like to suggest is how we judge this
46:37 morning. Brothers and sisters, you have two choices. Either we judge this way
46:44 or you judge this way. Can I ask the worship team to come up? Either this or
46:51 that. And how do we anchor ourselves by the cross? I I just want right now as
46:58 the worship thing come out there. I just want to just ask us to quieten ourselves and look at our relationships.
47:05 You see, to build a church, it's critical we have relationships that are
47:10 transparent, relationships that are forgiving, that you don't build walls with one another. Is important we are a
47:17 church that can love and cry and hug and hold one another. Can I humbly suggest
47:23 we are a long way from that? And I'm going to make a judgment to you.
47:29 In many ways, we are a church of strangers. You know, we are a church of
47:35 strangers. We call ourselves brothers, sisters, but we don't. We keep distances. That's
47:40 hurt. So, I want to open in this prayer that we remember the importance of
47:46 relationship, that vertical relationship and that horizontal relationship. And it's so critical not to judge, to turn
47:55 the other cheek. so people can see the love in us. So let us just open in this prayer oh Lord.
48:02 Lord, we just uh close today about judging others and we ask that we learn
48:08 not to go into unrighteous judgment, oh Lord, that remember grace surrounds us. For
48:15 unrighteous judgment, oh Lord, will lead to slander. And from slander, we learn to hate
48:21 people. And for hating people, we learn to condemn people.
48:27 But Lord, this morning we look at our relationship with one another in church that and in this hall there are people who feel very judged or feel they've
48:34 been offended or feel that feel that they they just really that things were
48:40 not done right to them and and and you are there right now. I'd like to ask that this Lord is speaking to you right
48:46 now and this prayer this prayer is for you brother. If you're sitting there right
48:52 now if you're feeling hurt this prayer is for you sister. If you feel you have been judged by some people, this prayer
48:58 is for you. And we ask we start with a broken spirit that we learn as much as
49:04 before we judge others. We look at ourselves and from that Lord, let our words be
49:09 gentler, that we be a people that be quick to
49:15 listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.
49:21 For our anger doesn't bring about the righteous life that you desire. And from that, teach us to all remember that we
49:28 love our neighbors. Oh Lord, we love each other. That we will not be a church
49:33 of strangers. That today we take small steps. In the end, we learn to glorify
49:38 you. That sometime Lord just give us that discernment. If John Wesley and
49:43 George Whiter could say that we agree to disagree sometimes in this church, let us not
49:49 hold so fast to our fights and our wrongs and we just say let's agree to disagree and we hold on to that two
49:57 fundamental truth that to glorify you Lord and number two to bring Christ up
50:02 that we may be less and you oh Lord will be more. So heal us as a body, heal us as a
50:10 church. Hallelujah. Right now we ask, we just just ask your spirit to just come
50:16 down upon us and we just learn from our charismatic brothers who just open us from this. Open us to just emotions and
50:23 to the power spirit right now in this hall. Lord, remove barriers, break us
50:28 down. Let grace just so fill this place that we can say our chains are broken.
50:36 Such amazing grace. Such amazing grace. They will not be slaves to a judgmental
50:44 spirit, oh Lord. And we say this in Jesus' name. Amen.
