Do Not Judge

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Let's pray, because I'm going to need some water. Lord God, thank you so much for your goodness and grace in our lives. Jesus, the fact that you spoke some hard words, sometimes hard words that we don't even know what to do with at times, or we have twisted and misused to just make ourselves look good and think that we're better than. And Lord God, we know that that's happened. We've seen it all over the place in the last few weeks, in the media, in so many different ways, where we're judging each other in so many different forms, in so many different ways, and justifying everything that we want to be about, Lord God. We're coming before you right now. And in this place, Lord, we want to hear from you. And we want to hear from you so that we are people who see clearly, see you clearly and see your ways clearly to discern truth, but also, Lord, to show your truth, your mercy, your grace to ourselves and everyone else. So help us, Lord, in this hour, in this time that we are together. We pray, Lord, too, that this isn't just happening here, that you are visiting us here in this place, but that this is happening across the Christian church throughout the world, that we become people, Lord, that are so full of you, Lord Jesus, that that's who people see more than anything else, because this world needs you, Lord. We see that every day. And so it's in your name we pray this. Amen. Okay. Judge. You know, when you hear that verse in a conversation with somebody, have you ever heard that verse in a conversation with somebody? It's usually spoken back at you with a little toad going on. Do you know what I mean? It's never judge not, you shall not be judged, but it's like judge not and you shall not. You don't judge me because you're going to get judged. It's kind of that attitude. It might even be in the King James version, which is judge not lest ye be judged. You know, Jesus said that he did. We're going to try to figure out what does he mean by that? What does he mean? Most people. This is the most pervasive. Cultural kind of phenomenon, I think, across the United States right now, because people want to say, don't tell me how to live. I'm not going to tell you how to live. Don't tell me how to live. You can't tell me what's right and wrong. As long as it makes me happy and I'm not hurting anybody. Everything's OK. You heard that before. Yeah. OK. So we're going to look at that as well. Now, it's a little better, maybe judge not lest ye be judged than the attitude, I think, that my wife and I faced when we were out in the Central Valley of California 20 years ago. We got out there. We noticed the cultural area that we were in was kind of unique. It was a combination of libertarianism and fundamentalism. OK, I know that sounds kind of odd, but what it was is I heard a number of people look at me and say, don't you come here with your big education and tell me how to live, what to do or what to do with my property, my life or anything. But I'm going to tell you how to live. So it's like that was a really tough attitude to deal with. And what I think was happening in California 20 years ago now, I'm sorry to say, is happening across the entire United States today. And we saw it in like big banner terms the last few weeks and all the media and all the Facebook posts that I saw. It's like, oh, gosh, can we just get back to the cute little kittens again? You know, come on or show me so I can be jealous of your holiday or vacation. Show me that. I just. Oh, it's all. Don't tell me what to do. Don't tell me what's wrong with me. But I'm going to tell you what's wrong with. And it's like, wow, how do you even have a dialogue in those times? Now, judge not lest ye be judged. Have you ever been judged wrongly? Any of you ever been judged wrongly? Do you know how that feels? Yeah, it's no fun. It's no fun at all. None at all. It stinks to be judged, especially incorrectly. You know, so last week we dealt with one of the top reasons why people leave Christianity behind the faith. And that was basically, you know, well, I prayed. I prayed for that and God didn't answer the prayer and I prayed again and I prayed again. And then he. So God didn't answer the prayer the way he needed him to answer the prayer. Therefore, he must not exist. This whole thing's a sham. I'm walking away. So that was kind of last week. This week we're talking about probably the top reason people stay out of the Christian church in the first place. And that is Christians are so judgmental. You heard that one before. Well, it's a fact that in a book called Un-Christian. Un-Christian was written in 2007 by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, and they discovered in their research, they interviewed people ages 16 to 19, specifically that age group about Christianity. And what they found is that 90 percent of them said this ...