John 7:53 - 8:11
The world has little use for those who condemn others from any system of belief. For Christians, it is especially troubling because our own Bible guides us away from such behavior.
A Story of the Improper Concept of Spiritual Authority
· You cannot judge a person by what others say about him, but you can judge a person by what he says about others.
· You can judge methods, but you cannot judge motives until they are confessed. You can judge what a person does, but you cannot judge why a person does it.
Why Guard Against Judging?
·Because we don’t know all the facts
· Because of the Log Jam in our eyes v.3
·Because what goes around comes around
·The truth is, what you think of others is usually what others think of you.
A Story of the Improper Valuing of Persons
·Using the weaknesses of people to get something you want is to reduce people to the level of tools.
·Religion takes pride in its accomplishments. You should never take credit for what God has done. You merely stand in awe. God did not have to use you to do His work.
·The minute people become things, the spirit of Christianity is dead.
·To God, no person ever becomes a thing. In God’s eyes there are no little people.
·Labels enable us to say things about people we would never say directly to their face.
·Social media has done more to dehumanize and devalue people than any other device given to man.
A Story of God’s Attitude Toward People with a Past
·One of the most common faults in life is that so many of us demand standards from others that we have neverreached ourselves.
·Your sin may not be as public as another, but it is still as putrid to God.
·The qualification for judging is not knowledge we possess. It is righteousness; and none of us possess that except God.
A Story of the Proper Judgment of Sin
·God wants us to become free from sin; He wants us to separate from that which is destroying us.
·We don't change in order to be accepted, but because we have been accepted.
·Jesus' attitude to the sinner involved a number of things.
·It involved the second chance.
·Jesus was always intensely interested, not only in what a person had been, but also in what a person couldbe.
·It involved pity mixed with understanding.
·It involved a challenge to change.
·It involved belief in the transforming power of grace.
·This story is an unfinished story.
