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A sermon on discrimination and discernment.
Discrimination, discrimination. When you hear me use that word, what do you think of? Well, if you're around my age, you've been hearing that word for a long time. Discrimination, it's a negative thing.
Back when I was younger, there was much discussion of discrimination in regards to jobs based upon race or based upon sex. In fact, I did a Google search on the term discrimination and for pages and pages, almost everything that came up had to do with lawsuits and rulings and things like that in regards to discrimination in a negative sense.
Discrimination, a bad thing. When we all hear about it, immediately it's a negative thought that comes into our mind. Discrimination, we don't want to be accused of discrimination. But if you think about it, there might be some uses.
I know there's at least one commercial that I've heard. I don't know if it's on the air anymore, but it talked about those for those with discriminating tastes. Now, it may no longer be on the air because no one realized you could use the term in a positive way and so they decided to stop using that commercial.
But a discriminating taste was basically a reference to a people who would have a special kind of taste, to have a taste that's trained to recognize what's good and what's not good. Discrimination, judgment.
Oh, there's another word that goes right along with discrimination. It's a negative thing in our society today. You don't judge anyone any longer. Judge not, lest ye be judged. I mean, that does seem to be the favorite Bible verse of our society.
How many people have actually read it in context, have any idea what it was actually about, what does it really matter? But judge not, lest ye be judged. No one is allowed to judge right and wrong any longer.
Well, except for certain elements of society that we grant that authority to. And so, certain people can judge that things are right and wrong and other people aren't allowed to judge whether things are right or wrong.
That's political correctness today. Judgment. We no longer know upon what basis things will be judged right or wrong. There are certain things that are still wrong, sort of, but it shifts from year to year, from generation to generation.
Judgment, don't want to be a judging person. Discernment. Not a common term in our language today, is it? Maybe you've read in some books, I discerned this, that, and the other thing. We know what it means, we don't use it much, and in fact, it's primarily used within the Christian faith.
Discernment. The ability to recognize the truth or error of something. In reality, all three words are very closely related. Very closely related. And we live in a day where people tell us that we shouldn't do these things.
And yet, every single human being engages in discernment, judgment, discrimination, every single day. Every single day. The question is, are we consistent? The question is, upon what basis do we make these decisions?
Everyone engages in discernment. For example, it is well known, let's use the term discrimination. Someone in this congregation, who is nameless, we don't know who it is, on the Thanksgiving Wednesday night, when we give thanks, someone in this congregation is always thankful for Argus.
And it's not me. And so there's someone who evidently is engaging in a small amount of discrimination. In fact, if this past week, or sometime in the recent past, you were in a rush one day, and you were really hungry, but you didn't have much time, you were out and about, and so you just needed to hit a drive-thru.
You needed to get something really quick. Well, driving down almost any road in Phoenix. And you don't have to go too far before you're going to run into a Taco Bell, or a McDonald's, or an Arby's, or a Del Taco, or a Whataburger, or whatever.
How do you decide? If you did not engage in discrimination, if you did not have a basis upon which you make a decision, you'd never pull in any place. You'd starve to death, because you'd never make a choice.
But the reality is, we discriminate. Now, sometimes the basis of our discrimination changes. When I'm alone, it's going to be pretty easy to make those decisions. Some of us, with me, there are certain ones of those that just get X'd out.
Just don't even bother, I'm going to get this dirty loaf again. I'm not hungry, oh yeah, right, uh-huh. And so the whole basis of discrimination changes. But we discriminate. Oh, that's okay, because that's just, that's based on your taste.
Okay, so there is a basis upon which we are making a decision, a judgment as to what we like and dislike, or what we're going to do and not do. All judgments have to have some kind of a basis. There has to be some basis upon which we make life's decisions.
The big ones, the small ones. As Christians, we want to have a consistent foundation for all of life. For all of life. For all the decisions we make. Yes, Christianity actually teaches that in the entirety of life we should seek to glorify God.
Even in the food choices we make, yes, our health is important. So, how should we respond to the fact that we live in such a politically correct culture that some of the discrimination that the Word of God commands us to engage in is now considered to be wrong?
Especially when you can't get the culture to reason with you and to think about why they're saying the things they're saying. So many in our society are completely controlled by images. Well, my favorite singer said this, so it must be true.
Wow, what a wonderful basis for building a worldview and a life. It's difficult to deal with people, thankfully. We continue to believe that they're creating the image of God and therefore we have a basis upon which to speak to them.
But this evening, very briefly, I want to talk about these words. Discernment, discrimination, judgment. All of life involves discernment, decision. It's the basis one uses, the consistency of one's worldview that makes all the difference.
Let's look at just a couple of scriptures this evening and consider together this idea of making decisions. Discernment, judgment, discrimination. Let's begin by looking at Hebrews chapter 5, verse 4.
Hebrews chapter 5, verse 4. There are a couple of terms I'd like to look at in the New Testament just by way of reminder, just by way of thinking about this concept of making decisions, discernment, recognizing the difference between right and wrong.
Notice that Hebrews chapter 5, verse 14. But solid food is for the mature, whose perceptions are trained by practice to discern both good and evil. Listen to this text again. Solid food is for the mature.
It's literally the complete one, the same root word that is found in Jesus' words on the cross. It is finished. It is one who is complete. It is one who is not lacking major areas of development. That's a mature person.
And that's what we want to be as Christians. We want to be mature Christians. We want to grow up. We don't want to stay in the infancy stage. And so solid food, and in the context he's contrasting the fact that he can't really, he's going to tell the people that he's writing to him, you know, I can't really engage in in-depth discussions with you about some of these things because you're still children.
You're not ready to eat the solid foods yet. Solid food is for the mature, the complete. Well, what does it mean to be mature? Well, I'm not suggesting that this brief sentence describes everything that means to be mature.
But clearly here is one very important element of it. Those who are mature, their perceptions are trained by practice. That's the term gymnasium. So when you think of an athlete and the training they go through, we had the Olympics last summer, and they had story after story after story of how you have to be absolutely dedicated daily to this training to reach the highest levels of competition.
Well, that's the same term that's used here. And it's talking about perceptions trained by practice to discern both good and evil. Notice this is not something that took place overnight. There's so many who believe the Christian life is a matter of just getting zapped by the spirit and then everything's going to be fine.
If God would just drop this down from heaven on me, it just doesn't work that way. Yes, there is spiritual gifts. Yes, there is the sense in which regeneration changes everything. But the purpose of God is that we, through practice, diligent discipline, obtain maturity.
He doesn't just zap us, and all of a sudden we are able to discern good and evil. There are so many interesting faces today in our society that you can turn to the back of your Bible and you can look up the concordance all you want.
You're not going to find anything about embryonic stem cell research there. It doesn't appear in the back of the Bible. And all the modern things that man has brought up. A lot of people will say, well, it just shows us this isn't sufficient.
No. The mature believer is one who, by diligent training, repetitive practice, has perceptions, has ability to discern between good and evil. To make that judgment. The Greek term means to judge between.
That's what we are called to do. We are called to make decisions between what is good and evil. Now, there are certain things where the Word of God just lays that out for us. But we all know that as you walk with the Lord over any period of time, you encounter difficult situations in life.
And the Bible is not meant to be a 30-volume set of reference works where you just simply look up any given situation and you go to volume X and it says, do this, wear this, say these words. There are a lot of people who want a religion like that.
There are a lot of people who don't want this messy process of maturity. They don't want to have to stumble and fall and learn from that. And then learn that you frequently forget what you learned from having stumbled and fallen last time.
That's life. And that's the process that we're going through. But as long as we are going through those things with a desire to be disciplined by them with a goal of maturity and the ability to discern between good and evil, God's going to honor that desire.
That's what maturity is. When was the last time you prayed, Lord, I want my perceptions to be trained by practice to discern both good and evil. Is that a prayer that we have? It should be. It should be a desire of ours, Lord, guide me in your paths.
That's what the psalmist says, right? How do you know which is the path? Well, the Word provides the light. But we have to discern the way. And that discernment is something that's spirit-borne. The spirit changes us through the things we experience in our lives and causes us to have perceptions that allow us to discern both good and evil.
And it's based upon this maturity that we arrive at over time. Do any of us ever reach perfection? Not in this life. But we've all known those people who are mature. They respond differently to trials and difficulties than other people do.
And it's amazing the insight they have. They see hidden traps. They see hidden dangers because they're able to discern between good and evil. They're able to make the decision between what's good and evil.
What's frightening in our days, you can't even call anything good or evil anymore. That's how backwards our society has become. It's the same term that is used, by the way, to judge between, to discern.
The same one that's used in 1 Corinthians 12. I'm not going to go there. I'm just letting you know that text. To another, discernment of spirits. Now, I know that some of our charismatic friends turn that into a real wild thing.
But I think discernment of spirits in 1 Corinthians 12, a spiritual gift, has to do with being able to recognize truth and error in the proclamation of religious truths. I think that's the primary application is discerning of spirits in that kind of a context.
And it can also be used in a negative way. In Romans 14, 1, now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. And so obviously judgment can be used both positively and negatively.
It can be used negatively in the sense that there are people who are just judging everything. They can't keep their mouths shut about anything. You recognize those folks, and you generally try to sort of scoot away from those folks when they sit down next to you because they just are negatively judging all the time.
But the positive aspect of being able to discern good and evil, a vital element of Christian maturity. So much so, let's look at the second text I want to look at this evening. We have a brief amount of time.
Philippians chapter 1, verses 9 through 11. Philippians chapter 1, verses 9 through 11, again makes reference to this concept. And here Paul is praying to the saints of Philippi. And I've said many times before, a study of Paul's prayers is undoubtedly one of the richest resources, areas of study you can engage in.
If you really want to see what prayer is about and what is important in prayer, look at Paul's prayers. But here in Philippians chapter 1, here's what Paul prays to the saints. And I pray this, that your love may abound even more and more in knowledge and knowledge and every kind of insight there's a term we want to look at so that you can decide what is best and thus be sincere and blameless for the day of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
Here the prayer is that their love would abound more and more. It would not just reach a certain level and then plateau. There is going to be an overabundance, a growing of their love. But notice this love is not again the way we think of love so much in western society.
It's just some kind of warm, fuzzy feeling. Since love can be commanded, we're to love God and love our neighbor, then it has some kind of volitional element to it. There's dedication involved. Love is a choice.
And so notice the realm in which he is speaking. Even more and more in knowledge and every kind of insight. Now how do those two things connect together? How do you connect growing in love and this idea of knowledge and every kind of insight.
Every kind of ability to discern. And yet that's what Paul says. Evidently the more you love God, the more you love the truth of God, the more you love the gospel of God and the people of God, the more concerned you become about truth and error.
Because you begin to see that false teaching, error, is not an amoral thing. I preached a sermon here one Sunday evening a number of years ago. It was called Heresy is not a Victimless Crime. And once again I find myself reminding us that God's truth not only should be precious to us who are saints, but let's keep something in mind.
There is a judgment day coming. There is a judgment day coming. And those who despise that truth, those who misuse that truth, those who pervert it or abuse it, do you think that they're going to stand before the judge and the judge is going to go, well, you know.
It was just my gospel. It was just my message. No big deal. No. This matter of discerning between truth and error is a moral thing. Promoting that which is opposed to God and His truth is immoral and will be judged.
And what I'm saying is incredibly unpopular today. Because the Western way of thinking is, well, look, what I think in my mind is just this. Who are you to say that God care less about that? And if I'm standing behind the sacred pulpit in the university, I can say whatever I want and even God has no right to judge that.
That's the religion of humans. The fact of the matter is you express perverse thoughts and encourage others in their rebellion against God, you will answer to God for that. Judgment will come. Every word we speak and I would suggest every word we type, every word we text will be judged in light of the one who made us and gave us the ability to use those faculties.
And did we do so to His honor and glory, did we do so for ourselves? And that's true for the people of God, quite true. But do you think that those who love their sin are going to be any less judged for their perversion of the gifts of God that He's given to them?
So you see, this idea of growing in love for God, in true knowledge, it's a special it's an emphasized form, it's not just gnosis, it's epinosis. True knowledge of God. We are to grow in that. If we love God, then we want to know more and more about God.
We cannot be apathetic about Him. And so we have this consuming desire to know more about God, but we don't want to be deceived about God. And so we need to have insight, we need to have discernment. There are so many competing voices.
We express love for God when we seek to accurately know His truth. You see, for many you hear the warning, well, you know, we don't want to be those kinds of Calvinists that, you know, conduct every I and cross every T, but have no spiritual purpose.
Exactly right. Exactly right. But you see, people hear that correct warning, and as it seems to be the element of human nature, they swing the other direction and go to the other extreme. So that it's no longer really important if we are honoring God through the proper proclamation of His truth.
And He'll just accept whatever we give Him. God is honored when we show honor to His Word, when we desire to discern between truth and error, when we really want to know the truth about who He is. We will not accept substitutes if we truly love Him for who He is.
Now, none of this is overly surprising to us. I mean, in this sense, think about it. You, if you're married, want to know your spouse. You want to know who they are. You don't like when people lie about them.
You don't want to hear lies about them. You get upset when people falsely attack them. And yet, when it comes to God, somehow, we have a much lower standard. I'll have to admit, it is somewhat troubling to hear Muslims talking about Christians sometimes.
Obviously, I hear more about what Muslims say about us than almost anybody else does, but there is one element that I think is relevant at this point. I was listening to a Muslim lecturing, and one of the things he said was, one of the signs that we're right and the Christians are wrong is, look at Christians and how they respond to the blasphemy of Jesus or their God or their Scriptures.
They don't care. They're just like, oh, well, you know, it's just his opinion, you know, no big deal. At least we get upset. He says, now, this guy was saying, it doesn't justify doing crazy things. He's opposed to that kind of violence, but this person was saying, it just seems odd to me that someone would say, I really believe that this is true, and then when you hear somebody blaspheming it, you just sort of go, you know what, he's right.
I mean, I remember when we first came here. I don't know if it was the first week or second week. It was within the first month that we first came here, and we came from a southern Baptist church, and Pastor Fry was praying.
Pastor Fry used a phrase in the Psalms that I had never heard anyone ever use in the Psalms before, and that was he was talking about false teachers, and he said, break their teeth. And I remember I was caught up.
I had never heard anybody say it like that. I knew enough about the Old Testament. I knew where it was coming from, and I thought about it. And we sing a hymn. In fact, I think we've sung it within the past two weeks.
I think it might even have been Wednesday night. I'm not sure. But it asks in essence, the person singing says, that I want to make God's enemies mine. And we know sometimes if you grew up in this church, you've always heard that.
It doesn't strike you as odd, but if you come here from someplace else, where political correctness is a little bit more the moment of the day, well, those things just strike you as very odd. And yet, I think there's an element of truth in what that Muslim was saying.
We can become absolutely apathetic if we really love God. I know we're surrounded with so much false teaching that eventually the mind just wants to go I'm not going to deal with it anymore. The reality is my prayer has always been, Lord, let me never become apathetic about these things.
Don't let me lose heart. Don't let me become discouraged. But at the same time, the psalmist talked about crying rivers of tears over those who abuse God's law. It should bother us. We should be concerned.
And so if we grow in this love, in knowledge, in every kind of insight, notice what the result is, very quickly. So that you can decide what is best. You can confirm. You can judge what is right, what is best, and thus be sincere and blameless in the day of Christ.
This isn't just some ancillary thing, some side issue. Do you want to be sincere and blameless in the day of Christ? When you appear before the judge and see the Christ? When you see him, do you want to hear, well done, thou good and faithful servant?
But we've got to be able to decide what path to follow. How many books have been written about finding God's will for your life? And you open it up and that's a concordance. Great, try it again. And I've been there, done that, heard all the lectures and everything else.
Here you go. Do you want to be sincere and blameless in the day of Christ? Then you need to grow in your love, in true knowledge and every kind of insight so that you can affirm what is right. You can follow the path.
And thus be sincere and blameless in the day of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ the glory and praise of God. That sounds like a really important thing. Do you want to be filled with the fruit of righteousness?
Do you want to have a fruitful life? Do you want to bring glory and praise to God through Jesus Christ? Well here you go. You need to know what path to take. There are all sorts of things in the way. You need to have enough knowledge to be able to discern the right way.
You can't just be stumbling along. Quick illustration. Most of you know I do a lot of writing. And I found a new path that goes up north. But to get to it, you have to go under Thunderbird Road and there's these gates that they can, if there's any threat of rain, they close these gates.
Because I guess it's really flash flooding. And you have to determine I have to make a choice when I start out whether I'm going to try to get to a certain area or not. If you come around these corners, I can be moving pretty quick.
And if that gate's closed I can be in a little bit of trouble. I've got to come to a real fast halt because I'm going downhill and I go downhill fast. So I have to make some decisions before I get there.
If I'm not paying attention, if I'm just... You know, me hitting a closed metal gate at about 23 miles per hour is not a pretty sight. I'm going to be injured. I can't just simply decide, well I think I'll do this or I'll do that.
I have to plan things out. That's a simple illustration. Yet we don't do it in the Christian life. My goal is to bring honor and glory to God. We all say that, right? So the question is, how? Well, I need to be filled with the fruit of righteousness through Jesus Christ.
How? Well, I need to be sincere, blameless in my activity. That's going to bring this fruit of righteousness about. How? I need to be discerned. I need to have true knowledge of His will. I need to have true insight into being able to apply that knowledge to the many and varied situations I face in my life.
The glorious thing is I don't need one edition for Brick. Another edition for Rob. Another edition for Jim. I only need the one. Because not only of the nature of what's here, but of the Spirit who then takes from this and applies to us.
That's the wonder that the Christian people have experienced down through the generations. The wonder that we continue to experience today. Do we face some pretty unique challenges in our day? We do. It's the Spirit of God, the Word of God up to preparing us, informing us the image of Christ so that we might be blameless in the name of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness, the praise and glory of God.
Well, certainly is. That's perfect. It is our desire, Father, that by your Spirit you would indeed lead us this coming week to serve you, to be filled with the fruit of righteousness, to be discerning, discerning not based upon our prejudices or our ignorance, but upon a spirit to bestow knowledge through your Word, a love for your truth, an insight for what is right and what is wrong.
As we have opportunity this week to speak to others, use us to speak forth your truth. Bring honor and glory to Christ. We pray in His name.