“Judging by Appearance” – FBC Morning Light (4/14/2023)

Another good Friday morning. I hope you've had a great week thus far and are looking forward to the weekend, and especially the

Lord's Day. At Faith Baptist on Sunday, in our adult Sunday school class, we're studying the book of James.

One of our men is leading that study. I appreciate that help. And then in the morning service,

I return to the book of Colossians. I've been out of that for a couple of weeks, with Palm Sunday and then

Easter Sunday last week. And then Sunday evening, returning to the book of Proverbs.

Again, the last two Sundays we didn't have evening service because of other schedule stuff.

But the book of Proverbs, very practical book. So if you're in the Sterling Rock Falls area and can get away for service, one of the services,

I hope it'll be a blessing to you, and I hope you can do that. Well today, in our

Bible reading plan, we're reading in the book of Joshua, the gospel of John, and again in the

Psalms. And I want to focus on a verse in John chapter 7, one of the statements that Jesus made.

And this is what he said. He said in verse 24, Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.

He said again, Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.

Now in the context of that statement, Jesus is dealing with some people who are judging according to appearance.

And so one of the things he he addresses is that, it says in verse 15, the

Jews marveled, saying, How does this man know letters, having never studied? In other words, they're looking at Jesus on the surface, and the appearance of things, and they're seeing someone who apparently they could tell by how he was dressed or whatever.

He never went to seminary, he didn't have a degree in the

Old Testament law, he wasn't like the rabbis or the priests, the chief priests and all that, he didn't have all the accoutrements of being a scholar.

And yet, here he is teaching, and they're thinking, there's got to be something wrong here, something wrong with this man, because how does he know letters when he's never studied?

He's never studied. So they're making a judgment based on appearance. And then

Jesus brings up another situation in which critics had made a judgment simply based on appearance.

And that was when he says, so in verse 23, he says, if a man receives circumcision on the

Sabbath, okay, the law allows for that, you have to honor the Sabbath, but you know, there's also the law about, you know, so many days before, you know, after birth that a male child had to be circumcised, and so forth.

So he says, if a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses should not be broken, then are you angry with me because I made a man completely well on the

Sabbath? All right, so here is the appearance thing that they were addressing. Jesus healed someone on the

Sabbath, and they had their superficial laws that said you could only do certain things and you couldn't do other things on the

Sabbath, and he was violating their superficial man -made laws, and therefore they concluded, they judged that he was in the wrong, that he was in error for what he had done.

And Jesus says, in that context, he says, don't judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.

He's telling, look beneath the surface. What does God's Word actually say? Does God's Word prohibit anything that I've done?

Does not God's Word tell us to love our neighbor and to show mercy to those who are in need, even on the

Sabbath? Isn't that what I've done? So haven't I done something that is righteous, something that is good?

Don't judge merely on the sake of appearance. Judge according to righteous judgment. Evaluate according to what

God has actually said, not according to man -made traditions, not according to superficial extrapolations and applications of the

Bible, but what has God actually said? Judge according to that, judge according to righteous judgment.

Now there's all kinds of ways that can be applied in our lives, isn't there? I mean, just think of the very practical everyday stuff of life.

You know, it's easy to be taken advantage of by having something look really good, but underneath the surface it's really bad.

You know, think about that with, say, a piece of furniture. You know, it looks really nice on the outside, you purchase the thing, you get it delivered to your home, and you use it, and after a few months, you know, the cushions aren't fluffy anymore, they're not supporting anymore, the springs in the bottom of the couch, they're like giveaway or something.

What's going on? And then you find out, well, the materials inside are cheap materials, and they're not going to hold up.

They look good on the outside. You judged according to the appearance, and everything looked good on the outside.

You've got to look beneath the surface, and that can be true with people, just like it was with Jesus.

We can judge people according to appearance, and totally misjudge.

We need to judge righteous judgments. Look at that in both directions, okay?

Someone can look really sharp, really sharp. I mean, we've had occasions where people have come to church, and they looked the part.

They looked like they were, you know, they were one of us, if you will, okay?

They looked like they were carrying Bibles, and all the rest of that kind of stuff. But then once we got to know them, we realized they believe heresy.

They don't believe the truth. And so then we could make a righteous judgment, and make a discernment about where they really were in their spiritual lives.

But it can work the other way, too. There are people who can come into your assembly, and they can look like, oh man, what's going on with them, you know?

And we can draw conclusions, wrongly so. We can draw conclusions simply by looking at the surface, at the outward appearance.

And Jesus says, don't judge according to appearance. Judge according to righteous judgment.

Get to know the person. Find out where they are in life. Find out what God has been doing in their lives.

And you may find out, you may discover, that there is some richness and some depth in that person's life, spiritually, that you totally missed, because you were just judging by outward appearance.

Made that mistake too many times, and you know, God help us.

God help us to apply what Jesus has told us here. Don't judge on appearances.

Judge righteous judgment. So Father, help us in that, we pray. It's so easy in this world of image consciousness to make decisions and make judgments based on outward appearances.

Oh Lord, help us to have your sense, your wisdom, your word, to make righteous judgments, we pray.

In Jesus' name, amen. All right, well listen, have a good rest of your Friday, wonderful weekend, and again, if you can join us together on the