Trinity 4 The Sunday of Mercy and Removing the Log July 5, 2020

Trinity 4
Luke 6:36-42
July 5, 2020

“Don’t Judge—Live in Forgiveness”

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

“DO NOT JUDGE.” That’s what Jesus says. Right in our text today. Luke chapter 6, verse 37. Don’t judge. Now I know that those words are misused all the time. I know that. I know that people love to take those two words like they’re a baseball bat and club Christians over the head with them, “Don’t judge! Don’t judge! The Bible says so! Jesus says so! Don’t judge.” I know all that. I know that there’s a lot of different meanings for the English word “judge”. Different contexts and different understandings. Yes, and I will make sure to talk about all of that in a little bit here.

BUT, it doesn’t change His words. He means what He says, “Don’t judge.” He didn’t say, “Don’t judge,” and then clarify, “Well, I don’t really mean that you shouldn’t judge.” No, He means that you shouldn’t judge. And that means that you and I need to repent. Because we judge all the time. And I don’t mean we judge in the good kinds of judging. Again, I’ll talk about the different judgings in a minute. But first and foremost, you and I need to ask forgiveness because we’re judgmental in the worst way. Because we’ve judged other people, especially people close to us, with no mercy, no forgiveness, no love, and we’ve been total hypocrites about it.

In the song, “Let There be Peace on Earth,” (I’ve picked on this song in a sermon before so I’m sorry for repeating) the second line is, “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.” It’s so easy to sing that line like it’s no big deal, “Let it begin with me.” Oh, how nice! But do you realize what that means? That means you are willing to be the first to do the hard work. That means you’ll to be the first one to go around to all your family, friends, and enemies—anybody that you have anything at all against—and forgive them all and make peace with every single one of them. Are you ready to do that? Because that’s what it means. Did you hear Paul’s words today in Romans 12:18, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” He says it starts with you.

Anybody can say they want peace in the world and then think of far off nations in the middle east and how you wish for peace over there. Anybody can sound like a politician and say, “I’ll work for peace in the world. Trust me.” But it takes actual and serious work to make peace with real people in your life. It’s easy to say, “Let there be peace on earth” but very hard to say to the person that you can’t stand, “I’m at peace with you. I forgive you. I love you and I hold nothing against you.”

Let it begin with me. Can we do that? Yes, we can. And even more than that, Jesus says we have to. He says, “Don’t judge.” And He means it. From the context of His words, we can say clearly what He means by those two words, “Don’t judge.” Because immediately before He is talking about how you should love your enemies and do good to people even when they can’t give you anything in return. Then He sums it all up in verse 36 (the verse immediately before) when He says, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

So we are not to judge anyone if it’s not with mercy and forgiveness. That’s the first point. If you right now find yourself constantly complaining about someone and you think this person is just the worst person in the world, then you need to repent. You are judging hypocritically and without love. If you are right now holding anything over someone else’s head out of anger or revenge then you need to repent and hear Jesus’ words, “Don’t judge. Be merciful.” It’s not your place to be an avenger. As much as we like the action movies where the bad guys “get what they deserve”, being an “avenger” is a sin. There’s only one who gets to be the Avenger and that’s God. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

You and I, however, are told, “Don’t judge. Be merciful. If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he’s thirsty, give him something to drink. Overcome evil with good.”

Can we do this? Can we let peace begin with me? Yes, we can. Because we know Jesus, the Prince of Peace. It’s time to remember the story of Joseph again. It’s the ultimate story of revenge, right? No. But it could’ve been. Joseph was handed the ultimate chance for revenge on a silver platter. Here are the brothers who enslaved him, who sold him off like a piece of garbage. Here they are groveling in front of him in Egypt, completely at Joseph’s mercy. At his disposal he has all the strength of Egypt to punish these despicable brothers. Here it is. Payback time! Time to get what’s comin’ to ‘em!

But no. Joseph hears the words of Jesus 2,000 years before He spoke them. He hears Jesus, “Don’t judge. Be merciful even as your Father is merciful.” And Joseph forgives them and loves them. Those brothers were at his mercy until the day he died. But mercy was all he had for them. Mercy, love, forgiveness.

The truth is peace never begins with me. It always begins with God. With Jesus. God forgave Joseph so he forgave his brothers. That’s how it works. That’s what we pray all the time in the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us as we forgive others.” Here’s how the song could go, “Let there be peace in my life, and let it begin in the Lord’s Supper.” This is where we learn what these words mean, “Don’t judge.” You come here before God’s throne and kneel before Him with all your sins and God says, “I don’t judge. You are forgiven. I judged Jesus in your place. I love you. Go in peace.” And then you take that peace out into your life and you sing, “Let peace begin with me.”

So I entreat you all to hear Jesus’ words this morning, “Don’t judge.” Who are the people right now for you that you need to forgive, love, and not judge without mercy? It is a sibling you’ve been sparring with? It is Governor Pritzker? Is it someone who used to be your friend? Is it someone who’s always taking money from you? Is it your husband or wife? Is it someone on Facebook always posting hatred? Is it your liberal neighbor?

Let Jesus’ words begin with you. “Don’t judge. Be merciful. Love your enemies. Forgive, and you’ll be forgiven. Overcome evil with good.”

Oh, I can already hear the “buts”. “But, but, but. Governor Pritzker? Really? But look at some of the evil things he’s done. But, but, but. You don’t know my sister and what she’s done to me. But aren’t we supposed to stand up against evil? But aren’t we supposed to judge when something isn’t right?”

Yes, as long as you heard the first part of Jesus’ sermon we can start to talk about the rest of those things. But only if you heard His words loud and clear, “Don’t judge! Be merciful! Forgive!” Did you hear those words? If so, then we can talk about the fact that there are places we must judge.

So one way to distinguish this word “judging” is to separate it into three kinds—hypocritical judging which is the specific kind Jesus tells us not to do (when we judge without any mercy or forgiveness); then there’s judicial judging which is when it’s your specific job to judge; and finally there’s simple assessments which we’re all doing all the time, judging what’s right and wrong, good and bad, and so forth.

These are listed in the bulletin insert. So you can see there are types of good judging that we do all the time. For instance, parents are judges. That’s their job. God has told them to judge their children. If they don’t judge, then they’re sinning. Police are judges. That’s their job. They judge when you’re breaking the laws and they punish. On the flip side, they judge when you’re doing right and they protect you. So this is all over the place. God has given all of us jobs where we are supposed to judge. So

And then the other general type of good judging is all the assessments we make all the time. God commands us to do this. To assess what’s good and bad and stay away from the bad. To assess what’s right and wrong. To assess what’s true and what’s false. Our tool for this is the Word of God. The Bible helps us to judge rightly. To determine what’s good and right and true.

But then there’s still always that one specific kind of judging that Jesus condemns. That’s when you’re a hypocrite and you judge without mercy. For this Jesus uses a very picturesque illustration. He says that you have a giant tree trunk growing out of your eye socket. You can’t see anything because this huge log is blocking your view. And yet you’re trying to point out little tiny specks in someone else’s eye. You judge others when you yourself do the very same things and even much worse. You’re a hypocrite. You refuse to forgive even though God forgives you. You refuse to let others have mercy even though you expect God to show you mercy.

This is the one kind of judging we cannot be part of. This is the kind of judging Jesus is saying clearly to us today, “Don’t judge.”

Now to bring these three kind of judging together then, let me use one of the easiest examples I gave earlier—Governor Pritzker (you could use any government official). Yes, you are called to judge him in certain ways. For instance, it’s always your job as a citizen to judge him at the ballot box. That’s part of your vocation. And you should do that. Second, it’s certainly your job to assess the work he’s doing. We make the assessment that his support of abortion is evil and we should work against it. From God’s Word we clearly determine that some legislation he supports is bad and wrong and false. And we should tell others when his work is not good.

BUT here also stands Jesus clear words, “Don’t judge. Don’t be a hypocrite. Be merciful. Forgive.”  Governor Pritzker is not any worse of a sinner than you are. You are both equally offensive before God. And Jesus shed His blood for him just as much as He shed His blood for you. Hopefully you’re seeing the point. “Don’t judge,” Jesus says. You must love Him and everyone else in your life. You must be merciful.

The simplest way to ensure that we’re judging correctly is simply to ask, “Am I truly loving this person? Am I doing everything out of love and mercy? Or is there some anger and vengeance and hatred mixed in there?” If love is guiding all your actions and words, then you will judge correctly. You won’t judge without mercy and hypocritically like Jesus warns against—but you will judge only so that another person may share in the same peace that you have in Jesus Christ.

Now then—a final word. Jesus is basically setting up a dichotomy. You can live in mercy or you can live in judgment. I can see that there are some days I live mostly in judgment. God, forgive me. You can see that too about yourself, right? But then there are days I live mostly in mercy. In God’s mercy. And that is the joy of a Christian. Jesus wants you to live in mercy, not judgment. To have His mercy for you yourself and to have His mercy for others.

Look at the image He uses in verse 38. He pictures mercy like it’s something you’re measuring out for a recipe. You can live in judgment and be a stickler about everything being measured out just exactly perfect and everything gets what they deserve and you’ll measure out those two tablespoons of sugar just exact—no more and no less. Or you can live in mercy and you don’t care about measuring—you just pour in the sugar until everything is sweet. That’s how God measures out mercy to you and how you should measure it out to others: “Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.”

In Jesus’ name. Amen.