Take your Bibles and go with me to John 7. We're going to jump right in today. I want you to look with me at verse 24. We talked about this last week. We're going to develop it in greater depth today. John 7, verse 24. We'll set the verse and its context a little later in the message. But let's just read this verse and then pray. Jesus says to them, do not judge by appearances. In the force of the Greek word there, in the verb, it's an imperative, and He says, stop doing something. That is really the force of the imperative. Stop judging by just mere, visible, appearance. Judge with a right judgment. Let's look to the Lord in a word of prayer. Lord, shine your light on your word. We study it together this morning. Open our hearts. Lord, help us as we examine our lives under the searchlight of your word to have clarity about who we are as individuals and about who you are and what you desire. Help us, Father, to stop judging, making decisions, evaluating, making choices, based on just what appears. Lord, there is a way that appears right to a man. But the end of that way is death. Help us to see things the way you see them. In your name, amen. I hope and pray to make you think today, okay? So put on your thinking caps. Sometimes on a Sunday, my goal is more to make you feel something. I want you to always think. Sometimes a message, you know, kind of gets down into that realm of experience and experiential things, and I hope that you feel something. I guess I hope you feel something today. But I want you to think with me. And so put on your thinking cap, stick with me. We'll try to move quickly. which means you're going to have to think doubly quick. Judge righteously. The main point of what we are looking at in this portion of chapter 7. We've already been in chapter 7 a couple weeks. So I'm not going to do the hard work of going back two weeks and just telling you my sermon for the last two weeks. Because that would just rob us of time. But think with me in the context as we get into this. The main point that Jesus is getting to in his interaction with these Jews is stop judging And the word to judge means to evaluate, to make a decision, to make a choice. Stop making your choices in life based on appearance. Instead, I want you to learn to evaluate, Jesus says. I want you to make your choices with a right judgment. The right judgment. That's the main point. That's kind of where we're going. If you remember last week, there were two critical areas where the Jews of Jesus' day were assessing Jesus wrongly. The first one in the context was His person. They say, where does this man get any learning? He never studied. He never went to one of our rabbinic schools. And yet he is coming here and he is teaching us. And they are kind of, what would you say, kind of upset with him over that. He's an insignificant person from Galilee, all those things. And so they are looking at Jesus, at his person. And just as it said in Isaiah 53, who has believed our report, as we looked at last week, to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He has no beauty that we should desire him. He's just one of us. And there was nothing that dazzled them about his person. And so they are judging according to the appearance. Because they're judging according to the appearance of who he is, they miss him as their Messiah. Secondly is his method. And that's what we want to talk about today. If you will notice with me in the text again, in verse 19, Jesus says to them, has not Moses given you the law, yet none of you keeps the law? Keep that sentence in mind, because that's the conclusion. Why do you seek to kill me? The crowd says to him, you have a demon. Who's seeking to kill you? Jesus says to them, I did one miracle among you in Jerusalem. You all are marveling at it. Moses gave you circumcision. Not that it was from Moses, but it was from the fathers. It came through Abraham, remember? And you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. Now, if on the Sabbath, a man, a baby, a child, a baby man, receives circumcision so that the Law of Moses may not be broken, then why are you ticked off at me because on the Sabbath, I healed a man? And then he says, don't judge by appearance. Right? That's what we're getting at. His method. The appearance is what? In their mind, he is a lawbreaker. He just healed a man on the Sabbath and they were all offended at it. Jesus is saying all you're doing is you're looking at the letter of the law and you're missing the whole point. You're looking at appearances, you're not looking any deeper. So, we need to talk about this with his method. So let's go on, let's talk about his method. He healed a man on the Sabbath. Oh no! Right? Oh, no! This guy at the Pool of Bethesda has been laying there 38 years. Why couldn't Jesus heal him on Sunday instead of on Saturday? You know, the guy's been there 38 years. This isn't, you know, it's not life-threatening. If you want to be healed, crowds even said this in another place in Mark's Gospel, if you want to be healed, don't come on the Sabbath, come on Monday. You know, let's do it then. Don't you know this is a slippery slope? If we let Jesus heal on Sabbath, the next thing you'll all be throwing footballs in the parking lot. Come on. You know, it's a slippery slope. And Jesus says, all you're doing is you're judging by appearances. So he heals a man on the Sabbath and they are ticked off at it. The situation is, in Judaic tradition, Now remember, what does the law say? Remember the Sabbath day to what? Keep it holy. That means to keep it separate. On six days, in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and everything that is, and he rested the Sabbath. He hallowed it, he called it the Sabbath. So God said what? Remember it and rest. You know what? If you read the entire Torah, you're not going to find in there a thing where it says a woman is not allowed to comb her hair on the Sabbath day. But in Jewish tradition, it said that they couldn't. Why? Because if she sees a gray hair, she may pluck it and thus work. So in Judaic tradition, they have added civil mandates. These are civil mandates because Israel is a theocracy and there is a wedding together of the civil state and the ceremonial and the priestly and all of that is wedded together in one entity. So there are all these civil mandates that have been added in Judaic tradition to God's law. which is exceedingly succinct, right? You shall not steal. It's a succinct set of commandments that God has given. But in order to understand them, And to keep there from being slippery slopes, the Jews have said what? We need to specify and we need to regulate by adding all these layers of regulation. Kind of sounds like the bureaucratic state, right? Now, we could go into all those pharisaic things and we would laugh at them because they're kind of funny to us. There are 39 classifications of work in Jewish tradition. And under those 39 classifications, there are books of regulations. Like I said, it sounds like bureaucracy. To keep them safe in keeping the law. The accusation against Jesus is he has done something unethical. He's done something unethical. He healed a man on the Sabbath. Now, there are two important applications I need to make this morning in a very short time, and I want you to think with me. Number one is we could think about the Christian and civil mandates. This really relates to what's going on here. There is a civil mandate that has been placed in Judaism. It's not from God, it is from who? Men. And yet these men are trying to bind men's conscience with these mandates. And so we can talk about the Christian and civil mandates. And we need to talk about the Christian and ethics. Ethics, what are ethics? And I will just begin by saying this. It is very easy to make superficial judgments. If the Jews could do it, stop judging based on what you see. Judge righteously. If the Jews could do it, I would suggest to you that we ain't a whole lot different than them. And we are prone to the very same things. It is very easy for us to think superficially about civil mandates and ethics. So that's where we're going. Let's think about civil mandates first. Now, this could consume us for weeks. But we're going to do it in really short order, because I want to talk to you more about ethics today. But we could ask ourselves the question, when do governments overreach their God-given authority, and Christian duty becomes one of resistance? Did Jesus go along with this civil mandate? Why? Because Jesus said in Matthew chapter 12, it is right to do good on the Sabbath. It is right to do good on the Sabbath. Jesus didn't just live under the system. He took it on. He took it on. When do governments overreach their God-given authority and the Christian duty becomes one of resistance? Now, we could set that in a context, because we all understand mandates now, don't we? You know, we could think about COVID. We could think about masks. I still, I won't go. Vaccines. Corporate words. I am digging deep into a deep hole if I go deep onto that. But we could think of that context, right? No matter what you may think of the efficacy of the mask or the vaccine, whatever you may think about social distancing, we can still look at that in the context of where we are today versus where we were a couple of years ago. And we can really wrestle with, you know, what does that mean? How should we get ready for the next time? Because they're all telling us what's coming again, right? They're telling us. Now, I don't think they're telling us because they're prophets. Okay, they're not prophets. And yet they are telling us what's coming. Another pandemic. So we better think. Corporate worship. Now, Wyoming, we are blessed. We had a governor who got all us pastors together on a Zoom call. and said, this is my counsel to you, but I can't tell you what to do. And then he came back on a couple weeks later and said, you're free to do what you want to do. You know, we live in a different state than California. There are two purposes of government, isn't there? Romans chapter 13, reward the good, punish the evil. That's what it comes down to. Reward the good, punish the evil. Now, I don't have time to go through all of this this morning, but I'm gonna give you two tools to help you wrestle. Here's a new book written by a guy named, I gotta take my glasses off, Jesse Johnson. Jesse is on the board of directors of the Master Seminary in California, involved with Grace Community Church, and also involved with Shepherd Seminary back east. Wrote a book called The City of Man, The Kingdom of God. The subtitle is Why Christians Respect, Obey, and Resist Government. It's a good read. You wanna go deeper into the subject, go on there and find this on Amazon or wherever you like to get your books. City of Man, Kingdom of God. There's also an excellent movie that's come out recently, maybe you've seen it, called The Essential Church, put out about Grace Community Church, some of the things that went on there in California as they wrestled with this. and Lord willing we'll be showing that movie here so we can wrestle deeper on this subject but I want us to think about it because it's an important subject so we're moving through it quickly I'm going to give you one illustration of has nothing to do with COVID but it shows you the kind of things Christians have to wrestle with comes up in this book and I'll just develop that real quick and then we'll move on about ethics see that beautiful castle that is in the country of Bhutan Bhutan is where, anybody wanna take a guess looking at the mountains? It's like Himalayas. And there ain't a flat spot in the nation, right? Small country in the Himalayas, it's a mountain kingdom, and it is predominantly Buddhist. I mean, very few Christians there, but there are Christians. In Bhutan, There is, now think about having to live under this civil mandate. There is a official dress code. There are eight parts to the dress code. It is inextricably linked with the practice of Buddhism. It is codified in what is called, and I'm sure I am butchering the pronunciation, the Dignam Nansa. It is gender specific. So you can see the guys wearing their skirts. Aren't you glad, guys? You get to wear your blue jeans. And here's the women. Now, there's different colors, things like that. But it is an official public dress code. Now, here's the wrestling match for believers. Two things. Number one, it is illegal. for them to meet as Christians to worship. It is illegal. Do they do it? Yes. The second part of the civil mandate they wrestle with, not a lot of them wrestle with whether or not they should meet. The second part that they wrestle with is this. When we meet, are we bound to wear the official dress code. Are we bound? Some of the Christians say, no way. When Christ saved me, he set me free. He has given me principles in his word on how I should dress, but I'm not going to just dress that away because the Buddhists do. Some of the Christians say, you know what? I'd rather wear the public official dress code. And if I get in trouble for going to church, at least I'm also not getting fined for wearing my blue jeans. Right? It's just one less thing to get in trouble for. And so in the church in Bhutan, Christians are wrestling with a civil mandate. Couple of them. One is you can't meet and worship the Lord together. The other is whenever you are out in public, you got to wear, and I can't say the words, but the male dress or the women dress. And if you don't, you're liable to a fine. So what does a Christian do? If you lived in Bhutan, would you wear the getup or would you not? It's something to wrestle with. We'll go deeper with that in weeks to come, okay? When we watch The Essential Church. Let's talk about ethics. Let's talk about ethics. What are ethics? When I say the word ethics, what does that mean to you? When we think about ethics, you know, we ask ourselves, you know, what are ethics? I want to think this morning about the foundation of Christian ethics. I want to talk about the core of our ethics. I want to talk about the way we view ethics versus the way the world views ethics. And then I also want to just ask ourselves the question, did Jesus promote kind of a situational ethic on this thing with the Sabbath and what he was willing to do? Now, when we say ethics, we are talking about, this is kind of a formal definition, we are talking about the branch of knowledge, human knowledge, that deals with moral choices. My dog is not sitting around with my other dogs this morning in the house, wrestling with what is right and what is wrong. They don't think that way. God didn't give them that. But human beings have an irreducible understanding from God that is born within us of right and wrong. Now whether or not the world wants to legitimize that as coming from God is a different thing, but we understand as Christians this comes from God. So even if you go into the world, there are schools of thought in secular universities that are dealing with moral choices. What is right? What is wrong? So we are talking about human behavior and we're talking about right and wrong. It comes from a Greek word. Wow, you know, it's amazing. How many words in our English language come out of the old Greek? The word ethic is a Greek word, and it is only used one time in the New Testament. I'll show it to you real quickly. It's in 1 Corinthians 15, 33, when he says, be not deceived, evil companions corrupt good ethics. You hang around the wrong people, you listen to the wrong teachers, You imbibe the wrong message, don't deceive yourself. It corrupts what? Good ethics. There are types of ethics. We talk about these all the time in the world, don't we? We talk about things like business ethics. We talk about things like medical ethics. Remember the movie we watched a few weeks ago during the week put out by Ray Comfort, What Is It? And they framed the question this way. When is it right to kill a baby? Because it's the ethical dilemma here, right? If we're going to say, what is it, it's a baby. So then we need to pose the question properly to people in the conversation. And ask people, in your mind, when is it right, under what circumstances is it right to kill a baby? Put the question out way long enough, people think different about it, right? When is it right to kill a baby? That's what we're talking about. It's an ethical thing. We talk about counseling ethics. So a counselor, there are certain norms of behavior in the counseling client relationship that kind of govern that relationship. We talk about sexual ethics today. When are certain behaviors right? When are they wrong? We talk about racial ethics, but all of these things have to do with moral choices. And the Jews of Jesus's day are saying to him, he has made an unethical decision to heal a man on the Sabbath. That is the accusation. When we think about biblical ethics, let's think about some things. In the Christian life, there is the evangel and there's also ethics. There is the gospel, there is doctrine, and then there is also duty, the way we live. And both of those things are inextricably linked. The one is based on the other, but the two go hand in hand. There's the gospel, there's the evangel, and there's our ethic. It's kind of like a railroad track. know two tracks and you get off on one side or the other you're gonna derail so there's doctrine and there is duty Paul talks about that he says in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 1 you receive from us how you ought to walk to please the Lord he's talking about what our ethics and in that chapter he goes into the issue of sexual ethics and it talks about fornication How do I know what is right and what is wrong? Maybe you're in here and you're not a believer. Your life has not really been governed by the scripture the way a Christian is. And you, I want you to analyze with me. Maybe you're a young person and you're not, you're trying to build your own worldview at this time in your life. How do you know when something is right and something is wrong? How do you gauge that? The ethic of the natural man. Now, I didn't put an unbeliever there. I put the natural man. Because a lot of times, even as a Christian, we walk in the natural man. We think like an unbeliever. That's why I put this there. I'm not just saying that the world does this. I'm saying a lot of times, if we as a Christian just live the way we naturally feel or think, This is the conclusion we draw. The natural man's ethics are dependent on two things. These are important. Number one, what serves self? Right? What is in my best interest? That is the natural man. That is the ethical way Or that is the way people in our natural inclination gauge right and wrong. What serves me? Secondly, what the situation demands, right? What the situation demands. So we'll talk about this a little bit later as we talk about situational ethics, but what serves self And then what is the actual situation? So we're talking about a baby. When is it right to kill a baby? Well, it depends on the situation. And it also depends on what's in my best interest. That's the way we naturally think, correct? Now, we could apply that to a lot of different subjects. We're just using that one. Go with me into another idea as we think about this. Let's think about the Christian mindset. Now, this there again, I'm not saying every Christian all the time thinks this way, because a lot of times we revert in our thinking to number one. But if we are walking in the spirit and we are under his guidance and in his power, this is what God would have us adopt as our view of ethics. Number one, what does scripture teach? What does scripture teach? So what does scripture say about the baby? And when it's right to kill it? Not about what the situation is, but what does God say? Secondly, We also talk about this principle a lot, and Paul develops it many times in his letters. He talks, and this is where Jesus is going with the Sabbath, correct? It's not about the letter of the law, it's about the spirit of the law. So, I'm going through Thane, 110 miles an hour, and I am going south like you know, I'm whipping in a spur. And I get pulled over by the police officer. And he walks up to the window and he looks at me, Pastor Tim, I didn't think your truck went that fast. Why are you going so fast? Because my wife is having a heart attack and I need to get her to the hospital. The letter of the law says what? 30 miles an hour. The spirit of the law says the police officer jumps in his cruiser and he says, follow me. Correct? This is what we're talking about. And this is where Jesus is going. Well, then are we talking about situational ethics? How does this work? This gets us to the next point. Stay with me. The Christian mindset is not about what serves self. It is about what pleases God. and what serves others, right? I'm not going 110 because I'm just trying to get to the coffee shop. I'm going 110 because I'm trying to save my wife's life, serving others. So when we talk about the Christian mindset, our ethics are based, first of all, on scripture. And then we understand scripture in the spirit of it, not the letter of it. And we understand that what pleases God and serves others. And all those things go into forming the Christian ethic. Now, in the world's ethics, they are essentially Darwinian, the survival of the fittest. And they are Marxist. What best serves the community? They don't tend to be individualistic. They tend to be Marxist. How many of you watched a Republican debate? Who would you vote off the island? That's what we're talking about. The foundation of biblical ethics. Psalm 19 talks about the law of God. Does so first of all talks about general revelation the heavens declare the glory of God and then he talks about the law of the Lord is perfect Converts the soul in that chapter in verse 9. He says the judgments of the Lord are true and together Together they are righteous So if we don't want to judge by appearance, we want to judge rightly. How are we going to judge rightly? The judgments of the Lord, what he says here, this, my friend, is true. And together, all of it, righteous. So my ethic, the foundation of my ethic as a Christian should be the law of God, the word of God. In order to navigate correctly, you understand this, you need a fixed point, don't you? So we think about navigating by the North Star because it's a fixed point in the heaven. So two, God has given us his immutable words that never change, that are a fixed point that we can build our life upon and navigate the decisions we have to make based on what he has said. And so it becomes a point of navigation for our life as we face ethical dilemmas. Biblical ethics at their core. God gave us 10 commands that are divided into two. Our highest duty as a Christian is what? Love God. With all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. The highest duty of a believer is to glorify God in his ethical choices. Does it glorify God? The second one is, like unto it, love your neighbor sometimes. And love your enemy. As you what? Love yourself. Jesus's ethics did not rely on the situation or self. Rather, he was focused on pleasing his father, serving others, and keeping the spirit of the law, not the letter. That is the ethic of Jesus. So I would suggest to you that the ethic that we should adopt as a believer would be focused, number one, on pleasing God the Father, on serving others, loving others as ourselves, and then observing the spirit of the law, not just the letter of it. I could really get myself in trouble on this one. That is why Corrie ten Boom felt completely free in her spirit to lie to Nazi guards that she was hiding Jewish people in her home. Oh, that's an ethical dilemma. And why she could go and she could lie to get ration cards. And they wrestled with it. And I'll just throw that one out there and not even answer it. But know that I'll get an email wrestling with it too. What do you do with that? That is an ethical dilemma. What is the spirit of the law? Save a life. None of you keep the law. That was Jesus' words, right? And this just brings us full circle. All of us have done unethical things. All of us. That's why we need to sing. Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for your word. I pray that your word would shine a light upon our duty. Lord, we are faced with many conundrums in life, and we sometimes don't know what to do. Help us to do things carefully, to not just do what seems right, Because the end of that way leads to death. Help us, Father, to build our lives on your word. We thank you, Lord, for your grace. Because we all have broken your ethical standard. So we pray in Jesus' name.