Judging Others, Pt. 1

Ronald Weinland

September 7, 2019

Midway through the past series it was mentioned that there was going to be a new series on the subject of judgment, and this is that sermon today. It’s entitled Judging Others. This is Part 1.

Whenever discussing this subject it’s difficult to begin without addressing two things that Joshua said about this subject. John 8:15; it says, You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. Now, there’s been a lot of confusion about things like this and other scriptures that we’ll take a look at here, but it’s very simple what he’s saying. He’s just making a comparison here, “I don’t judge anyone after the flesh. You do. You judge according to the flesh, but I don’t judge anyone according to the flesh.” In other words, judging them physically. There is more to his judgment and that’s what he’s telling here. So that’s what it means, that’s what it’s discussing.

Verse 16 goes on to say, And yet if I do judge, my judgment is true; for I am not alone... Alone in what? In the judging process and what judging is all about. We’re to learn from this. We’re to follow this example. He says, but I and the Father who sent me. So it’s a judgment together. And better said, it’s said, “But it is I and the Father who sent me who have judged.” That’s the context. This happens in the Church a great deal. There are things that have to be judged. There are things that have to be done within the order, within the functioning of a Church and God gives us that responsibility, that charge, and it’s a matter of how it’s done though that’s important. That’s what this sermon has a lot to do with, obviously.

Then in John 5:30 it goes on to say. He went on to say, Of myself I can do nothing. So again, the subject matter here is about judgment. You can’t just fill in something there and say, “Well, he can’t do anything!” That’s not what it’s talking about. He’s talking about the subject of judging all through this chapter. “Of myself I can do nothing.” We can’t judge right. We can’t judge properly. Of ourselves, we’re going to judge in error. Of ourselves, without God, we’re going to perceive things the way we see it, the way “I” see it. That’s the way we do it as human beings. That’s why he said in the beginning, “I don’t judge anyone according to the flesh. You do!” Everyone else does. That’s the way we are. But when God calls us in the Church we’re to begin making a change in that. That is so needed in God’s Church always. We need to grow in that always because it is a matter of spiritual growth, becoming more at one with God, coming more into unity with God.

He went on to say, As I hear, I judge. Hear what? Is it talking about what he’s hearing from different ones, what they’re saying? Well, obviously, that’s going to be a part of judgment, you’ve got to hear certain things, but that’s not what the discussion is here. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is righteous. It’s awesome to be able to say that, to be able to have that kind of mind, to have that kind of confidence. But he obviously was the Word of God made flesh and that mind being so incredibly unique. But it’s a mind that we’re to strive to grow in. It’s a thinking that we desire and want to have.

But he went on to say, “and my judgment is righteous.” Ours should be as well, and it can be. Not of our own, but because of what he has to say here in how we’re to judge. Because I do not seek my own will... The way “I” see it, the way “I” want things to be, the way “I” think things should be or whatever it might be. I do not seek my own will but the will of the Father who sent me. As we judge various matters in life, especially when it obviously has to do with others, this is what should be in the forefront of our thinking all the time. What is God’s mind in this? What is God’s will in this? Especially when we talk about a fellowship within the environment of the Church, all who have God’s spirit dwelling within them, it’s more important than that this be done in this manner, that we need to consider what God’s will is in other people’s lives.

Now, it is in the world as well, and sometimes it’s much easier to deal with the world if we can keep that in our mind as well, because judging certain situations in the world, what do you oftentimes come to? The same thing Christ said. The same thing Stephen, in essence, said. “They don’t know what they’re doing.” We can’t expect people to know what we know. We can’t expect people to react properly to things. They’re in bondage. They’re in captivity. They don’t have the ability we do. We can see quickly what they should be doing. We can see those matters, judging right and wrong and realize what things are going to lead to, what’s going to happen in their life if they’re living wrong. But it’s a different matter when it involves people in the Church.

Even there in dealing with matters in the world oftentimes your relationships with others the way you think about others you can handle a lot more if you can keep that in the forefront of your mind. They can’t help what they’re doing. They’re in captivity. They can’t help the way their minds are. Only God can begin to free them from that and help them to see things in a right way in their life. So whatever they’ve grown up with, whatever they’ve gotten into in life, the drama, the hardships, the cycle of life that so often people just repeat over and over and over again because of sin, it’s not going to get better. It just gets worse as time continues on. Our lives are different. God calls us to a change, to the blessing of being able to have our minds transformed. That means to think differently.

That’s why I love the word “repent” because it means in the Greek language “to think differently.” God gives us the ability, the means to begin to truly think differently. So much of this enters in then when it comes to a matter of judgment because this is about relationships. Judgment is about relationships. The relationship we have within the Church is awesomely unique because it’s about a fellowship that God gives us with one another. We need to think right toward one another, because if our thinking is wrong towards others, who are God’s, who belong to God—the whole world does—but so much more in the sense of understanding a calling that everyone has been given and the impregnation of God’s spirit that every baptized member has been given within the Body, then it becomes more expedient upon us to make sure that our relationship with, our fellowship with others in the Body is right before God.

That comes down to how do we think about them? Because if we think wrong toward them, not according to God’s will, we’re thinking wrong toward God and His Son. We really are. We’re messed up. Our minds have to become right in that area in how we think about others because that has to be in the context of what is God’s will in their life! We need to think about that, need to think on that. What is God’s will in another person’s life within the Body of Christ? What is His will for them? So are you supporting that by your thinking? Are you supporting that by your conduct? Are you supporting that in your speech? On and on it goes. Because it’s a matter of what comes out of our mind. Are we in unity with that, with the will of God? This is all about judgment. Awesome. Powerful.

So again, it’s so very, very important that we come to grasp the importance of what Christ was saying in these verses here because this sets the example, the method and the way in which we’re to judge and live our relationship with others.

Let’s go back in context even a little farther. Let’s go back to John 5 here. We just got through with John 5:30. We were in John 8 before then, and then John 5. Now we’re backing up several verses to the beginning of that chapter that works up to John 5:30.

Again, what is stated here is really quite simple. It may not sound difficult, what he said here, “Of myself I can do nothing. As I hear I judge, and my judgment is righteous because I seek not my will but the will of the Father who sent me.” So we can read right over things like that sometimes. It can seem simple, but to live it is another matter. It’s not a simple thing because our nature doesn’t work this way. That’s what we have to fight against and strive to do things more on a spiritual plane, and again, actually live this on a spiritual plane.

John 5:1 it says... So this is quite a story here it’s going through. It says, After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Joshua went up to Jerusalem. Now, there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in the Hebrew, Bethesda, that has five porches. In these lay a great number of sickly people, in other words, not whole, not physically. They were physically impaired or ill and they were suffering from some condition or another. It says, and those who were blind, lame, and paralyzed, who were waiting for the moving of the water.

Now, I don’t understand that, but it says that there were things that evidently happened here, that for whatever reason that God had made this possible for whatever purpose. Doesn’t go into the whole story and there’s not that much history about any of this to know what was really taking place.

It says in verse 4— For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water... Now, whether it was a onetime occasion and did something that was in the pool and someone was there and was healed, I don’t know! It doesn’t say. Then it goes on to say, then whosoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever illness or infirmity they had. So evidently it happened once, maybe several occasions, maybe on a regular basis. I don’t know. We don’t know. It doesn’t say.

Now, it says, Now, a certain man was there who had an infirmity for thirty-eight years. And when Joshua saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition for such a long time, he said to him, Do you want to be made whole? Well, we know what the answer is to that. Anyone that’s there, they all wanted to be made whole. They wanted to be there if the angel stirred the water, if that’s what had happened in the past at some point and some were healed, they wanted the opportunity to be able to get in their first to be healed.

So the sick man answered him, Sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up. “So even if it’s stirred up I have no one to even help me in the pool.” So basically, “Yes, but I can’t even get there.” So he’s looking at this in totally physical terms. ...but while I am going, another steps down before me. And Joshua said to him, Rise, take up your bed and walk. Awesome, for something like that to happen. As so many of the things that Christ did God began to reveal to people that there was something awesome and unique and special about this man so they would want to know more, they would want to listen, they would stir them, things would travel, people would talk about it, it would move among people. They would only see it on a physical plane; they didn’t grasp it at all in that respect, but as time went along they had more of this sense because of the things that had happened in a period of about 3½ years obviously there that they began to believe he was the Messiah. They began to look upon him in a very unique way.

He says, Take up your bed and walk. And immediately the man was made whole. He took up his bed and walked. And that was the Sabbath. Amazing here how the Jews were, the Jewish religious leaders at that time. Christ was a threat to them. That’s why they, over and over again here, they sent different ones out to spy out what he was saying, what he was doing, to report back to them on a regular basis. They felt threatened. That’s why they wanted to kill him eventually. For a long time Christ knew that.

The Jews, therefore, said to him who was healed, It’s the Sabbath; it’s not lawful for you to carry your bed. La tee dah. You think, hmmm, who made that rule up? Is that from God? Did God say you couldn’t do something like that on the Sabbath day? Well, the Jews had all kinds of laws, all kinds of restrictions of things you could and couldn’t do on the Sabbath.

Sometimes we come into God’s Church and we don’t know what to do or not do on the Sabbath. We have an overview of certain things but there are other things that pop up all the time that we’re not certain of and what is right, what is allowable. This is good for us because we learn to measure things, we learn to think about things, we learn to think, “Well, what is God’s purpose in the Sabbath. What are we to do and why are we not to do various things? So there’s this thing of judging even in those things that God wants us to exercise on a regular basis because it’s an ongoing refining process.

I think of coming into the Church at a time in Philadelphia where we tended to be very physical about a lot of things, and in time grew in greater balance in a lot of those areas, of things that you can do on the Sabbath. Sometimes then to realize that human nature tends to maybe go too far and so you have to be careful.

He answered them, He who made me whole said to me, Take up your bed and walk. So, in other words, “I’m listening to him. He had the power; he had the ability to make me whole and told me to walk? I’m walking.”

Then they asked him, Who is the man who said to you, Take up your bed and walk? Now... Well, I won’t go into that.

Verse 13—But the one who was healed did not know who it was... Amazing. ...for Joshua had withdrawn himself, for a large crowd was in that place. He had his reasons at times why he allowed certain things to be seen, to be known, to be spoken of quickly, and other times, like this one here, to fade away.

Verse 14—Afterward, Joshua found him in the temple and said to him, You see how you have been made whole? Sin no more, unless a worse thing come upon you. There is a lot to learn from this. That when God begins to draw us, call us, work with us and give us so much, you know, it’s one thing to be healed physically of something, a physical ailment, but when God begins to heal the mind, which requires His holy spirit to do so, anything can be healed in a body just like that, but the mind can’t. This takes time. This takes a lifetime to go through a healing process, a transformation process until you come to a time where God says, “Now I know you.” That He’s worked with us to the point that, in essence, that can be stated; in essence, to the point where life could come to an end and He can give us spirit life and we will be in His Kingdom.

So whatever that judgment is, whatever it is that has to change in the mind to come to a certain level, to a certain point, God knows what that is. That’s why we go through refining. That’s why we go through trying. That’s why we go through the fire and the tests that we do, because it’s a long process of changing this block head, this hard head, and for God to help us to truly begin to think differently and be motivated in a right way. Not perfect. We can’t be perfect in the physical body. But to come to a point where, “Now I know you,” that’s an awesome thing. That’s what we all desire.

It’s so important that we grasp that once God begins to work with us, begins to call us. Sin is ugly and we are to fight against it all the time. I think of how much the Church has grown in that regard, especially over the last couple of years even. You can see the changes; you can see the attitude and the spirit that’s there. It’s so important because each individual has to make those choices to be in that fight and to take more seriously at this stage where we are, to fight even more...to fight even more, to put more into it, to desire to be of that mind of God, to desire to do His will and not our own. That means finding those areas that are wrong in our life that need to be changed, that need to be addressed, and just not allowing certain things to continue on.

So he said, Sin no more, unless a worse thing come upon you. To me that’s a horrifying thing, when people begin to drift away from what is true and they begin to let down. If people quit fighting or they just let up or allow certain sin to dominate their life and continue in it, it works to destroy the mind. It’s a horrifying thing to allow the mind to begin to be destroyed once it’s been impregnated with God’s spirit. Some aren’t going to come through those things.

Just because someone’s been called in the Church, had their minds opened up, received of God’s spirit, and then leave? That’s a horrifyingly dangerous thing. There are some situations, obviously, where God can bring people to repentance at a future time (like the Great White Throne). There are situations where some people have just fallen asleep spiritually, drifted away and are still going through the motions of certain things to the best of their ability on a physical carnal plane, like so much of the scattered Body has. But when you start messing around with and playing with things in the sense of compromising, in the sense of sin, in the sense of toleration of sin that you know better than doing and you just ignore the reality that God’s presence is there you can do great damage to the mind. Those are the kinds of choices that can lead people away to a point where they can commit an unpardonable sin because they can become hardened and those things can become burned so deeply in their conscience, in the mind that they won’t turn away.

So again here, so important to not allow those things to begin to take place but to fear not obeying God, to fear not continuing to walk in the truth that God gives to us.

Verse 15—Then the man departed and told the Jews that it was Joshua who made him whole. So he went back and he wanted to tell them. Now he knows who he is. Found out who he was, saw him in the temple, now he wanted to go back and let them know who it was who healed him. “They didn’t know, so now I’m going to tell them.” He didn’t do it in an obnoxious way. He was excited. I mean, he had been healed.

For this reason the Jews... It’s not the word “persecuted.” It’s the Greek word pursued Joshua, and sought to kill him. You can call it persecution if you will, but their overall motive, it’s making it clear here, they were in a pursuit; they wanted to get rid of him because he was a threat, to kill him. What an incredible thing, to be so threatened by someone, who purported to be religious, to supposedly be obedient to God and then you want to kill someone because your mind is so screwed up that you can look at them as being a heretic or against God or evil when something like this has taken place. When, if they’d be honest even on a physical plane, they should know that no human being in any fashion or form has the ability to heal someone.

So, they sought to kill him because he had done these things... See their justification? That wasn’t the reason, but this is what they’re saying, this is what they’re talking about amongst themselves. This is what gives them the justification to kill him, because he did these things on the Sabbath. They have to find a reason. That’s the way it is with people.

People who leave have to find a reason to justify their leaving. “Well, because he said ‘this’” or “He said ‘that,” or whatever, or “They did ‘this.’” Or “They did ‘that.’” Then they try to find some error, something wrong that they can justify, how whimsical, how whatever it might be, and then have a self-righteous attitude about why they’re now going to go back, like so many have done, to what they came out of, not knowing what the Apostasy was, not acknowledging that there was an Apostasy, or when they had come to a point where they believed it, believed there was an Apostasy, believed there was a great falling away, believed we were all stones of the temple, on and on you go, but come to a point where because of something they have to find fault: “Well, women can’t be ordained! That’s not true about women. The man is still the head of the house!”

So they’ve got to find something to justify what takes place, what they follow through with to that point of even killing someone, like this example here. Obviously, these individuals didn’t have God’s spirit but it shows the attitude of a mind, the human mind, the carnal mind with or without God’s spirit.

So, they sought to kill him, because he had done these things on the Sabbath. Because they had their rules and ways of doing things, and do’s and don’ts for the Sabbath day. Didn’t come out of scripture.

But Joshua answered them, My Father has been working until now, and I work. At what? What is God’s work? What is God’s purpose? We are. His greatest work, His greatest purpose is about His family. Everything that God is doing is about His family. The creation of a spirit realm is about His family. The creation of spirit beings within that realm is about His family, speaking of the angelic realm. Then the creation of the earth, the creation of the universe is about His family. That’s the objective, the placing of man on the earth. Now, that really begins the process in a great way. Then the first one to come along who’s going to be amongst the firstfruits when Christ returns is Abel. Awesome!

So for 6,000 years God’s focus has been about His family, not the rest of the world. The rest of the world has their time later on, as a whole. It’s going to be in the Great White Throne. They’ve just been allowed to live life ever how they wanted to. But God has had a purpose. He’s been working—not with the world—again, with individuals along the way. Sometimes just one at a time.

So he says, My Father has been working until now, and I work, or I am also working. That’s what he’s saying. Therefore, the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath... Now they had more ammunition. “He’s made himself equal to God! Who does he think he is?” There are people who hate some of the teachings of the Church when you talk about we’re to become a part of the God Family. There are people who hate that! It takes away from their beliefs of various things, and “You’re making yourself equal to God? No, we go to heaven when we die, or we go to hell if we don’t live right. To become a part of God’s family? What is that?”

So, therefore, the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but he also said that God was his Father, making himself equal with or the same with, if you will, that’s what the Greek is here, God. Then Joshua answered and said to them, Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son does in like manner. Now, we’re to learn from that. We’re to learn from that because what is he saying? What does he see? It’s nothing physical. It’s all in the mind. It’s the spirit. It’s the mind, what he sees of the Father.

He was more unique and incredible than we can grasp because the Word of God was made flesh. That mind, that thinking that he had in him from the very beginning is beyond our comprehension. That’s why during the Feast of Tabernacles he was able to talk to individuals who had great understanding of (physically), of scripture and so forth, and he confounded them, dumbfounded them by things he said at a young age. I think he was twelve at the time. Twelve years old. Amazing. They couldn’t grasp that. They’d never experienced anything like that from someone. Yet as he grew that mind became more mature and that thinking became more powerful, if you will. The ability to see things on a spiritual plane is beyond what we fully can grasp.

Now, God blesses us in a beginning with growth, with His holy spirit, and we begin to see things, but we weren’t born with that kind of a mind. He was, and yet his mind had to become impregnated with God’s holy spirit, of something that became permanent within his thinking, within his mind. Even upon that is an awesome thing to grasp and understand, the Word of God made flesh had to be baptized and had to have the receiving of God’s holy spirit impregnated in his mind above and beyond what was already there. We really can’t grasp all that. Just to appreciate it, be thankful for it, and understand God’s purpose that there is one Son of God to do and accomplish what He’s going to do and accomplish. One parent being God and one parent being human. Awesome!

He’s using this statement here talking about what he sees the Father do, well, all things that had ever been written as far as scripture is concerned in his mind and he could see these things, spiritually, what God was doing, understand them spiritually for what God was doing. Quoted things that took place so that certain scriptures would be fulfilled that you wouldn’t even know they were talking about except he said, “This fulfills that.” It’s like, okay. We wouldn’t know that except that he said that’s what it was. That’s when it was revealed what certain things that are written in the Old Testament were all about. Before that we couldn’t know that.

God does that in the Church as well, as time has gone on and He gives us more and more; He reveals things to us that all of a sudden we can see something we’ve never seen before. It’s just like, well, a light bulb goes on. We see it. We see something the Father is doing in our lives or in the Church or whatever it might be, and finally we understand it, we get it.

Like the name Joshua. Known physically what it was, what it said, but to grasp it spiritually what it meant in the sense of being freed from that, from what was wrong and what had taken place in history, and now grasping a greater depth of importance of what this name is all about and being able to have it within the Church, that’s an awesome thing, and so many other things.

He says what he sees the Father do... The Son does nothing of himself but what he sees the Father do, for whatsoever He does the Son does in like manner, the same way. That’s what it’s talking about. So ever how God does something, ever how God sees, shows something to be seen, that’s how he sees it. He’s in agreement with it. Whatever God’s will is, whatever God’s purpose is, he’s in agreement with it. “Whatever I see the Father do, that’s what I do.” What an awesome thing to be able to say. “Whatever Christ does, whatever the Father does that’s where I want to be. That’s what I want to do. That’s how I want to think. I want to be in harmony with that kind of thinking, with that will and purpose.” What is His will and purpose? The more you know what His will and purpose is the more you can have that kind of thinking. So again here, awesome what’s revealed through some of this.

Again here, means exactly what it says, seeing something on a spiritual plane, what he sees the Father do, it’s a matter of doing things exactly the same way that God would do it, that He would want us to do it, according to His ways, according to His will. Now, the expression at the end of the verse goes like this, “For whatever He does the Son also does in like manner.” This term “in like manner” in the Greek basically means exactly what’s just said, “in the same way.” “To do it exactly the same way,” that’s what it means. Again, the expression comes from a Greek word that means “together.” In essence, “to be together with God, to do it the same way.” Beautiful. That’s how we should do it.

Verse 20—For the Father loves the Son... What an awesome thing to know, for him to know how God felt about him, to understand that kind of love, God’s kind of love. I think of us as a Church, that we’re able to know God loves us. When God calls us He begins to give us of His spirit and begins to draw us to Him; He’s chosen to exercise His love toward us. He’s not exercising it toward the world yet. He loves His creation. He loves the creation of mankind. But what they’re doing? No. He’s just letting them go their way. When you love someone there are things you have to exercise in that love.

God’s not giving that to the world yet. He’s not giving love to the world. Sometimes that’s a hard thing for people to grasp. He’s giving love to us, which means forgiveness of sin. He’s not offering that to the world yet. People aren’t being offered that at all. You know why? You have to be called first. So when God begins to love someone He has to draw them to Him by the power of His holy spirit, because that’s the only way to bring someone to repentance. The mind has to be opened up.

So those whom God loves He begins to pour out upon them grace, mercy, patience, love, kindness. Before that He’s not able to. He’s not able to love people – by choice – because it’s not their time, it’s our time. The more you understand that, the more you understand God’s will in all that, the more you’ll understand the kind of care and concern He has for you, the kind of close thinking, if you will, closeness, a fellowship, the blessing of He is our Father.

People struggle with those things because they think of physical fathers. All physical fathers are weak, filled with error and the mistakes in life. God isn’t. To understand that kind of a mind is an awesome thing, that kind of a relationship. The more you grow in that the freer you become. That’s something you can’t give by words. That’s something you receive in time in thinking through God’s spirit.

So again here, what an awesome thing to be able to know God loves you. That should give you a confidence, a boldness, a peace of mind. The more you believe that, the more you see that, the more you have that in your life. You really do. What else is there to care about in the sense of worries, in the sense of care and concern? You’re in God’s hands. Whether you live or whether you die you are in God’s hands. Where else would you want to be? And if His purpose is to allow death at a moment in time, whenever that might be, so be it. You don’t know it. When it happens you don’t know it. You just know the next moment when you’re alive again. Death is not something to fear, in that respect. But we tend to. We tend to fear it for ourselves and fear it for others.

I think of the sermon last week given by Wayne Matthews. I think of some of those kinds of things, of things that are going to come to pass, if you will, carrying that a little farther even. Thinking of things that are going to take place. We want certain ones to have certain things and yet we may not grasp and understand what is God’s will in the matter. Do we not agree with God? Do we wrestle against God? Do we want something our way? And if we do, do we not realize sometimes that we can cause far greater harm and hurt in someone’s life? Because God knows how to work with His creation. He knows when to work with His creation. To be at peace, to leave things in God’s hands, that’s what we need to do. We need to learn how to do that more.

For the Father loves the Son, and shows him all things that He Himself does. I marvel at that. I really do. I think of how God, since the remnant Body has come together, He hasn’t stopped giving us more and more and more. How awesome is that? Whatever He does, whatever He’s doing right now in preparation for His Son coming, that’s what He’s doing. We’re benefiting from that. We’re a part of that process. As small as we are we’re benefitting from that.

...and shows him all things that He does. You can know what God is doing just by looking at what’s taking place. We know God’s not calling people right now. It’s just not happening. I don’t care what we do, doesn’t matter, in one respect. Now, we should strive to want to do what God wants us to do and strive to know when to do various things and pray about those kinds of things, but we can look at the evidence of various things and realize this is what’s taking place and learn from it later on.

I think of the period of time especially 2007, 2008, God had a purpose in things He was doing differently at that moment in time by drawing people into this Body, and that’s unique. That’s awesome! Then when it began to slow down and then stop, basically, very little, here and there God doing something, but we can see it because God’s the one who calls, God’s the one who opens the mind, God’s the one who gives us what we need at any moment in time as a Body, as a Church, and prepares us for things.

It’s like writing three books. Right now, to me, they have no value. Now, they do, don’t misunderstand me, but as far as where we are in time, as far as what’s getting ready to happen the ability to bring those together and bring them up to time in the present truth, that, to me, is pressing. I believe there are reasons why I feel that it’s pressing, too, see. So we can respond then to what God is doing because He has to open up these things. He has to open up the ability to see things at any moment. The present truth that we have at any moment in time, God has to give that to us. Once we see it then it’s up to us how we use it. The more we use it, the more we can grow and be inspired and moved and motivated by it. As time has gone along then He has clarified so many things about what is taking place and what He’s doing at this time that’s different from what we saw before.

There’s a maturing process in all that and we get to share in that. He just doesn’t open up the mind and just put it all in there. Why? Because you have to grow through the process. It’s how we grow as we go through this. Because that’s what God’s concerned with. His will, His work is what He’s doing in us in molding and fashioning us. Now, you have to make the choice of yielding yourself to it and not fighting against it, not fighting against God through sin, whatever it might be, yielding to the process.

For the Father loves the Son. We’re all children of God. Awesome! ...and shows him all things that He Himself does. Again, when I read something like that I think about how that God has blessed us to come to understand the way He works. Not just what He’s doing but the way He does it, the way He works with us, the way He molds and fashions us. To me that gives another level of excitement and understanding that’s incredible, things that we’ve never grasped in that regard before, of how God works in our lives.

Again, He shows him greater works... and whatever works He does Himself, and He will show him greater works than these, that you may marvel. That’s the way our lives are, too. God just continues to bless us with growth because that’s the way God’s spirit works, especially now because of where we are in time. Again, so that we can marvel, and if He’s working with us we can marvel at what God’s doing. If we don’t marvel, if we’re not in awe of what God is doing, if we don’t see even how God is working with things in the world, in a carnal, physical world right now...?

How do you bring everything to a head like this? How do you bring everything, the Church as well, to a certain point? It’s like that hurricane. This has gone on for a long time now. There are some that God has allowed to continue on and do devastation in times past, like New Orleans that time and there’s been some others, but not on a massive scale in any way. Some of those things God has worked with us in and allowed certain things over a vast period of time, candidly, so we could see various kinds of Thunders since we saw what happened in 2011.

We’ve seen various ones at different times and it’s been about us, it’s been about the Church, but it’s still like “hands off.” There are four angels that are being held back and as I was coming I thought what a perfect example that it can come this far and it’s not coming any farther. Some damage? Yes. But not like what it did to the Bahamas. Have you seen pictures of that? Just leveled the place! Well, this country is going to experience things like that in time in a massive way. It’s just it’s not time yet.

So we’re going to know not too long into it when things have really started. You’re not going to have to wonder anymore how long is it going to be. So again, so many of these things are for us to learn from.

Verse 21—For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom he will. Now, that’s an incredible statement if you understand what he’s saying. That means that mind is of exactly the same will. Now, we’re growing in that, we want that, we’re seeking that, but his mind was of the exact same will and God had given these things to him. He knew it. He understood that. Think of the case, situation of Lazarus, you’ve got to know what God’s will is before you do that. You’ve got to know that this is your purpose, God’s purpose for Lazarus. He knew it. How? It’s in the mind. It’s of the spirit.  There are things we grow in in time, we come to understand more and more through various things that God gives.

Verse 21, again, For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom he will. This is far reaching because this goes way, way beyond what he did on this earth as our Passover and the miracles and the various things that took place, like Lazarus. This has to do with things that are going to take place in the future. It has to do with the time of all resurrections. Christ is the one that’s there doing it. He’s the one. 144,000? He’s there. Those later on? He’s there. It’s everything God has given to be done in and through him.

For the Father judges no one... Awesome! The Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son. So you’ve got to understand what it’s talking about here in the context of everlasting life, judgment that leads to that life. He’s given it to His Son and He’s given certain things to the Church, in that context, but not to the same plane and same level until we’re a part, those who are going to be a part of the 144,000 are a part of that, in God’s Family. So He’s given things in His family to accomplish and to do. They have His mind. It’s about sharing within the family. It’s about passing things along within the family. It’s about a unity and oneness, to be of the same mind and the same will, but He gives it, in this case, all to His Son. That’s why all government, everything is Christ’s. That’s why it talks about in time, in Corinthians, that once everything has been put under his feet, under Christ’s feet, they will be under God’s feet. Nothing resists. Nothing. Everything is in unity and harmony with God and then everything is placed back under God Almighty. But from now on at this point in time as life is, everything is under Christ. God has given everything to him.

For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son (verse 23) that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Again, that’s where we can begin to see and understand, but then that is multiplied out many times over when you’re talking about God’s family, when you talk about those who are going to become a part of Elohim, when you talk about those who are impregnated with God’s spirit. A different plane, still in physical bodies, but how we think toward one another, how we treat one another has so much to do with how we think toward God.

Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears, listens to, in other words, that’s what it’s about, listens to my word and believes, not “in Him,” it’s just believes Him. Sometimes things that are translated aren’t translated very well and they throw words in that aren’t even there. It really doesn’t matter if it is “in Him.” The world misuses that. A Protestant world misuses that so it becomes more about “in him,” in whatever.

He who believes or listens to my word and believes in Him (God)... Better believe Him. Not that there is a God, because a lot of people believe there is a God but they don’t believe God in what He says. ...he who believes Him who sent me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death unto life. So this is a summation of things. God has given us the ability to grasp and comprehend what it’s all about. It’s a much greater story than that.

This word here for “judgment” by some translations is “condemnation” and it’s simply a word for judgment or a decision that’s being made. It may be a matter of condemnation because that’s where judgment leads. Judgment is going to lead in one of two directions in life. It’s going to be good or it’s going to be bad when it comes to how we are judged, or how people are judged.

Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God. Awesome to know what God has given to him, His son. ...and those, again, it’s not “who hear” but its having heard or who listen, in other words, will live. So when God gives us the ability to listen it’s not just a matter of hearing words. It’s not a matter of the world hearing words. It’s a matter of those who have the capacity and ability to hear.

You can’t hear the word of God until God gives you the ability. The world can’t hear the word of God yet. They just can’t! It’s a spiritual thing. It’s of the spirit. Their minds can’t grasp it no more than the disciples could understand things that Christ was saying about the fact that he was going to die. They just couldn’t see it. They believed he was going to be the Messiah but they didn’t understand the process until Pentecost. All of a sudden everything that was said came together for them. They quoted things in the Old Testament that David had written, Peter did, he recorded things that are incredible to understand that all of a sudden they understood it. Before that they couldn’t. It’s spirit, it’s of the mind, and God gives that ability.

So this is about people who have the ability to listen, whether we will or won’t when we’re given the choice as to what we will listen to. When I read things like this I can’t help think of people who just quit listening. Who listened to a point in time and believed, like the song goes, “We walked to God’s house side by side, and counsel blended sweet,” believed the same things, shared in the same truth, and then all of a sudden because of certain sins, whatever it might be, people begin to be cut off and begin to lose their mind, the mind that God gave to them, the truth, and they begin to go in whatever way they think is right now. To me that’s a scary, horrifying thing that takes place in human life.

...and those who listen will live. So if we will listen, listen to the end, in the sense of what God gives us the ability to hear, and that means when you listen you’re striving to do it, you want to hear what God says and you’re continuing to have the ability to listen, you’ll come through it. You’re going to have life. You’re going to have eternal life. You’re going to have a confidence and boldness in that. As long as you’ll repent, as long as you continue to listen to what God gives to you you’ll be there. It’s an absolute thing, nothing to worry about.

For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life, this is talking about age-lasting life, in himself, and has also given him authority to execute judgment because he is the Son of Man. So when Christ returns he’s going to be executing a lot of judgment. It talks about those who come with him. The things that happen in the beginning are not peaceful. There is going to be a lot of destruction because of what they do. Because they’re going to be, even though it starts before that, there’s going to be continuation of that for a while of destroying those who are destroying the earth. They’re going to know there is a power and where that power is coming from. They’re going to know it. It’s going to cause some to begin, finally, to fear. Because that’s how human beings are before they’ll change, before they’ll want to change.

There’s going to be even judgment there at the end of this age in the dawning of a new age where Christ and 144,000 with him are going to be executing a great deal of judgment on the earth. This is what they’re going to be doing. Before they come and once they come. It’s coming through them, coming through Christ.

Verse 28—Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice... God has given it to His Son. It’s a beautiful thing, awesome thing to understand. Everything has been given to His Son. ...and comes forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.

So again here, it’s going over something quickly, summarizing things quickly, but again, we understand the process of the timing of much of that and what it entails, whether it be up to the hundred year period, whether it be things that happen at the end of the age or the end of the thousand years and the end of a hundred years, things that God’s going to do, Christ is going to do.

So again here, the King James so often says “damnation.” It’s about judgment. It’s about the execution of judgment. It’s about a decision that has to be made but sometimes they’ve gone ahead and used a word that shows a final judgment; and sometimes they did fair and sometimes they didn’t do so good.

Then Christ went on to say, finally, in verse 30—Of myself I can do nothing. As I hear, as I listen, as I listen to God, as I desire to know God’s will, in other words, hearing what God has to say because we want to do it that way, we want to do it according to God’s will, I judge. That’s how we judge. How do we judge? Do we judge that way because of what we have listened to, because of what we’ve heard, because of what we see in one another and how God’s drawing different ones at different times, that we all have different things that God has given to us as a process here to change the way we think, to help us to grow? We’re not all being prepared for the same thing. We’re not all being prepared in the same way.

We go through different things to get wherever God is taking us as far as a molding and fashioning is concerned and you have to be careful how you judge that! You have to be careful how you judge that! That’s God’s job! That is the job that God has given to Christ...and in large part to the Church. But it comes from Christ. We have to be exceedingly careful how we judge one another and to make sure that we understand the most important thing of all: those in God’s Church belong to God Almighty and you can’t judge everything in their life. It’s not your job to do so unless it becomes your job to do so. I said a lot there, okay? It’s on a spiritual plane to understand. Some things that are given to the ministry and other things that are not. Some things that are given to each one of us and other things that are not.

I think of sometimes how my job has been made harder sometimes because others in the Body will not judge someone else when they should and they have a responsibility to judge a matter because they know of certain sin that’s going on but they whitewash it or ignore it and say, well, that’s the job of the ministry or God’s going to take care of that in His time. God gives us all a responsibility within the Body, and one thing I have seen since 1969, is that as a whole people don’t do their job when it comes to a responsibility. Sometimes it’s just going to a brother alone. If you know there is a sin you had better go to your brother alone. If you know they’ve committed a sin.

If you think they’re doing something you don’t like or you don’t agree with how they’re doing it then keep your mouth shut. It’s none of your business. We all do things differently and we have hundreds of different ways of doing things. We’re all unique, in that respect, and we have many choices in life we can make. Some of those choices may mean our financial ruin. They may mean a disaster to us. But if there is not sin involved keep out of it.

That’s why I’ve told the ministry over and over again, don’t insert yourself where you’re not supposed to. Don’t think you’ve got to control things. It’s not your job to control things. You know, we grow up in life, people become parents, and they have this desire to control certain things in their family. Well, because we can see how they’re going to hurt themselves in certain things, perhaps, and perhaps we think we see something and we don’t really see it the right way because we don’t have all the information. But we tend to want to do that. We just tend to be that way. We want to control things. If we can have a certain influence at certain times to help someone, that’s one matter, but be careful in that, that you don’t go too far. Be careful that you don’t insert yourself into things that are just going to make things worse! Sometimes we have to back away.

You know, God doesn’t do that in our lives. He doesn’t just jump in and tell us every time when we’re doing something dumb! I’ve done a lot of dumb things in my life and God didn’t stop me from doing them. He could have. He knew what I was going to do. We’ve all done dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb things, foolish things. We’re human beings. You can’t help it. You’ve said things that are stupid. I’ve said things that are stupid, dumb. Most often they’re just selfish. They come from selfishness. That’s the way we are. God never stopped me. And you know what I need to do from that? I need to see what the Father does so that I can learn from Him, so that I can learn from Christ to see how things are done and how they’re not done. There is a time to intervene, there is a time to insert, and there’s a time to just stay away and let things take their course. Because you know what, God can use those things to teach us.

There are many of times I just have let people do some really bad things because I didn’t intervene. It’s not my job to. I know exactly some things sometimes that people are going to do. It’s human nature under certain conditions and they do it. So what follows? Did I try to stop them from doing it? Not at all.  They have to learn. That’s how we learn. It’s how we grow. If you insert yourselves into different kinds of situations you can hamper God’s purpose in someone’s life and how they’re going to be molded and fashioned to grow!

Does that make sense? I hope that makes a great deal of sense. You have to be ever so careful in those matters.

I remember ministers getting upset at me at times. I’m going back in time now because I don’t want it to be anything recent. I’m going way back. I remember some thinking, and I know what they were thinking, and basically, in certain things they said, I knew exactly what was coming out of them and I couldn’t give them the understanding. It’s like, “You’re not taking care of this right away.” It’s like, “I told you this a long time ago,” or “I told you this then and you’re not doing anything about it.” Well, live and learn grasshopper. See, that’s what should happen. Someone should, rather than criticize and condemn and find fault because you’re not doing something that I think you should be doing, “I’m a minister. I think you should be doing this as a minister,” sometimes people just don’t get it.

What’s God doing? That’s my question. That’s more important. What is God doing and what is God’s purpose? I pray about different matters. I have to go by what I am convicted that God gives me to know and do at any moment in time. That’s how I function. I’ve done that with ministers in times past because they wanted a certain matter in a certain area taken care of and I didn’t deal with it right away. And you know what? There are times I have backed away so much just to let them learn from it, so they could learn from it. Some have and some haven’t. Many are gone because they haven’t learned. Many. Many are gone because they never learned.

That’s what we’re to do. We’re to strive to learn why God does things in the way that He does, how He does things in the way that He does, and strive to follow that example. He does not stop us from making mistakes. He doesn’t stop us from sin. That’s why it used to rile me up when I think of the thing of times past, of people seeing things in such physical way and in the Millennium it’s going to be utopia because there are going to be all these people around there and as soon as you start to do something wrong they’re going to say, “Whoa-whoa-whoa... Whoa! Whoa! That’s not the way. Don’t walk that way.” To me this is so Protestant, “This is the way, walk you in that.” It’s like we’re going to stop you from sin. Oh, bull, bull, bull, bull, bull. Big bull; big, big cow, big bull with a lot, like the llama, coming out.

That’s not life. That’s not real. That’s a Protestant concept of utopia and it’s, “Oh, I feel so good. Oh...” I’m sorry, I can’t help that. But I hope you understand what I’m saying. We need to get rid of every bit of wacky Protestantism out of our thinking, out of our minds that we can. Hate it! Loathe it! This fuzzy, feely good thing. Life isn’t fuzzy feeling good all the time! There is sin involved and you have to learn from sin. People during the Millennium are going to sin! Nobody is going to be there, “Oh, pardon me. Hey, I want to help you. Don’t do that.” It’s not going to happen. People are going to be allowed to sin! God isn’t going to strike them with a bolt of lightning all of a sudden or strike right in front, “Oh, hey, I just about sinned!”

I’m making fun of this because we should make fun of that. Okay? Because that has been thinking that has existed in God’s Church because we weren’t where we needed to be spiritually. And God, thank God, has helped us come to a point where we have a more sound mind of what life is supposed to be like and how it’s supposed to be lived. So again, God doesn’t stop us from sinning. He doesn’t stop us from making mistakes. That’s how you learn. You learn to make choices and you learn to make decisions, and over time, hopefully, with God’s spirit you’ll become better at it because you’re coming more into unity and harmony and oneness with the very mind of the Great God of the universe. That’s our desire. That’s our goal. But until that time you’re just going to make a lot of dumb mistakes in life; you’re going to do things that are selfish.

You’re going to leave here after services today, wherever you’re located, and maybe before you get home even, as you’re driving down the freeway you’re probably going to experience some things of selfishness. They’re just going to come rumbling right out of your body, your mind, and sometimes your mouth because you just can’t help it, because things aren’t going your way.  I do that. I fight against that. If you don’t fight against that you don’t know yourself.

Do you know your own mind? Do you know your weaknesses? Do you know that you’re selfish? Do you know that the things you do most of the time are based on that mind? I do. I hate it. I loathe it. I loathe the selfish mind. The more you can see that, how you think and what you do and why you do the things you do, where it comes from, it comes out of the mind and it’s selfish most of the time first and foremost. You’ve got to catch it quick. You’ve got to repent of those things when they happen, when they come out in attitude.

Do you have attitudes any time when just something makes you a little irritated, makes you a little impatient? Why did you get impatient? Somebody did something, pulled in front of you or whatever it might be, or cut you off, or these people are coming down the mall at you and you have nowhere to go unless you get up against the wall... “Okay, now you can pass,” that type of thing? That’s the way of human beings. They don’t care. They don’t care. Well, we need to care and strive to understand why we do the things we do, why we think the way we do, why we become irritable.

Last week, did any of you have just a twinge of a moment of irritability? Did it happen just a little bit? I’ve had many moments of irritability in this past week and they’re all my fault. Not just a few. And you know, I hate it because I know what it is. I know what they are. “You’re not comfortable? Why aren’t you comfortable? Why did you get upset?” So something didn’t go your way. What was it? “Well, I’ve done it so often I don’t know.” Sometimes that becomes a problem. We’ve got to know ourselves. We’ve got to fight against self. We’re the only reason we’re ever unhappy. If we feel pressure, stress, irritability, whatever it might be, we only have ourselves to blame. It’s never anyone else. But we tend to want to blame someone else, find fault with someone else. “Well, someone else did ‘this’ or they did ‘that’ and that’s why I feel this way. I need rest.”

It is a beautiful thing, seriously, the more you can come to understand yourself. It really is. The more you can hate carnal human nature the more you can grow spiritually, truly. It’s an awesome thing. The standard in all this is God. The standard in all this, the things that Christ said, how to live and how we see, and how we judge and why we judge the way we do. We have to be ever so careful in that.

Getting back to some of this, to understand we, each one of us impregnated with God’s spirit belong to God. If you see someone in life who has a sin then you have a responsibility to address that. You’re supposed to go to them alone because you love them, because you know what sin can do.

Now, you have to judge those things, sometimes ask for help in knowing how to do some of those kinds of things. Sometimes after that has been done and something happens then you have to carry it farther to the ministry sometimes because you have a responsibility before God, that the Body, the Church is to be clean. It’s to be cleansed. It’s not to have sin in it.

But, you see, that’s a lot different than what we tend to want to judge. Because generally we don’t want to deal with those situations, but what we want to deal with are the things that kind of get under our nerves, under the things we feel like we should have a little more control over or want to control or think we need to tell someone that they need to do something in a different way because this is leading to whatever we think is important.

If it’s not sin, stay out of it. See, we tend to want to get involved in the things we’re not supposed to. If it’s not sin what is it? If it’s not then it’s best just to stay out of it and allow the differences, allow God to work with the differences within the Body for different reasons, for different things that are being accomplished. Stand back and see how things progress; see, learn, maybe, what God is doing and how God is doing it.

Let’s turn over to John 3. So this matter of wanting to not do our own way, the way we think things should be done, the way we think things, somebody else should do something and we get all worked up about that sometimes, we get so worked up and it becomes a lot of drama and we just eat ourselves up with it and it’s so important to us we want it take care of and we want it taken care of now! Unless there is sin don’t do it. Some things we can stir up and make a lot of drama out of all right.

John 3:14. When it comes to judgment and how we judge others it’s so very important to remember God’s purpose toward others, as we’ve been talking about. If we get (it’s that getting thing), if we get what that means then we’ll better understand what our duty or responsibility is toward others. Too often we’re trying to get the wrong thing out of it. We just need to understand what our responsibility is and try to understand what God is showing us so we can see clearly to do things God’s way. We don’t want to go the direction of being tempted to judge from our own perspective. Because, I’ll tell you, that’s just what we tend to do. That’s just our nature. We tend to do that first. We do that a lot. More than you know. It’s like not understanding sometimes why you’re irritable. Just look inside. Look in that mirror. “Oh, you weirdo,” “idiot,” whatever you want to call yourself. Sometimes it’s good to go through that. Well, same thing here. Be careful. Because it’s not important how “I” see it. It’s important how does God see it? What is God’s will in it?

John 3:14—And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. You know, put that serpent on a pole and Christ was put on a pole. So it’s a matter of looking upon that for God’s purpose. At that time it was to be healed if you’d been bitten by a snake. This is for the purpose of something far, far greater. It’s talking about eternal life. ...that whoever believes in him, believes him, should not perish but have everlasting life. So God blesses us to be able to believe what Christ said, believe what God says.

For God so loved the world, that’s His purpose, but His purpose is Elohim. His purpose in His creation is Elohim. But He’s not giving love to all the world—there is a distinction that needs to be made there—until He begins to draw us. Then He begins to shower out His love upon us – grace, mercy, patience, forgiveness, and on it goes. That’s not being given to the world yet.

For God so loves the world that He gave His only begotten Son... What an awesome thing to understand! His own Son! He knew what he was going to go through, knew what he was going to suffer. But you know what? In the span of time it’s here and it’s gone. It’s just a little speck, just a teeny, teeny, teeny speck. You’ll live through whatever it is you go through in life that may seem hard at any moment in time – it isn’t.

I think of three years when I was messing around, taking it easy (oh, yeah). It’s like it never happened. I remember getting out of the car and walking in that day. Horrifying! Horrifying! Family is going to be left behind. Going to have to leave. The sorrow, the hardship. It’s going to be for three years. Horrible thing to go through in the sense of the mind and what you battle. I don’t even know how to describe it. Totally empty inside. If you haven’t been there there are similar things to it in life but it’s a unique experience. But now I have to consciously stop and think about what I did there, what took place, because it’s like it never happened. It happened so quickly and life is like that. You look at certain things you’ve gone through that were hard, and I think of the Apostasy. I remember what it was like. I remember how hard it was. I remember how it pulled at every fiber of our minds and our thinking, how horrifying it was that something like this was happening in God’s Church. One day you would visit with someone, a minister who was right down the line, and then he’s in a long conversation with someone at headquarters and the next day you don’t know him. It’s like that mind is totally gone because they believe and have adopted everything they’re saying out there. I experienced that over and over. I can’t describe what that was like. That was worse than getting out of the car and walking in behind those wires. Far worse. Far worse. Yet it went by in time. But at the time it was horrible to go through. It was horrible in the mind to have to deal with.

Think about different things you’ve gone through, how hard it was or what might be in the future. Because there are some hard things up above us here yet, things that we really can’t grasp yet. They’re going to be very hard. We really can’t grasp it, thankfully. We can’t fully see it. We can believe it, we know it’s going to come to pass, but we don’t know what it’s like yet. Some are going to lose their lives. It’s the way it’s going to be. We’re all in God’s hands, every one of us, okay? Especially within the Church, if we understand that. There is a peace and a comfort there that’s powerful.

What if some you love who are close to you lose their life? What are you going to do? Stop believing what God has given you to know, to believe? Find fault that something wasn’t done the way you wanted it done? Or have a peace and a calm to know that God knows what is best and He has a different plan for them. He has a different plan for them than what He has for “me,” whoever you are. Can we have that kind of rest and peace in life to think that way? Because you really need to, to be able to have that kind of rest and peace in life no matter who it is. Because I’m telling, it’s going to happen. Happen to you? I don’t know. Who are you?

Again here, it’s about what God is molding and fashioning in each one of us. He loves every one of us. He loves those who are close to us, with whom we are in relationship, friendship in life, whatever that might be – children, family, parents, whatever it might be. To have a confidence that God knows what is best and will deal accordingly with what is best for very individual. God knows things of the mind that we don’t grasp. It’s best to leave it in God’s hands and have a peace and a comfort there. That’s something you have to think about, pray about, that God give you that kind of a mind.

So again here, it says, being lifted up, the Son of Man and being lifted up...whosoever believes him should not perish but have everlasting life.  For God so loved the world, it’s His purpose, that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him, believes God’s purpose in him is what it’s about, knows that he’s our Passover, thank God perhaps daily that he’s our Passover, that we can have our sins forgiven. Because we need to repent, if we understand it, daily of our sins, of our selfishness, of what comes out of our mind and our thinking that’s wrong, and thankful for our Passover and understand what that means for us then, that we can continue on.

...should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to, it’s the word judge. It’s not about condemning it. There is a lot to learn from this. He didn’t send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world through him might be saved. Now, we’re to learn from that. He hasn’t sent us into the world to judge. He hasn’t sent us to judge others. We’re to judge self. That’s what we’re to judge, first and foremost. Now, there are times when we may have a responsibility to judge a matter and insert ourselves, be a part of it to the degree and in the manner that God says we should – perhaps just simply to go to a brother alone or whatever it might be – to exercise that responsibility we might have. But as a whole that isn’t what we’re to do.

How should we think toward one another? This tells it all right there. It says everything, the attitude and the mind. What was Christ’s desire? Well, he knew he wasn’t sent to the world yet. That’s coming in time. Most of those who lived in his time he knew and understood they’re going to be in the Great White Throne. That’s when he’s going to work with them, see, through the government that’s established by that time, the Church that’s established awesomely power by that time at the end of the Millennium.

So what’s his overall desire and purpose? What’s his great motivation? To save as many as can be saved, to help, to nurture, to serve. To do that. Judgment is the last thing we really want to get involved in in the sense of how we tend to think about judgment. Where we have to we will, but as a whole we don’t have to. We don’t have to be involved in that, as a whole. I hope you understand what I’m saying.

We tend to want to as human beings, but as a whole we need to back away from that kind of thinking unless it’s our responsibility. Try to make sure it’s your responsibility, and when it is, do it the way God says to do it. But as a whole we’re to have fellowship with one another, we’re to love each other, we’re to want to see one another nurtured and helped along the way, whatever that might mean. To be a part of their life to the desire to see them come through it all, to be able to be saved through everything that we’re going through. That should be our motivation. You have to think about that, what that means then in your life in your relationship with others. You don’t want to be an obstacle to them. You want to be a help to them. You don’t want to be a hindrance. You don’t want to be in the way. You don’t want to insert yourself and get in the way. You don’t want to make them stumble by something that’s stupid and doesn’t need to be done. You need to back away. You need to be careful and think about what is best for them.

Why think that way, what is best for them? What is the best I can do for them? See certain things done or said or sometimes just a matter of taking it to God in prayer, to pray for them. Sometimes it’s a matter of being positive around others, uplifting around others, encouraging to others. Be there to help.

We know what people go through so often in life. Just to be there. Sometimes you don’t even know what to say, but just to be there. It’s worth its weight in gold sometimes. But we tend to be on the other side of that sometimes and we let things irritate us, we let things get in the way, and we want to resolve them. We want to resolve them our way. We want to take care of them our way. Better make sure it’s God’s way, see. Is that God’s way? Is that really God’s will?  So we have to think about those kinds of things, what that means.

So verse 17, can’t give it to anyone but it says everything about this subject, of what we’re going through. Everything! It should be our purpose and our thinking of what our function and primary responsibility is in life. Where there needs to be judgment, so be it. But as a whole that’s not needed. What is needed is this attitude in mind and thinking about wanting to see one another come through whatever it is in life to make it, to be saved, to help along the way, whatever that might mean. So sometimes we have to get creative in our thinking, ask God for help, “How do I do that?” Because as a whole we really don’t know how until we’re able to see God in the picture, until we’re able to see God’s purpose for them in the picture and to see and  understand how God would want us to do it His way that’s in unity and harmony with Him.

I’m going to stop there because that verse, again, it really wraps up this entire sermon series and what we’re talking about, this ability, that kind of thinking. That doesn’t just happen, and just because we read it doesn’t mean you understand it. Just because you understand it a little doesn’t mean you understand it near as much as you need to come to understand it. In other words, there’s a lot more meditation and thinking and prayer that needs to go into that particular verse and what it really means to each and every one of us on a spiritual plane as well.

1. Chapter 1