Chuck Swindoll (born 1934) is an Evangelical Christian pastor, author and educator. You may know him from his radio program, Insight for Living, which airs on 2,000 different radio stations around the world. He tells of being at a pastor’s conference in Spokane, Washington. On the first day, a man approached him and told him how excited he was to hear him preach. That evening as the service began, Swindoll noticed the man sitting near the front. But only a few minutes into the message, the man was sound asleep. Swindoll thought to himself that perhaps he was tired after a long day’s journey and couldn’t help himself. But the same thing happened the next few nights, and Dr. Swindoll found his exasperation with the man growing. On the last night, the man’s wife came up and apologized for her husband’s inattention to the messages. She then explained. He had recently been diagnosed as having terminal cancer and the medication he was taking to ease the pain made him extremely sleepy. But it had been one of his life-long ambitions to hear Dr. Swindoll speak before he died, and now he had fulfilled that goal. Swindoll was humbled by her words and ashamed by his own thoughts. When was the last time you wrongly judged someone? That question takes us to our scripture lesson.
Our scripture reading is Acts 18:12-17. The Apostle Paul is in the city of Corinth. According to our first verse, it was when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia. That means it is about the year 51 AD. At that time Gallio was respected in that corner of the world for two reasons. First, Gallio was respected because he was well connected. His brother, Seneca, was the tutor of Nero, the Roman Emperor. Second, Gallio was respected because had shown himself to be a fair and calm man. It is that quality that saved Paul.
Once again, Paul had worn out his welcome. The Jews had grown tired of his lecturing in the synagogue and dragged him into court. Gallio was the judge. They felt like they had a solid case against Paul. He was worshipping God in a new way. They may have been the first to recognize that Christianity stood alone. It was not an offshoot of Judaism, making it an illegal religion in the eyes of Rome. As Paul was about to defend himself, Gallio threw the whole case out. He ruled that it is not a matter of the state, rather it was an internal matter among the Jews. Everyone is expelled from the courtroom. Then the ugly scene grows uglier. The Jews are more than embarrassed. They turn on the ruler of the synagogue, Sosthenes, and beat him. It sounds shocking to us, but it must have been just another day for Gallio. He didn’t seem to care. In the end, the group that wanted to make Paul look bad, made themselves look bad. That is what always happens when you judge others. In the end they make themselves look bad. When was the last time you judged someone harshly? When was the last time you made yourself look bad?
Webster defines judgement as: the act or process of forming an opinion after careful thought. We don’t need the word defined, because we have been judged and we have all judged others. There is no other way to say it – judging hurts everyone. Judging hurts the person who is judged. Judging hurts the one who judges. Judging creates a negative environment. Judging damages relationships and organizations. It is painfully true. When judging occurs within the life of the church the church itself gets damaged. We should know better. Jesus told us not to judge. Do you remember the story?
It is found in the eighth chapter of John. The story is the adulterous woman. Jesus is at the Mount of Olives teaching about the Kingdom of God. Without warning, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees appear dragging an adulterous woman with them. It takes two people to commit adultery, a man and a woman. However, in this story the woman stands alone. The Old Testament law was clear. The woman must be stoned to death. Jesus looked at the woman and had pity on her. He doesn’t respond at first, he writes something in the sand. After a period of silence, Jesus looks at the judging crowd and says, “Ye that is without sin cast the first stone.” Everyone in the crowd dropped their stone because everyone in the crowd had sinned. The crowd disperses, and Jesus tells the woman to sin no more. There is only one point to this story – judging is wrong, yet everyone judges. Judging is a sin, yet everyone judges. The problem is not Jesus. The Master spoke clearly, “DON’T JUDGE!” The problem is us, we simply refuse to apply this teaching to our lives. When was the last time you judged someone harshly?
Years ago, my family was vacationing at Fort Myers Beach, Florida. Most of our time was spent around the pool or at the beach. We didn’t have a car. It really didn’t matter, because we could walk to the beach or a store for supplies. When we walked to the store we took the shortest route. It was through an empty parking lot next to a closed plaza. There was only one store in the plaza left, a liquor store. We walked by that liquor store several times. It was always busy. One of the times we walked by the liquor store my daughter, Sarah, said to me, “I love people in liquor stores!” She was an adult, and I was limited in what I could say. I asked, “Why?” She answered, “Most people in liquor stores have so many problems, they don’t have time to judge you. In church, everyone feels like they have their lives in order, so they have lots of time to judge you. Church people judge you; liquor store people leave you alone.” I didn’t respond because I thought she might be right. She worked on a church staff for nearly six years and did a great job. She left that job for several reasons. One of the reasons was she grew tired of being judged by church people. Do you find some truth in her statement: “In church, everyone feels like they have their lives in order, so they have lots of time to judge you?” When you judge others, you damage the church, the bride of Christ.
When you judge others, you reveal your greatest flaws. Psychologists tell us we judge other people to fill in various voids in our lives. A website called PositivelyPresent.com wrote about these voids in a May 2009 article called Stop Judging. How many of these voids do you have in your life?
We judge because we are afraid! Our prejudices fall into this category. That means, you judge the person or group that intimidates you. The more you judge a person or a group, the more that person or group intimidates you. Jesus does not want us to be intimidated by anyone. Never forget it – you are a child of God! When you judge, you are telling the world you are afraid!
We judge because we are lonely! One of our greatest human fears is loneliness. We rarely judge in isolation. We find others who hold the same opinions and form a bond with them. This is odd to say, but judging fills a social void. When you judge, you are telling the world you are lonely!
We judge because we are hungry for change! I have never met a person who had a perfect life. Everybody wants to change something. We judge the person who has what we want. For example, someone predicts a failed marriage because they want to be married, or they are bored in their own marriage. When we judge, we tell the world we are seeking a change!
We judge because we are insecure! This is the bottom line on judging. We really don’t care for ourselves, so we put others down. The goal is to make others less attractive than ourselves. The goal is to get the attention off yourself, so others won’t see your imperfections. The more you judge others, the less you like yourself. When you judge, you are telling the world you are insecure!
Can I ask you our question one more time? When was the last time you judged someone harshly? When you did, you were telling the world you were afraid, lonely, hungry for a change and insecure.
In 1884, Charles Elliot (1801-1875) was president of Harvard University. One day on his agenda was a couple who wanted to establish a memorial in the name of their son. When the grieving couple came, they were very unimpressive. Elliot wished they would just leave. They were wasting his valuable time. Trying to speed through the appointment, he asked the couple what he could do. They spoke of some kind of memorial, but their words fell on deaf ears. In a patronizing tone, Eliot brushed aside the idea as being too expensive for this modest couple and they departed. The next year, Elliot learned that this plain pair had gone elsewhere and established a $26 million memorial named Leland Stanford Junior University. Today, we call their memorial Stanford University. Charles Elliot judged this couple wrongly and he missed out on a great opportunity. Can I ask you a question? What great opportunities have you lost because you judged wrongly?
When was the last time you judged someone harshly? You know better! In the true church, judging others will not be tolerated. It is a sin. In the true church everyone should be accepted the way they are. Albanian born Catholic nun Mother Teresa (1910-1997) said, “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
Russ Adams 