Lent 5 April 7, 2019 The Sunday of Jesus Greater than Abraham

Lent 5
John 8:42-59
April 7, 2019

“From Above or From Below? How do you Judge?”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Latin name for this Sunday is Judica. The word means “judge”. So we literally have a Sunday today called “Judge Sunday”. Do you think this will go over well in the world today—Judge Sunday? Yikes. What is this, a Sunday where all you Christians are trained in being judgmental? Is this a Sunday where you learn how to judge others? Where you learn how to be a bunch of hypocrites who go around judging everyone but yourselves?

It comes from the first word of the Introit. Now our translation of the Introit today, which is from Psalm 43, says “vindicate” instead of “judge”. But the old King James has “judge”. And who is the Introit asking God to judge? “Judge me, O God.” Aha. There it is. Judge me, O God. This will be where we end up eventually again—judge me, O God. But first we’ve got to do some work on this word judge in the Scriptures.

You really have to think through this word “judge”. There’s a time to judge and a time not to judge. But if you listen to today’s culture, it says that we should never judge. Ever. And a favorite insult against Christians is that we’re just being judgmental. And then you have Jesus’ own words which say, “Judge not, lest you be judged.” So we’ve got to be able to think through the Scriptures and figure out when we are to judge and when not to judge.

To put it very simply, there are times when it’s your job to judge and times when it’s not your job. (We call that vocation or office.) So if you’ve been elected a judge in the courts of our United States, then obviously you are to judge. It’s your job. If you’re a parent, obviously you’re to judge. That’s your job. Judge your kids, when they’re good and when they’re bad. If you’re a teacher, a police officer, in the military, a boss, etc.—in all these jobs you are to judge. It’s part of your office. Pastors are to judge. It’s part of my office.

But, of course, there are places where it’s not our job to judge. None of us can go into court and start banging the gavel and saying, “I declare him guilty.” It’s not our job to start dressing up in a police costume and pulling people over for speeding and charging them $100. It’s not our office. And when Jesus says, “Judge not,” He also sets limits to when it’s our place to judge and when not. We certainly aren’t to judge the salvation of others since none of us can peer into a man’s soul and see if he believes in Jesus Christ for his salvation.

However, all of this being said, there is one place that we’re always to be judging. There’s one place where we always get to be the big important judge sitting on the raised bench in our black gown with gavel in hand. We’re always to be judging what we hear—whether it’s true or whether it’s not. All that we’re taught and told in the world be it from advertisements, from internet, from Wikipedia, from friends, from newspaper, from teachers, from cable news, from anywhere—we should always be judging, “Is this true or not?” Is what I’m hearing something true from above, wisdom and truth that’s ultimately from God, or is it false and evil, ultimately a lie from the devil?

With the rise of the internet, this is absolutely crucial for everyone to be a judge. Because there’s so much information available to us now (information overload) with our phones and TVS and internet. How do you know what’s true and what’s not true? Because we all know there’s a lot of information out there that’s simply not true. There’s a lot of money to be made today in getting people to believe things that aren’t true. You must be a judge. You must determine what’s true and what’s not true in everything that you’re hearing. We’ll talk about how.

(Sermon switches to an outline here…)

Jesus in a hot debate with the leaders of the Jews – what’s true, what’s not
- Whole of chapter 8 is about truth (if you abide in My word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free)
- The Jews claim they have the truth, Jesus claims He has the truth
  - Gets pretty heated (“We weren’t born of sexual immorality!”)
  - “You’re a Samaritan! A demon!”
- Yet Jesus keeps coming back to them with one thing—they refuse to hear the Word of God
  - Jesus sets it up very clearly—whatever we hear is either from God or from the devil
  - From above or from below
  - Truth or lies
  - And the way you tell is if it aligns with the truth of God’s Word
  - God will always be the judge
- The reason they refuse to hear the truth is because they’re not from God. They haven’t been judged by God.
  - Whoever keeps the Word of God, on the other hand, Jesus says they will never see death
Here’s the problem for you and me—same problem it was for the Jews Jesus was arguing with…
- The problem is we think we’re always right
- Then we judge whether something’s true or not simply by if its agrees with us
- If it doesn’t agree with us, then we say it’s wrong
- So since Jesus didn’t agree with the leaders of the Jews, they concluded that He was wrong and He was a liar and a demon and a Samaritan
- That’s the wrong kind of judging
- We do it too.
- Very often we judge what we hear only by if it agrees with us…rather than if it agrees with the word of God
So the only way that you’ll ever to be able to judge rightly…is if you yourself are first judged rightly by God’s Word
- And that’s exactly what Jesus does
- He judges us with the Word of God
- And where we are judged wrong, He took that judgement for us on the cross
- The Jews He debated with were wrong—and yet that’s exactly why Jesus went to the cross for them
  - To win forgiveness for them…And for you and me
So I’m back to where I started today…”Judge me, O God.” Judge Sunday
- We ask God truly to judge us
- That’s what you did in the Confession and Absolution this morning
- That’s what you do when you pray every morning and evening
- You ask God to judge you with His Word
- Where you are wrong, you repent and ask for forgiveness for the sake of Christ
- The only way to judge rightly is if we’re first judged rightly by God’s Word
- The one who keeps Jesus’ Word, as He says, will never see death
Is this not, as a Christian, one of our ultimate goals – to know what’s true and what’s not?
- That’s a big part of our life, right?
- A big part of what we ask from God, right?
- To know what’s true and what’s a lie
- So we keep Jesus’ Word and let God judge us…
- Then we are able to judge what’s coming to us and whether it’s true or not true
  - Remember that after Jesus says, “Judge not,” then He says, “lest you be judged.” And He goes on to say that once you remove the log from your own eye, then you’ll be able to see the speck in your brother’s eye.”
Once God judges us with His Word, then we see better to judge what’s coming toward us
In John 7:24, Jesus says, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
- That’s what we want as Christians
- It’s our place and office and job to judge what we’re hearing all the time…is it true or not? From above or from below?
- We want to judge not by appearances, though, but by right judgment
- And right judgment is the Word of God
- First being judged ourselves by God’s Word—being justified and forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ and correcting our own hearts and our own thinking…
  - And then judging with the Word of God all other things we hear
- And then we can hear how true these words are from Jesus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My Word, He will never see death.”
In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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