Tonight I was talking to somebody I can’t remember who it was. And they said, “Who am I to judge?” And it got me thinking of a couple of scriptures. We all know what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7 verse 1, “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged”
and people use that a lot. But folks, here’s a little thing we kind of overlook. If you say you are a Christian you fall into a different category of being judged. So. if you say, “Hey, I’m a Christian”, you’re fair game on this one.
If you look at first Corinthians chapter 5 verses 12 and 13, Paul is talking about this subject. He says, “It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, “You must remove the evil person from among you.”
So folks, if you say you’re a Christian, it is your responsibility to judge other people claim to be a christian. Now, when we say judge, we’re not pronouncing a sentence on somebody. The word judge here in Greek is Kreeno’, which means to call to question our question what someone is doing. In easier terms Paul is saying “it isn’t my responsibility to question outsiders, but it is certainly your responsibility to question those inside the church, believers, who are sinning. God will call to question those outside the church, unbelievers. So we deal with the people inside the church, God will handle everybody else. Now, that doesn’t mean that we don’t share God’s love with them, or tell them about our the hope we have in Jesus Christ, or why we believe what we believe when they ask.
Folks, we need to be like Jesus, He was very confrontational and intolerant at times and it usually dealt with the distortion of the Truth. But, He was also tolerant of sinners in need of a Savior, He was opposed to religious hypocrisy or Biblical distortion. And we should be also. He wasn’t going to provoke the anger in others without a good reason. At the same time, Jesus did not shy away from calling people out that needed to be corrected in their perspective or behavior.
So folks, yes, we can judge. Like I said earlier, if you say you’re a Christian, you’re fair game, to be called out when you’re not living a holy life as Jesus commands. What we need to do is ask Jesus every day, Examine my heart, purify my heart, Lord, and help me live a holy and righteous life for I can serve and bring glory to you.
The Scriptural Truth 