As humans we have a tendency to look around and compare ourselves with others. We make judgments based on mistakes and behaviors instead of love. We lift ourselves up and put others down based on our own self-righteousness. In reality, no one is righteous and our only way to redemption is by the grace of God.

Speaker(s): Pastor Thomas Schaller
Sermon 11959
6:30 PM on 9/20/2020

P. Jason Moore –

How are you doing tonight? That was like the throne room we came from right there. We did an amazing
baptism this morning. To think about how God is transforming lives. We are part of a miracle, a
greater work we could ever create on our own. Thinking of those 9 people and what God has
transferred them from and into the kingdom of his dear Son. We were in Frederick Saturday
and a group of us went out there to have a concert. We did some preaching out there and it’s
amazing to see how God has prepared that city for the gospel. We are in such extraordinary
times. I’m so stirred in my spirit to believe God for big things. In one sense, we keep moving and
look at our Savior and the prize of our high calling. We are able to keep moving, advancing
regardless of what is going on around us.

We were talking to folks in Frederick and so many are unchurched. We prayed for one lady and her family and she said I haven’t been in church in six months and I needed this. It was like breathing on dry bones. I’m so thankful for people like you that reach out and become the church to people that are detached. We had a lot of joy
yesterday. That’s the beautiful thing about taking steps of faith. That’s our call to enjoy the
Lord. We get wrapped up in the how and why and when we are focused on the who of Christ.
Who are you Lord? Who are you defines who I am, and we are able to walk in faith and be risk
takers and be radical and keep our eyes in the right place. Otherwise, we lose sight of what the
real mission is. John 3, I love these verses. Yesterday, we were preaching in a pavilion. We had a
great plan to have the pavilion and everything would be neat and organized but it was double
booked and there was another party almost on top of us, so we just preached to the whole
area.

There was this basketball tournament, but we had a louder microphone and shouted out
these verses. John. 3:16, God so loved the world. He so loved it. He didn’t hesitate to give his best.
He gave his very precious only begotten Son. As a father, God is constantly showing me as I
learn to love my son and my wife of course, to so love is revelation. Loving beyond mistakes,
what we can see, what we don’t understand. That’s a beautiful thing when we love people. We
can’t love people, but God is filling us with his love to look beyond the natural, the temporal
and the conditional and love with unconditional love and faith and perspective. God so loved
the world that he gave, John 3:16. I love the next verses. They are so rich, and the tendency is to
say I know these verses. I was so convicted reading these verses. The Holy Spirit kind of nudges
you and says you have no idea what you are reading. Okay Lord. I know nothing. I’m like a little
child. That’s a beautiful place to be. It’s easy to become a Pharisee or legalistic.

The knowledge can choke us. God did not come to condemn us, to fix us or beat us down. This is the message
of hope. God came not to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved.
Through him. That’s the Gospel. Jesus plus nothing. No prerequisite but believe and through
him we are reconciled, saved, delivered. Through him we have power and a ministry. We begin
to realize our purpose in this life and tap into the transformation. I don’t want to preach long
but we were sharing this in Frederick. We talked to one family and they said we need this kind
of Gospel. They didn’t say it like that, but we need this kind of God. God didn’t come to make
sin the issue or condemn you and make you feel small and insignificant. God came to lift you up
and take us off our dung hill, the beggar off the dung hill and put us on a throne. I’m going to
rescue you from you. I’m going to rescue you from ignorance.

It’s ignorance that equals arrogance and arrogance that equals ignorance. But God through him we are delivered. I’ll just say this: we that believe in him are not condemned. Thank God for the Body today that we have
this message. This message is our method. This Gospel we have is so precious. So many are on
their dung heaps. The poisonous asp, the poison is constantly coming out. God speaks
comfortably. I’m not going to condemn but convict, lead, love and bring you into the place I
called you. I am encouraged as the work of God continues in Baltimore and all parts of
Maryland. We have an open door. I was talking to P. Carl up in Wilmington. Remember
Wilmington, Delaware? Thank you for praying. We started our second Bible college semester.
They have 12 students and they say we never heard this message before. That is the
transformation of the finished work. P. Carl and Belinda are doing an incredible job tirelessly
serving and loving people. Thank God for you and our local assembly.

P. Schaller –

That was a great Gospel, wasn’t it, that we just heard? That was amazing! That was
like the message. Wasn’t that good? What a sweet, awesome song. This is a brief good
doctrinal – P. Jon Post is here with us from Nepal from the mountains separated from his wife
for the mission for a short time but now back. We are so glad you made it and your family is
such a blessing. We love you so much. P. Ralph is here and Emily and Haven and the family over
there. It’s great. Have you ever heard that phrase, “holier than thou?” Where is that coming
from? Isaiah 65. If you come to church to learn that phrase is in the Bible, then you did good.
This is a prophesy about the Jewish people, and they are a rebellious people, vs. 2. They have a
kind of religious way about them. By the way, we are not antisemitic around here. We are for
Israel. We pray for Israel. We love Jewish people. We have a ministry to them. We care about
them.

They are an important people in the plan of God. Anything I say in any derogatory way,
you put yourself in there. We are not judging. We are putting ourselves in there. That’s what
we are going to speak about tonight in a minute. Vs. 5. What does this mean but they are
separated from Gentiles and the people that are defiled. If you are defiled by blood or eating
pork, if you are a Moabite or defiled by being another people group, then you stand over there
because I don’t want to touch you because I am holier than thou. That’s a phrase we have
picked up from the Bible with the same meaning. What? You think you are holier than thou? I
think I heard my mom say it. Vs. 5. God doesn’t like it. Even though I might be sanctified and
holy, my spirit is one of pride. That’s a major problem. We had the morning message on sin, and
this is Romans 3:10-18. Some of you are not here in the morning, so I feel I have to repeat it or
rehearse it. Those that were hear this morning you can hear it again. It won’t hurt you. This
morning was a good message.

This message this morning ties into what we want to say tonight. We have Praise and Worship tonight instead of a rap. Is that with P. Mark? He said it might be a little cold, but we can do it either way (in here or the deck). We turn to Romans 3. We are looking in principle and I want to explain something to you for times we are living in our culture. We see a new paganism, a new emphasis on ungodliness and sexual perversion. This is like Romans
1:16-32. Paul is systematically teaching and leading people that are pagans, Gentiles who are
also pagans, but some Gentiles are “good” pagans like Plato and Aristotle and Socrates. They
are more philosophical, but they were pagans, not Jews. You have pagans that were living with very backward, primitive murder, no education, no philosophy, very simple, Viking pagans.
Vikings.

Ulla is here, so! We want her to stand up for us and show us what a Viking looks like!
You have uneducated pagans and then you have the “good” pagans and then the Jews. Paul is
leading us in Romans 3 that we are all of us sinners. We know this verse quite by memory. Vs. 10.
There is none righteous, no not one. We took some time this morning and taught this series of
verses from 10-18. Vs. 10. This understanding means just what it says. They cannot
comprehend, apprehend. They do not understand. They are on another track. This is all of us.
Vs. 11. They may practice a religion, but they do not seek God. They might say, thank you God
that I’m not like him. They do not seek God. They worship but it’s a system and exercise of
moral living but not seeking God. This is a sinner. This is all of us. Pagan educated or good
pagans and then Jews. All of us do not seek God. Vs. 12.

On another road, not on the track that God has. They are on another track. They become unprofitable like cream in your refrigerator that goes bad. You pour it in your coffee. It curdles and you throw the coffee down the sink and
the cream follows. It’s thrown away. This is people. It’s unprofitable. Every one of us. Not
anybody. This raises questions about morality and human goodness. I can’t explain that to you.
I know it raises questions in your mind, but this is what it is saying. The throat is an open
sepulcher. An open sepulcher with a decaying body inside with after two weeks hits the height
of putrification. The tomb is empty, and the smell comes out and that is what your throat is like.
You go to a dinner party and the Mercedes pulls up. Everyone is dressed up. The tuxedos are
worn. The music is playing, and people are so polite, and nice and get along. But their throat is
an open sepulcher. They are rabid, poisonous, critical, judgmental, selfish, and proud. This is in
the nature of man. All of us. Everybody. I was thinking of people judging me this morning. I was
preaching and I might discern things every once in a while.

This person having a spirit like arrogance. It’s like an arrogant spirit like judging. We don’t have any idea how wrong we can be. How wrong we can be in different ways. This is my typical, universal diagram that I use for
anything I want to teach! This is a narrow way like a road along a precipice and cliffs on each
side. Roman 1 is the paganism. We see it. Homosexuality, all kinds of horrible speech, this
horrible emotion, this internal anger. This revenge, violence and all kinds of expressions of it in
Romans 1. A Jew can say we have the law. We have the knowledge of God. We have the law.
We don’t live like the pagans. This is Romans 2:1. You are inexcusable oh man. Ever hear one of the
kids say, oh man! This is a different meaning. Who is the man that Paul is referring to in his
writing? Go to Rom. 1 and look at the list from 16 down through, vs. 29. Do you think we are
living in a world like this? Have you seen any of that? Have you seen haters of God? The Jew
could look at the pagan and say I’m thankful I’m not like those people.

Paul said, oh yes you are. You are the one with the Bible. Yes, you are. Go with me in this and understand the principle. The Jew did have this way of thinking. I’m holier than thou. We don’t do that. We don’t have
tattoos. We don’t sacrifice to pigs. We are not homosexual. We’re Jews. You see the idea. There
is something there what Paul is saying. I think it applies to you and me. We do the same thing.
We are also different. I want to put us on this side. This one is the paganism where we are
wrong and this one is the religious mindset where you say I don’t do those things. I’m not like the pagan. Romans 2:1, that’s a verse that I can’t figure it out. I know what it says. I do the same
things? Wherein I judge I do the same things? I don’t do the same things as them. Because I
don’t do the same things as those people, I could say I am better than they are. I could be
saying I don’t understand them. Why would they do that? This is what he is saying in principle.
He is saying you do do those things.

You have the same sin nature. You may be controlling it by some discipline or an effort to be a good Jewish man who goes to the temple and isn’t a pagan. A Jewish man who studies Isaiah or Deuteronomy and is not a pagan but as he is studying it, what is happening in his heart. Maybe he becomes proud that he is studying the Scripture. He
develops an attitude. I got it together. The point of these chapters 1-3, is to say even if you are
a Jew living by the law, you don’t have it. You must realize how wrong you are in your heart.
What is said this morning about discernment that there are Christian people that are very
judgmental. They are very judgmental. If they hear about people that live in some sin problem
or came from a bad background, they are very judgmental about it. Paul would say to them,
you are inexcusable, oh man. Wherein you judge, you are guilty of the same. You have the
same kind of pride, the same kind of blindness.

Only now it is moral and religious. You are the people that also crucified Christ. You crucified him because he healed on the Sabbath. I don’t do anything on the Sabbath. I keep the law. As you keep the law, you are violating the law. As you keep the law, you don’t have love. The point of the law is love. The whole purpose of the
ministry is love. The whole point of God being manifest with us is love. The whole point to the
unsaved world is they need love. There is a great word – it’s like if you and I are justified this is
the walk we have. It’s not one of judging. It’s one of life. It’s one of serving. I’ll put the word
“life.” It’s life in 1 John. It’s the word “love” in 1 John. God is love. We love the brethren. It’s not
judging the brethren. It’s loving people. Beware of the self-righteousness that is in every heart.
We see a lot of it around us. We gave an illustration and maybe you can come up with one. An
atheist is saying there is no God. He lives here or in Europe.

He says to me, you are a Christian. What are you doing to save the planet? I don’t know. I take my plastic bottles and recycle them. It’s the best I can do right now. What are you doing? He goes my carbon footprint is so small. I
don’t use my car. I ride my bicycle. And so on. You get the idea. I’m not making fun of them but
fun of the spirit of self-righteousness that surfaces all the time in this world. How do you take
care of your horses? How do you take care of your dogs? Do you let animals suffer? What are
you doing for the planet? What is your view on this and that? There’s all kinds of political
organizations and all kinds of works and efforts based on how good man is and subtly why
aren’t you as good as this. Better work on that. You better pick up your game and work on it
because we are saving the whales. I respect that. I don’t have a problem with that but it’s the
spirit of judging. Judging is the issue. You don’t have to be a Christian to be a judge. You can be
a Jew and judge and be a pagan and judge. You can be any human being in this world. God says
your throat is like an open sepulcher. In your mouth is venom and poison. You don’t know what
I am really looking for. You are spending your life in vanity. You are missing the mark. The
ladder you are climbing on is leaning on the wrong wall. You are playing the violin on the
Titanic. You are building a castle on the sea shore. You are arguing a point that doesn’t mean

much at all to the Almighty God. We just heard that song. 100 billion sins have been forgiven.
Christ crucified and rose from the dead and now we have life and love and faith. Every time you
feel like judging someone who is a neo-pagan, he can be justified just like you. How are you
justified? Not by works but by faith. How did God change a life? By believing in him. Coming to
the end and saying God I need your person. I do not know your way. I do not understand. My
throat is an open sepulcher. I’m ultimately lost. I’m way worse than I can imagine. I’m way lost
much more than I can realize. It doesn’t have to be with people over there but you and me. I
accept what you say. I believe in your Son. Save me. He saves you and fills you with the Spirit
and now you can walk in truth. What about those people?

Lord, I don’t accept the way they live. I don’t accept what they are propagating. I don’t believe in it. But let the blind lead the blind. They both will fall into a ditch. Maybe from the ditch they might look up and say God help
me. I don’t want to be part of the problem. I want to be a part of the ministry. I don’t want to
be a part of throwing gasoline on the fire. I don’t want to be a judge. I don’t want to say I’m
holier than thou. You stand over there. Don’t get close to me. I don’t care about any of that.
Jesus was a friend of sinners. He wasn’t a part of them. He was there but separate from them.
He was in their company to reach them and to love them and speak to them and minister to
them. He said I don’t come to judge but to save. I didn’t come to destroy but to save. My Word
will judge at the last day in John. 12:47. My Word will judge later in the last day. That day is
coming but now it’s not here. I give grace and mercy.

This is the word. It’s needed to be heard. Grace. Mercy. You ingrate. That means you ungrateful person. At the restaurant, you give a gratuity from the word “grace.” It means a gift of grace. “Persona no grata” – The United States government says this person is not welcome in the United States, a person without grace. What
does God say about you? Because you believe in my Son, I saved you and gave you a new
nature. I’ve anointed you. I dwell in you and I will teach you. I don’t need you to be on the earth
having a judgmental spirit walking around self-righteously about any kind of thing or program
that we so much gravitate to. I am right. You are wrong. I am smart. You are a fool. I got my life
together. Your life is a mess. You can stand over there. I’m over here. Let’s go like that. God is
saying you have no idea how much you are judging, and you are inexcusable oh man. Wherein
you judge you are in the same category. You are useless also.

They are useless and you being a judgmental person you have no idea. Every day you live it is grace. Every time you have air that comes through your lungs and vocal cords, and you are able to edify and love and minister,
that’s the grace of God. You wake up and say Jesus use me today not as a judge but as a
servant. Isn’t that good? That’s what’s needed, isn’t it. That’s the message. I could say the
whole thing all over again. I enjoyed it and feel good about it. I want to know it, learn it, and
think about it. I don’t want to isolate myself from others that are different from me. I want to
be comfortable with God preparing a table in the presence of people that are different from us.
I’d like God the Spirit to show me grace. The same grace I gave you I need you to pour it out to
them. I don’t need you to judge them. I need you to love them. I want you to listen to them. I
want you to care about them.

Don’t have a judgmental attitude or spirit that’s rooted in pride. If someone is in difficulty and they are homeless, and you are not but we are one or two decisions every one of us from being homeless. Just go to a casino a few days and you’ll be homeless for a while probably. You are no different from someone homeless or someone with a
disease or someone that has a problem or someone that is mentally sick or impaired or
someone who is disabled or uneducated or lives in poverty. We are no different from anyone
on this planet. We have just been given the grace of God and by God’s grace he saved us and
also we have a ministry to people that are different than us. We are not here to be holier than
thou, holier than thou, stand over there. I am a Christian. I am reading my Bible. I am saying my
prayers and by the way, if you read your Bible and said your prayers, you wouldn’t be in the
mess you are today. Are you sure about that? Are you sure about that? Who are you? What do
you know? How do you know that? How can you be a judge?

Only way to judge is to know everything. How do you know why they are in their trouble. How come you are judge? To be a judge, you have to be God. You are not God. Say to your neighbor, you are not God. Knock it
off. Turn to your neighbor. P. Love, I got to remind you of that! We are not God. We are not
God. We are the servants of God. He sent us here to be like Jesus. Jesus was a minister of God.
We have a ministry of evangelism and love and discipleship and training and people in Bible
college and in ministry and in learning how to think.

The way a church will die and just fall off
that side and be so wrong in the sins of the world and in that way and the church is dead
useless or you fall off that way. We don’t do those sins and we are pure and clean, and our
group grows smaller and smaller and we don’t touch those people over there. And so on. So the
church dies. Why did the Shakers die? Remember the Shakers. They didn’t marry. Even in the
cemetery, in the Shaker cemetery up in New York state, I went to one of these communities
and they all died off and the women are buried on that side of the graveyard and the men on
the other side. One stairway in the house was for women and one for men. So they died off.
That’s the end. Praise the Lord!

 

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