Nov 1 2026 | Storm Proof: A Study in James S2E4 | Who Are You to Judge?

Well, good morning, church. It is good to be with you this morning. My name is Harry. I am the family pastor here on staff, and we are continuing in our series in the Book of James today. And there are certain books, writings, and teachings that I think when we encounter them in our life, they can be formative for us. They can change our perspective. They can influence our actions. For me, when I first became a pastor at 21 years old, the book "The Pastor" by Eugene Peterson was given to me by Pastor Adam, and it was deeply influential for me. It's a book I now pass down to younger pastors. And then in high school, I fell in love with John Steinbeck and his writing, and I felt like I learned so much about storytelling. And before that, in elementary school, a book series titled "Captain Underpants" was deeply influential for me. Any other "Captain Underpants" people in here? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Good. The college students. You guys read that in Point Loma Naz? Is that one of the required readings? Yeah. It's good. Look, if you aren't familiar with "Captain Underpants," let me give you a brief synopsis. George and Harold are fourth-grade best friends. They are pranksters, and their most notable prank is that they hypnotize their mean, totalitarian principal named Mr. Krupp, so that every time he hears the snap of a finger, he believes he has turned into the famous crime-fighting superhero known as Captain Underpants. And I love these books. I remember reading them and all the pranks that George and Harold did, and I wanted to be like George and Harold. I just thought they were so cool, so funny. I remember copying their pranks. I remember getting a set of my own prank stuff, like a whoopee cushion and other prank stuff I collected. I remember one of their pranks was they would fold ketchup packets and put it in between the toilet seats at their school, so if someone sat down, ketchup would go everywhere. Horrible stuff. I copied that in elementary school because I thought it was so funny. I think I felt so guilty I removed the ketchup, but it's a foggy memory for me. But all these different things influenced my thinking, my behavior. We can come across those things that influence us. And for James, the author of this letter that we're in, it is clear when you read it that he has been deeply influenced by Jesus, and specifically Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Because in just five chapters, that's how long the Book of James is, scholars have identified a minimum of 36 parallels between James' teaching and Jesus' teaching, and 25 of the 36 specifically connect to the Sermon on the Mount. So although James does not specifically cite Jesus in his teaching, James had spent so much time with the words of Jesus that he had begun to sound like Jesus. And I wonder if the same could be said of us, that when people listen to the way we speak, when they observe how we treat others, when they spend time with us, can they see the influence of Jesus in us? What is your main influencer? What overflows from you? Are you spending enough time with the Spirit of Jesus and the words of Jesus that you're becoming more like Jesus? That is spiritual formation. And in our passage today, James, the brother of Jesus, he's writing to Jewish believers. That's his audience, Jewish people who have now started to follow Jesus as their Messiah, and it sounds like the opposite of spiritual formation has been happening in their church, where they're not sounding like Jesus. In fact, they're fighting, they're quarreling, they're gossiping, they're slandering. And so James, specifically addressing church people, tells them, "Hey, this is how you should speak to each other." So much so that James dedicates much of his letter to the power of the tongue to bring life and to bring death. And now he continues that idea in chapter four, verses 11 and 12 is what we'll read this morning. Which says, "Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?" Again, it's important to remember that James is dealing with Jewish Christians, Jewish people who put their faith in Jesus as Messiah, which means they were religious people. They knew what it was like to grow up going to synagogue, to go to the temple. I understand these were church people. These were religious people. And as church people here today, if you're a church person, you might feel convicted today. Not me, I kind of figured this all out, but you might. Because this letter is to church people, and the main problem he has to address with church people is not like the Pauline letters. You read the Pauline letters, a lot of problems of sexual immorality, a lot of problems of theological heresy. But for the church people that James is addressing, it's issues of slander and gossip that have easily made their way into a church community. There was a time when my wife and I were walking around La Jolla, just out in downtown La Jolla, and I saw a man who had what appeared to be a wolf, a full-size gray wolf on a leash. And I was staring at this man. I was like, "Is that... I've never been around a wolf, but that looks like a wolf, right?" And so I couldn't help myself, I was like, "I got to ask. I got to talk to this guy," right? So I go up to him, and I'm like, "Hey, man, sorry to bug you. Is that a wolf?" And he just looked at me. He said, "Yes." He smiled, and he walked away with his wolf. And I think about that man every day. Just living free right in here. So much so that a year later after that happened, I found myself Googling, "Is it legal to own a wolf?" Are you allowed to do that? Maybe you're allowed. Google said, no, you're not allowed. In fact, Google seemed kind of concerned I was asking the question. Google was like, "No, they're not domesticated animals. They're very dangerous, and it's very much illegal to own them." And I was like, "I'm asking for a friend. Thanks, Google." And look, that was two years ago. I never saw that man again. And I have to assume it's because he was eaten by that wolf, right? There is no other logical explanation than that. That's a joke, and I'm not speaking that over anyone. But if you know the wolf guy, if you guys know, La Jolla, I've learned, is very connected, so maybe you know him. Set up a meeting. I'd love to meet this guy. I have questions. But I tell this story, you're like, "How is he possibly going to connect that to his message?" Here we go. I tell this story because a problem that we have as Christians is we too easily become comfortable domesticating small, hidden sins that we deem insignificant. See, we try to avoid often the major sins that we view as major, violence, sins of sexual sins. But then we allow these little pet sins like gossip and slander to be adopted because we don't view them as dangerous, because we view them as lesser. And yet, the word slanderer in Greek appears 34 times in the New Testament. The word is diabolos, and it's a title for Satan. So maybe we have not taken slander seriously enough. Like a wolf on a leash, we have domesticated sins like slander and gossip because we thought they were tame, but they actually have the potential to consume us and to consume a community. And so James is correcting the speech of those in the church. James says, "Do not speak evil over one another." That word there for speak evil in Greek is kataleleo, and it means to speak ill, to speak evil, or to slander. And he puts it in the imperative, which means it's a command. James is taking this very seriously. He's commanding the early church, "Stop doing this. Stop speaking behind each other's back. Stop speaking evil against each other. Stop judging each other." That word for judge can also be translated condemn. Stop condemning one another. Don't slander and condemn each other. Why? Because you're not the judge. And when you begin to deliver judgments, James says what you actually have done is you've spoken against the law and judged God's law. Which to a Jewish Christian audience, they would've taken that very seriously. He says if you're judging and slandering one another, then you're ignoring and elevating yourself above the judgments and law of God. Because in the law of God, it gives us instruction about this. Leviticus 19:16 says, "You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor. I am the Lord." So when you act as a judge and a slanderer against your neighbor, you also slander and judge God's law because you have ignored it and you have elevated yourself above it. There is already a law that judges. God doesn't need your judgments. There's already a law that offers judgment, and we all are condemned under it, which is why we all need Christ. And there's already a God who will judge between righteous and unrighteous. So the judgment seat is taken, and when I begin to deliver out judgments, what I'm actually doing is trying to sit in a seat that is already occupied, and it's occupied by the living God, and I wouldn't recommend trying to take his seat. And you might be like, "Well, Harry, what am I supposed to do? You have no idea how frustrating the people at my work are. What am I supposed to do when people at work are so frustrating?" Or, "I know someone, and they're actually doing wrong, and they're harming each other." Or, "You don't know my neighbor. We have construction that's gone on our house with our neighbors for literally four years." I'm like, "When is that going to be done?" Right? "You don't know how loud they are. Why does it start at 5:00 a.m.? Am I just not supposed to take all this, am I supposed to just not say anything?" Yes, you're supposed to not say anything, except there's one person you can go to. The person, right? That's Matthew 18. Matthew 18, if someone sins against you, go to them. You can go right to them. You can go to the Lord, and you can go to them. That's the instruction that the Bible gives us. And it's easy for us as Christians to disguise gossiping as, "Well, I'm just processing," or, "I'm seeking wise counsel," or, "I'm venting. I just got to get this off my chest." But the reality is if you have not gone to that person, then you're probably gossiping or slandering. And maybe you're like, "But look, what I'm saying is true. If you saw, if you knew what I'm saying is true, what I'm saying is right. This is righteous anger." You might be right. Everything you're saying could be exactly true But just because something is true does not mean it needs to be said. We've convinced ourselves that as long as what we are saying is true, then we are justified in saying it. But James is not merely concerned with the accuracy of our words. He's concerned with the posture of our hearts. Because scripture says that out of the heart, the mouth speaks. And I just want us to notice the example of God, our Father. When God speaks, what happens? Life. God speaks, Genesis, chapter one, he speaks light. He speaks oceans. He speaks trees. He breathes the breath of life into human beings. When God speaks life, his word, John, chapter one, becomes flesh, and his word provides what? Abundant life. When God speaks, life happens. This is directly juxtaposed to the Diabolos, the slanderer. And when he speaks, death. When he speaks, deception. When he speaks, destruction. And so, the challenge to us is which example will we follow? And when we go to his word, we are directed again and again as believers to look to the example of our Father who speaks life. And I think it's important to note that there are verses that actually tell Christians how to judge, and that's where this can get confusing, because James says, "Hey, who are you to judge? Don't judge." And then you read other verses, and it kind of gives us instructions on how to judge within the church. And you're like, "Okay, well, which is it? How do I know?" And I think it, again, comes down to the posture of the heart. There's a difference between what James says, which is judgment for the sake of condemning the other, speaking evil, katagalléo, and then there's judgment for the sake of the other. Judgment that is humble and kind and for the benefit of the other. An example of this is in Galatians six, verse one. It says, "Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted." See, this is a judgment. Somebody's transgressed. He's saying, "Brothers, if someone transgressed," that's already a judgment call. It's not saying turn every blind eye to anything we ever do. It says, "If someone's transgressed," what are we supposed to do? In a spirit of gentleness, restore him. The posture we approach this person, not other people who aren't that person, this person, is a posture of gentleness, and it's done for the sake of restoring them. So the goal of Christian correction is restoration, not condemnation. And it's done in humility because you know you're capable of the very same things. Which is why it says, "Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted." So you're going to go correct your brother, that's great, but make sure you don't fall into it too. You're capable, too. So some good questions we should ask before judging is, okay, is this coming from a spirit of gentleness? Does this judgment have the goal of their restoration? Am I approaching this from a place of humility and empathy? You can usually tell if your judgments are katagalléo, speaking evil, or if they're for the benefit of the other, because one feels pretty good, and usually that's the wrong one. The reason that slander and gossip can feel good in the moment is because by putting someone else down when they're not around with no consequences, I'm then elevating myself as a byproduct of that in front of others, and it can feel good. But judgment for the sake of the other hardly feels good because it has to be done in humility. It has to be done in empathy. And you have to know, all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, man, I have this brother or sister in Christ who I love, and they're doing this thing, and I believe it's destructive, and now I have to approach them on that, and I don't want to hurt their feelings, but I know it's the right thing to do." That's not fun. That doesn't feel good. Well, it's for their benefit. That's one easy way sometimes you can tell the difference. I think a great example of this is the woman caught in adultery. The Pharisees in the Book of John, they drag out this woman who's been caught in the act of adultery in front of a crowd. They drag her out, and they're ready to act as judges over her, ready to condemn her and administer her punishment. And Jesus says, "Okay, you can do that. But have you first applied the same standard to yourself? How about this? He who is without sin, you go ahead and throw the first stone." Everybody leaves. No one can do it. They all realize they've fallen short. So then Jesus is left alone with this woman, and he looks at her and he says, "Woman, has no one condemned you?" And she says, "No one, Lord." And then he says to her, "Well, then neither do I condemn you." I don't katagalléo you. I don't condemn you. I'm not speaking evil over you. And then he says what? Go ahead, go and keep up the good work. No, not what he says. He says, "Go," you guys are all saying it. You know your Bibles. He says, "Go and sin no more." Go and leave your life of sin. Go and put that behind you. That's still a judgment call. Jesus still says in private, one on one, he still says, "That's sin. It's best for you to leave that behind." But he makes that judgment call in person, in private, and it's for her benefit in love. Where the religious leaders, their judgments were made with ulterior motives, pride, and selfish ambition, and self-righteousness. I put in your notes that self-righteousness is a common contagion that can turn Christians into Pharisees. And so we have to be very wary of self-righteousness stirring in us. And one of the first symptoms of self-righteousness is an increased awareness of everyone else's sin and a decreased awareness of my own sin. And I'll just say this, it's a very humbling thing to be a pastor and to be a preacher because I have to stare at this passage. You guys heard it today. Maybe you guys read it this week. God was prepping you. I had to read this every day. I read this passage Monday through Saturday, again and again. Do not judge. And again and again, I had to let this passage confront me and all the ways in which I personally have not done a good enough job of keeping a tight rein on my tongue. On times where, hey, I've gotten frustrated. I've spoken out of turn. So I'm growing alongside you in this as well, and it's so easy to be critical. It's so easy to be critical of one another, especially if you're like me and you're awesome. And everyone else is like, "Ah," you know? But you're great. It's easy to criticize one another. No, that's not the right way of thinking. Jesus said something about that. Let's talk about that. Matthew seven. This comes from the Sermon on the Mount. Again, this is where James draws from. If you start to think you're so great, here you go. Matthew 7:1-5, "Judge not, that you not be judged. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' even when there's a log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." So Jesus is like, "You're focused on everybody else, and they got a little speck in their eye. They got some sawdust in their eye, and you're walking around with an oak tree in your socket, brother. Maybe what you need to do, because here's what you're doing," he's saying. He's saying, "You're walking around, log in your eye, and you're like, 'Hey, can I help you with that? I think, hey, I don't know, you probably don't notice this. You got a little something right there.'" And Jesus is like, "How about you take the redwood out of your own face, and then maybe you will see clearly enough to help your neighbor." It's like if my son, Jude, who's three years old, when he eats pasta ... spaghetti, with red sauce, his face becomes the color of pasta. His whole face, because little kids, the way they eat, you're like, "How are you... There's pasta in your hair." You know what I mean? Like, "How did this happen?" And if my son came up to me covered in pasta and was like, "Hey, Dad, you got a little something on your shirt. You got a little pasta sauce on your shirt." I'd be like, "Buddy, you don't know the half of it." You know? Like, you need a bath, right? And this is what Jesus is saying. First clean yourself. First look at you. Take the log out of your own eye so you can maybe see clearly enough to help your neighbor. Part of the process of seeing clearly, then, is first recognizing that something is obstructing my own vision. I've got to first look at me and recognize that my lens has been skewed by my own sin. My lens has been skewed by my perspective, my upbringing, my wounding. All can skew my perspective. So before I go to judge, I might want to consider, how clearly am I seeing this? The first step on the path to clarity is humility. So before we go rendering judgments, we need to look at ourselves. And the more clearly we see our own need for grace, the less inclined we'll be, I think, to withhold grace from others. I quoted this a while back, and I don't remember who said it, and I didn't look it up, but I love this quote that says, "Before you see the cross as something done for you, you should see the cross as something done by you." Like, before you see the cross, like Jesus went to the cross, and it was done for you. Jesus didn't go to the cross because you're so amazing. He didn't go to the cross because you are just... God, he's like, "You're the best thing ever." Like, he didn't go to the cross because you're great. You might be great, but that's not why he went. He went to the cross because of his great love for you. That's why he went to the cross. And actually, he had to go because you necessitated it, because your sin put him there. We are all responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus, and yet we are all benefiting from the crucifixion of Jesus. And so how could we take any self-righteousness from being a Christian? We can't, because we put him there, and now we're benefiting. C.S. Lewis, in his book "The Great Divorce," one of my favorite books, just phenomenal book, he explains that a grumbling person, someone who's always in a bad mood, always complaining, always grumbling, that that person, he says, over time is no longer a grumbler, but they in themselves have become a grumble. They have lost their personhood. And he describes this as the very state of hell. He says that hell is an eternal grumble. C.S. Lewis in "The Great Divorce," the quote here, it's in chapter nine of that book. It says, "It begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it, perhaps criticizing it. And yourself in a dark hour may will that mood, embrace it. You can repent and come out of it again, but there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine." Are you a grumbler in danger of becoming a grumble? One thing I've learned is the more you sit with Jesus, the harder it is to grumble. Every time I get up a little earlier, and I start my day before kids are awake, if I start my day with a word, if I start my day in worship, if I start my day in silence and in prayer, when I do that, every single time, just the grumblings of the morning and the day start to fall away. And they're so easily replaced with gratitude. So all of this then comes back to the very first idea we talked about today, which is what is influencing you? What are you spending your time with? If you are in scripture, if you are in prayer, if you are in communion with Jesus, then that is going to impact what overflows from you. But if your head is buried in all your problems, or all your neighbors' problems and how messed up they are, the news, and our world is such a disaster, and the social media, and what's the next generation, and my work, and my production, and my value, well, then what's going to happen is the overflow from that will just be grumbling. So the remedy, then, to grumbling, the remedy to slander, the remedy to gossip, it's not more self-control. Because self-control, like a muscle over time, always weakens. You can strengthen it, but it will always weaken. The remedy is more Jesus, more time with Jesus, more getting nearer and closer to the person of Jesus. Because only Jesus can produce self-control in us. Which is why I put in your notes that self-control is not a fruit of human effort, it's the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Right? Fruits of the Spirit. Galatians. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It's a fruit of the Spirit. It's not something I can produce in me. God has to produce that in me. And I get it by getting nearer to Him. So following Jesus is not about white-knuckling my way into heaven, white-knuckling my way into a good life. It's not about sin suppression. It's about self-reorientation, reorienting my whole being, my whole life, my entire gaze to Jesus, and letting Jesus just draw me in. And as Jesus draws me in, then the things that are in disagreement with Jesus begin to fall away. Not in perfection, right? And yes, over time, but they do fall away. And finally, James says in verse 12, he says, "There's only one judge." Right? "There's only one lawgiver and judge, He who's able to save and destroy. So who are you to judge your neighbor?" James is reminding us there's only one who can pardon, only one who can condemn, only one who is a true righteous judge, and it's not you. You're not Him. But you are His child. You are His son. You are His daughter. And so we need to learn to act like it, then. To follow the example of our Father, to speak words of life as He Himself is the word of life. And I'll just share this. I debated sharing this, but I don't know. We'll see if it's helpful. I know what it's like to experience what James is talking about, which is slander within the church. I know what that's like. I won't give a lot of examples. But 10 years ago, when I was 22 years old, I'd only been a pastor for about a year, I had someone in the church who I thought was really close to me. I thought we were close. And they started spreading the most vile rumors about me that I'd ever heard said about me. The most horrific things that I think I could've imagined said about myself were said about me. And there's a whole backstory I won't give you. But it was one of the top three most painful experiences of my life. And it's not that I'm unslanderable, like I'm a perfect person. If you want a list of ways in which I fail, talk to my wife. I don't think she keeps a list, but maybe she should. I'm sure it's long. I'm sure you could find it. I think she's watching online right now with our two-week-old. So shout if there's a list. Email it. Don't. But, so it's not about that. The reason I share it is because it was so deeply painful. And if you're here, and you're hesitant to jump into following Jesus, you're hesitant to jump into church, you're hesitant to be a part of this because you have church hurt I know what it's like to be hurt by church people. I've experienced that. And if you're here and you got church hurt, I just want you to know I get it. As a church person, as the pastor speaking today, I get it, and I'm sorry if that's your experience. But don't let one moment, don't let a loud minority impact how you experience the body of Christ, because there is so much beauty in this body of Christ. And guess what? A decade later, I'm still here. I'm still a church person. I'm still following Jesus. This person's not. And so I'm not sharing this to throw a decade late pity party for myself. I just know the power of our words, and the church has to become a place that is separate from the slander and gossip of our world, so that when people come here, they experience something new and different and life-giving, and they receive words of life. Because throughout their week, we're getting slander and gossip and words of death, so we have to look different. But if you've experienced that church hurt, I just want to say, don't let the grumblings of hell impact your view of the kingdom of heaven. And remember the words of Jesus, because Jesus, look what he says, again, Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:11 through 12. He says, "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." See, Jesus says, "Man, if you're getting slandered, if you're getting persecuted on my behalf, you're blessed." He says, "This is what happens to blessed people. They did it to the prophets. They did it to me, probably going to do it to you." He says we should expect this. It's not an if they do this. He says when they do this. When they do this, just know you are blessed and your reward is great in heaven. And so when our world is full of slander, when our world is full of everyone tearing each other down in public and behind closed doors, and you're being slandered, and you're being misunderstood, and all around you seems like it's just the grumblings of hell, remember Jesus' words, and remember the words of his disciples, which are words we sang today. Where else can I go? Only you have the words of life. Go to him, go to his word, and in him you will find life, and life in abundance. Amen? Amen.