Eric's Sunday Sermon; What About Judgment.

Judgment or judgement. American English normally has it as judgment without the e. I think that nowadays judgment can be judgement and only a real nit picker would care. And right there is our first notion of judgment. When the common man does not really care who would make a big deal out of it? Probably someone who thinks their judgment is better than others on the subject.

But the real question is who would make a big deal out of it? And right there we see a judgment call. Most people would notice it and make a small judgment in their mind about it and then move on. But others would not even notice and still others would make a judgment to make a comment on it and still others would make that judgment and get upset over it.

In other words some will make a judgment call to make a big deal out of something that is a little deal. We all use our judgment and it is the judgment of how to use that judgment that is a big judgment.

How do we live our lives? Are we so stale in the other things, important things that we make big negative deals out of small ones. Is that how we use our judgment. Have we decided that our judgment is better than others? Have we decided to make little judgments and then enforce that judgment on others?

I think we can see why judgment making is frowned upon by most faiths. But really that is about that secondary judgment and not that judgment that is necessary for survival.

How close am I to the car in front of me, and how fast is the traffic going? Can I make that green light or should I slow down? How fast is the car in the lane I want to pull into going? When we drive we make all kinds of judgments. We are in fact judging everything around us. Now "road rage" would be when we judge others and how well they are driving and this leads to problems as we all know. And then if we act on that judgment we could have disastrous results.

How high is that step? If we judge that step incorrectly we will fall flat or at least close to it. And yet at adulthood we do not even think of a critical judgment as this one.How about clothes that we wear. We must judge the appropriate clothing for the day or event. Too hot or too cold or not matching could have results that we wish we did not have. How about what to eat? If we constantly exercise poor judgment here we will soon be unhealthy. But if we judge another's choices in these regards we run a serious risk of not seeing the good qualities in that person and may miss much in life.

And so we see a common thread and we can learn from it. Judgment is good when we use it to get by and judge that which is around us in order to stay safe and live well. But when we use it to judge others harshly it causes problems. Sorry though we cannot stop there.

From experience comes good judgment. And that is hilarious. It is a joke on our age. When we are young and doing all kinds of new things we really need good judgment and we lack it. When we are older and more sedate we have better judgment but do not need it so much as our lives become more habit than new.

So judging others versus judging their conduct.

We must at some point make judgment about others conduct both in the past tense and present tense and in the future tense. It is just a fact of life. What will the other driver do and what will my boss think of this outfit? You had better make good judgment on both of these. And that is different than judging them as people.

We are all aware of this notion from Matthew 7:1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged." And clearly this does not mean not to make good judgment of people, places and things. If it did then we just simply could not drive a car. It would be literally impossible. Did you know that discernment is described over 30 times in the bible. And clearly discernment comes from good judgment.

Giving others the judgment.

There was a 4 year old boy that told his mother that "Daddy is smarter than me". That would be a good reason for the 4 year old to trust his father's judgment. I say to you that fear is not a good reason to put your judgment in the hands of another, and I include your God in that mix. The husband said to the wife "I love you and trust you", now that would be a good reason to put your trust in another and I include your God in that mix.

Here is a good one that I just love from Philippians 1:9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment,

Just start here and now and exercise your good judgment. Judge this article but do not judge me. Try it and you will find the difference. The difference is different in each case and so one cannot tell you how to do good judgment. One cannot tell you when to judge another. One cannot tell you when not to judge another.

What I want to tell you is that when you judge another, which you will do, judge not with bitterness or contempt or jealousy but judge with love and your judgment shall withstand all tests. Even though it may be hard after we made a bad judgment in trusting, we must trust again both our own judgment and the love of others. For without trust and love we would be required to make ultimate judgments of our fellows and that would be very bad indeed.

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