Judge Not Lest You Be Judged

Tomorrow I am speaking on the passage Judge not lest you be judged, Matt 7:1-12 at The Dwelling Place Church on Remington Road in Loveland, Ohio. Dwelling Place is a warm, loving community of forgivers led by Pastor Rich Femia.

Rich and I met in the Seventies after he returned from Viet Nam. He and a groups of reborn students began to meet at an old church building for prayer and Bible study. Before long the few members asked them to take the Church building and care for it and build a new community of believers.

About ten years ago Rich asked me to be his Pastor and we have developed a great relationship. Every few weeks he asks me to preach the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ and His resurrection power. Dwelling Place was once known as Remington Fellowship and then as Harvest Fellowship but sensed about two years ago that the Lord was leading them to emphasize resting or dwelling in His sufficiency and love.

It is in some ways a difficult topic because we all tend to judge. As a speaker and writer I am able to take the Bible at its word and reveal, in most instances, what it says and means. However, I am not always able to practice what I preach.

The cartoon above shows how tough that can be and why we preachers are always challenged to preach the truth but know that what we say will very likely come back to judge us. In that case the preacher spoke on patience but had little for the kids in his service. I have been writing about the Imus' situation and now will speak about the tongue on Sunday morning. I can see how hard it is to even discuss Imus without being judgmental myself.

We must, of course, judge people and events. So, what did Jesus mean when He said, "Judge not or you will be judged?" We need to see the rest of that passage and place it into the context of Jesus' entire sermon to understand how we can follow His teachings. More on that later.