Judge Not Watch your heart toward your brethren

Judge Not… Watch your heart toward your brethren

Everyday “Judgments” • From mundane to big “decisions”. • Spiritual: decisions on what we believe… and those decisions evolve as we grow in Christ. • Relationships: – People of the world. – “Brethren”.

A Big Problem Among “Brethren” • This passage of scripture gets lots of mileage by non-believers against believers. • But this problem of “judging” is really brutal among brethren. • Jesus’ target audience: Brethren “judging” brethren.

The problem: being judgmental Matthew 7: 1 -6 • We’re ALL judgmental to a certain degree. • When our heart is not right we can find the smallest “speck” of a problem in others. • We can also be blind to the “logs” in our own lives.

Judgment examples: beliefs/practices • One brother “judges” one day above another… another “judges” everyday alike. Rom. 14: 5, 10 • There a host of other beliefs/ practices not listed in scripture that one will judge as biblically wrong and another acceptable. How do we look at these brethren whom we judge as wrong? Jas. 4: 11 -12

Judge This “Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine (“judge”) this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way. ” Romans 14: 13

Judge This So then we pursue things which make for peace and the building up of one another. ” Romans 14: 19