God Judges You Righteous

Text: Luke 6:27-38 Speaker: Pastor Matthew Ude Festival: Epiphany Passages: Luke 6:27-38

Luke 6:27-38

Verse 37 – “Judge not least you be judged.”

This is a verse from scripture that is used often. You hear it all the time. But it is never used correctly and seldom if ever properly understood.

Left to himself, without God’s guidance and God’s Holy Spirit, Man will always make one of two errors. Either he will become judgmental, counting every sin which another does, holding that sin against them forever, or he will deny sin altogether and insist that everyone ought to live however they want.

The first sin is the sin of the pietists. Pietists try to use the law to make loving Christian people but end up judging and condemning everyone for every tiny little infraction.

The second sin is that of the atheist. They claim that there is no sin, that divorce and adultery and homosexuality and many other things do not matter. Such a person is an atheist even if they claim to believe in God. For our God is a God who judges sin, otherwise why did Christ die? To deny sin is to spit on the death of Christ as a useless and superfluous thing. To claim Christ is only an example for us is to make a mockery of the agony that Christ suffered so that we could be forgiven our sin. If there is no sin, there is no need for forgiveness. If there is no need for forgiveness Christ’s death was utter emptiness.

God does not do worthless thing. Jesus did not die only to find out that sin doesn’t really matter. Jesus shed his blood in order to wash away my sin. Sin is real and the judgement of sin is Jesus death on the cross, therefore God judges You Righteous

Why then does Jesus tell us not to judge others, even though it is clear that God does judge sin. How then are we to properly understand this phrase “Judge not?”

There are three things we need to understand to see this verse used correctly 1. GOD judges, 2. God judges YOU 3. God judges you RIGHTEOUS

 God judges

Romans 14:4  Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand

James 4:12  There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?

One distinction we must make is distinguishing between my judgement and God’s judgement.

Sometimes you hear children, especially maybe an older sister, making rules for their younger siblings that there parents did not make. They want to be like their parents and they think that is what parents do. Sometimes we think being like God means making up rules others have to follow.

God has made it clear that murder is sin, to call murder sin is not my judgement but God’s. God is clear that adultery and fornication are sins, to call fornication a sin is not my judgement but God’s.

If I critize or think poorly of someone because they don’t mow their lawn, that is my judgement. If I judge another because of their garden, their hygiene, the cleanliness of their house, their political views, their grasp of grammar, their reading habits, this is my judgement. No where in all of scripture does God condemn these things. The proverb “cleanliness is next to godliness” is not from scripture but from man’s own imagination.

Jesus says we are not to judge. He does not say that God does not judge. Where God’s word is spoken that is God’s judgement. Where God’s word has not spoken that is our judgement. We need to make decisions about such things for our lives. We need to talk about them and discuss them with others. But we do not have the right to condemn others where God’s word has not spoken.

God judges sin, we do not add to God’s judgement.

GOD Judges YOU

Psalm 51:4 “against you, you alone have I sinned and done this evil in your sight”

The second distinction we need to make is sin against us versus sin against God. Against us personally there is no sin. As David makes clear in Psalm 51. All sin is against God and Him alone. Judgement is always between God and the sinner. When Elijah had the prophets of Baal thrown in the water, it was because they had sinned against God, it was not personal retribution. When the earth opened up and swallowed the sons of Korah, it was because they had set themselves against God, not because they had opposed Moses.

Just because God judges my sin does not mean that I have the right to judge others. It is my sin against God that is judged when I read scripture not my neighbors.

Learn this word and keep it safe  in your hearts and thoughts “chief of sinners though I be.” What does this mean? It means that I and I alone am the worst of sinners. No one is worse than I am. And because I myself am the worst of sinners there is no sin that any can do against me that I do not deserve. Whatever happens to me in this life I deserve worse, therefore there is NO one who has ever or who can ever sin against me.

It is as if a murder is not caught for his murder, but instead is accused of a theft he didn’t commit. He might get really angry about being punished for a theft he didn’t commit, but really he deserves a much worse punishment. He has no right to be angry.

We deserve worse, then anything that happens to us. But “Jesus has redeemed me a lost and condemned person, He has purchased and won me from all sin from death and from the power of the devil. Not with gold or silver but with his holy precious blood.” We have no grounds to complain about anything that happens to us in this life.

Having said that however, it is usually wise to simply ask the person who has hurt you about it. Most of the time they do not ever realize what they did or said and will gladly apologize. Since we are sinners and do often carry grudges it is better to simply talk about it in a loving manner rather than stew in anger for years.

Matthew 18:15  ¹⁵ “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.

Yes God judges sin, but His word judges you.  He does not call on you to judge anyone else, and through Jesus Christ he has judged you righteous.

God Judges You Righteous

Isaiah 43:25  “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; And I will not remember your sins.

The third distinction we need to make here is the correct distinction between judgement and forgiveness. This is seen in what God reveals about Himself and His own nature. God judges sin but where there is repentance for Christ’s sake the sin is gone. Call sin sin and do not shrink back from the fullness of the law, yet when one has repented the sin is gone completely, it no longer exists, it did not happen.

I tell you truly there is no one in the church of God who is an idolater, adulter, fornicator, covertor, law breaker, liar or any other sin. Even though people of God have done these things nevertheless they are forgiven in Christ Jesus to the point where they do not exist anymore.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11   9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,  10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.  11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

If any did such things in the past they are wiped away in the blood of Christ they no longer exist. These things belong to the old us who died daily in the waters of baptism.

If God does not remember these thing, who are we to remember them?

Jeremiah 31:34  For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.

Where there is repentance there ought to be no remembrance. With God this is true, He has judged us righteous through Jesus Christ. We ought to do the same towards one another. We should not judge them for sin over which they have repented but forgetting all, we should move forward in the love of Christ.

God has judged sin. His laws are more than enough for any of us, we do not need to add more to them.

God’s judgement on sin is for you, that you may learn your sin and rejoice in Christ. It is not there for you to use as a weapon against others.

God has wiped away your sin and remembers it no more at all. In Christ it is gone forever.

God judges you righteous.

Amen