The Core to Effective Judgment

Well, good afternoon, brethren. All right, there’s a drawing that I’m going to do to start this message. I went to architecture school, so I like drawing, so we’re going to start this message with a drawing. You can follow along and do the same in your notes as well. Okay. I’ve got my pencil and paper here, my marker and paper here. So, how many of us have seen diagrams of the Earth? The Earth’s core, its mantle, and the different layers of the Earth. Okay, we’re going to draw a simplistic version of the Earth. Okay, so you can draw this too. Draw a big circle. Okay, pretty easy. My daughter can do that, so I’m pretty sure you can too. We’ll draw one on the middle. A middle circle, and then we’ll draw a really small circle in the middle. Three circles, three concentric circles. Pretty easy. All right, and for sake, because we can’t really write in these, we’re going to put a line over here, a line over here, and a line over here, so we can later reference these three aspects of these three concentric circles. For the sake of the Earth, the center is called the core. You don’t need to write that off to the side, but that’s the core. We all know that.

This middle phase or middle part of the Earth is called the mantle. The mantle. This isn’t drawn to scale by any means, but the outer layer is called the crust. So you’ve got the crust, the mantle, and the core. All right. I’ll just set that down for now. There’s a term used regularly in the world and in various professions that goes like this. We have to get to the core of the matter. We have to get to the core. If you could use the Earth as an example, we don’t want to deal with the crust. We don’t want to deal with the mantle. That’s not good enough.

We’ve got to figure out what’s in the core of the matter. Think about detectives or doctors, or lawyers. All kinds of professions. What they do, a detective has to not just superficially look at evidence on a crime scene, they have to dig deep into motives. They have to do their research. They have to figure out who all was involved. They need to get to the core of the matter. They can’t just research things superficially and deal with the outer crust, if you will.

Doctors and lawyers are the same. When a doctor is figuring out a diagnosis, he wants to get to the root cause of what’s causing all the problems. There might be a lot of symptoms, but it’s hard to understand what the root cause is. The core of the matter. So, brethren, we have to get to the core of a matter today. We’re going to be going over a subject that can be hard to understand, hard to wrap your arms around when you look at it from the surface, but it involves digging deeper. So let’s turn over to First Corinthians chapter two as we begin.

We’re going to first start by describing a subject at its surface level. What do I mean by that? First Corinthians chapter two, and we’ll pick it up in verse twelve. First Corinthians two, twelve. “Now, we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God.” God’s spirit is in us, not the spirit of the world. “...that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” God’s spirit allows us to understand the truths. God opens our minds to the truths. It’s not something that we can do personally. And the Holy Spirit, which God gives us, gives us that ability to understand the truths of the Bible.

Verse thirteen, “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God...” How many of us have tried to explain the truths of God to our unconverted relatives or friends or anything? People outside the church, co-workers, and it fell flat. It fell on deaf ears. Reason being is because God isn’t opening their minds to the truth yet. The natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God because they don’t yet have God’s spirit in them.

“...for they are foolishness to him...” The truths of the Bible, as plain as they are, seem like foolishness to the world without God’s Spirit in them. “...neither can he know them because they’re not spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual...” we, who have God’s spirit in us, what does it say? “...judges all things. Yet he himself is judged of no man.” We, who have God’s spirit in us, or if we’re just working toward baptism, God’s spirit says that God is working with us prior to baptism. But God’s spirit is certainly working with you if he’s calling you out of the world, even if you don’t yet have the Holy Spirit in you.

But God says that we, which are spiritual, must be able to judge all things. And that word judge means to discern. So how do we even begin to tackle that task? Judge all things. What an immensely huge, seemingly insurmountable task that God has given us. How do we even wrap our arms around what this subject is? Judging. Let’s go further. Philippians chapter one. This isn’t the only place God talks about this. Philippians chapter one and verse eight. Paul is speaking to the Philippians here. “For God is my record, how greatly I long after you, in the bowels of Jesus Christ. And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment.”

God wants us to abound in all judgment. So my question to you and for me is if God wants us to constantly be growing and abounding in judgment, here it means perception or discernment, very similar to the word in First Corinthians two. If we’re supposed to be growing and abounding in judgment, how do we do that? How do we tackle such a huge task before us? It may seem broad and overarching to the point where it’s hard to fully grasp, but the Bible lays out a very clear formula for us. Something that makes it very easy. Very, very easy to remember.

Never again, by the end of this message, will we feel overwhelmed by the subject of judgment. Like we won’t be able to wrap our arms around how we can have good judgment in all areas of our life, in everything. And it’s very easy to apply this formula because God laid it out very simply. So let’s write on our document here, on the little picture that we put, let’s write the word ‘judgment’. On the outer core, or the outer crust. We’ve got to get to the core of this judgment here, brethren. That’s our focus today. How do we get to the core of judgment?

What is the core of judgment? Just like a detective, we have to go finding it in God’s word. We can’t just superficially read all the verses about judgment and then, “Okay, now we understand it. It’s good. We’re fine. We all have judgment.” No, no. It’s much deeper than that. But it’s simple. It’s a simple formula. And you’ll see that very clearly here. So the first outer ring is judgment. The crust, if you will. Where the crust of the Earth would be. Turn over to Ecclesiastes chapter eight. Ecclesiastes eight. And we’ll pick it up in verse five. We’re starting to dig a little bit deeper here.

Let’s try and figure out what can we do? What’s the formula that helps us better understand how to have good judgment? Ecclesiastes eight and verse five. “Whoso keeps the commandment shall feel no evil thing. And a wise man’s heart discerns both time and judgment.” So if we want to have judgment, we have to be wise. We have to exercise God’s wisdom. Verse six goes on and says, “Because to every purpose...” Every purpose, brethren. There isn’t a purpose on this Earth that doesn’t involve judgment. “Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is great upon him.”

So if judgment is found everywhere around us, if we need judgment in all aspects, every purpose in our life, God himself, through Solomon, says that whoso keeps his commandment shall feel no evil thing. And a wise man’s heart will be able to discern judgment. So we have to be wise. Let’s add wisdom to the second line here. Wisdom is this middle ring. Okay. Judgment. And before judgment, we have to have wisdom. Proverbs chapter two, just a few pages back. Proverbs two and verse six. How do we receive wisdom then? Wisdom is another one of those subjects where it’s kind of like, “Well, thank you, Mr. Holcombe. You narrowed it down from a really amorphous, hard-to-understand subject of judgment to another fairly difficult thing to understand, which is wisdom.”

How do I wrap my arms around wisdom? Wisdom isn’t the easiest thing to grasp. Let’s keep digging. Let’s keep digging. What does God’s word say about it? Proverbs chapter two and verse six. “For the Lord gives wisdom, and out of His mouth comes judgment, comes knowledge and understanding.” Okay, so we can take comfort at least in knowing that if we want to have judgment, which preceded by judgment, comes wisdom, if we want to have wisdom, God is going to be the one who gives it to us. So that helps us, and it takes a little bit of a load off of our shoulders, right?

Thankfully, God says that He can give us wisdom. He’s going to be able to give it to us so that we can have judgment. Well, that’s wonderful. So all we have to do is ask God for wisdom, right? Well, that’s true, but not so fast. Verse nine says, Proverbs two, nine says, “Then shall you understand righteousness and judgment and equity and, yes, every good path.” So if we want to understand judgment, then shall you understand righteousness and judgment, we must first have wisdom that comes from God.

In Proverbs eight, just a couple pages over, verse twenty. Proverbs eight, twenty, says this, “I lead in the way of righteousness...” wisdom speaking. “I lead in the way of righteousness in the midst of the paths of judgment.” So wherever we want to have good judgment, we must be led by wisdom. Wisdom is going to help us make good judgment. But again, wisdom is a difficult thing to fully grasp. It’s a big subject. It’s a huge subject and one that can be difficult to understand fully. But James one and verse five says this, and I’ll just reiterate what I said before.

Wisdom, in James one and verse five, comes from one source. Where do we get wisdom from? We get it directly from God. Verse five says this, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that gives to all men liberally...” God will just pour wisdom out on you. Just like he poured wisdom out on Solomon. Solomon didn’t effectively use his wisdom. But God says that he’ll pour it out on us if we ask Him. “...and upbraids not, and it shall be given him.” So again, we wrote wisdom as the second ring, the second piece to the judgment puzzle. Trying to dig deeper and deeper and deeper and figuring out how do we have good judgment.

Okay, now let’s turn over two more chapters to James three. You know, wisdom can come from God. We all understand that. But is there a part of wisdom that we have a role with? What role in wisdom do we have? Kind of like, you know, faith. It says in the Bible, “Faith without works is dead.” A lot of people in the world just believe that they have faith. I have faith in Jesus Christ. But their works don’t back them up. Faith without works, belief without works, is dead. You don’t have faith unless the works that you do, the things that you do in your life, support your beliefs and strengthen them and back them up.

So the same is true with wisdom. If we just ask God for wisdom, that’s great. But my question to us today is, what part and what role do we have in wisdom? Is there something we can do personally to build our wisdom, to strengthen our wisdom, to make our wisdom stronger? James chapter three has the answer. We’ll pick it up in verse seventeen. “But the wisdom that’s from above...” and God gives us wisdom, it’s from above. “The wisdom that’s from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy, and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace in them who make peace.”

So, what key in here do we have that tells us our role and how to develop and build a more effective and powerful Godly wisdom? Let’s look at the word gentle. It says, the wisdom that’s from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle. That word gentle is the word that means, can be translated moderate. Moderate. I even have in my notes from back years ago when I had written these in my Bible, that word gentle can mean mild or moderate. So if we want to grow in wisdom in order to develop judgment, God says one of the aspects of wisdom is becoming moderate.

For the sake of finishing this off, let’s write moderation. Moderation. Moderation is the core of the subject today. Without moderation, we can’t have wisdom. And without wisdom, we can’t have judgment. So therefore, if we want to have judgment, ultimately, what we need to focus on is to be moderate. How do we grow in moderation? And I’ll just say that so that it’s very clear. Without moderation, which is the core of what we’re discussing today, we can’t have wisdom. And without wisdom, we can’t have judgment. So let’s focus, for the remainder of the time, on how to develop moderation. What is it? Why is it important? And how do we develop it? First Timothy chapter three.

You can think about some of the verses that we’ve went through. It says that we’re supposed to have judgment in all things. When you see the word judgment or wisdom, honestly, in every case, you could theoretically replace that word with the word moderate. In order to have wisdom, or to have judgment, you need to be moderate. So we must understand the subject of moderation. What is it and how do we develop it? First Timothy chapter three and verse one. Moderation is a qualification for the ministry. Paul is speaking to Timothy here.

“This is a true saying. If a man desire the office of a bishop or an elder, he desires a good work. A bishop, then, must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach. Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre, but patient...” That word patient, guess what that word is? It means moderate. A minister, the qualification for becoming a minister is you must be moderate. “...not a brawler, not covetous.” And it continues on. Well, moderation, of course, isn’t just for the ministry.

It’s not like God is saying, “Okay, I only want my ministers to be moderate in all things.” Everybody else can have their freedom and leeway to do whatever they want and not be moderate. But that’s just not true. Turn over to Titus chapter three. Titus chapter three and verse one. This is speaking to brethren at large. Titus three, one. “Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, and be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle...” to every gentle, “...shewing all meekness unto all men.” That word gentle is moderate.

It may not be translated moderate in these instances so far, but we all know this verse, Philippians chapter four. This is the same word that we’ve been reading in all of these other accounts. Whenever we’ve read the word that is translated moderate so far, this is the word, the same word that’s used in Philippians chapter four and verse five. Philippians four, five. How important is moderation? How overarching and broad is moderation? “Let your moderation be known unto all men.” All men. Everybody out there who sees you and me, have to look at us.

Our goal is to have every human being that we come in contact with and interact with say that person’s kind of middle of the road. Let your moderation be known to all men. Why? Because the Lord is at hand. Moderation is so important, and it ties to our salvation. Why? Because moderation is one of the core aspects of gaining wisdom, and wisdom is the core aspect of gaining judgment. And we’re supposed to have judgment in all things. So without moderation, we can’t have judgment. We can’t have proper wisdom. Are we understanding? Are we beginning to see how crucial this subject is? How central it is? What kind of a core element this is to our Christianity?

It may not seem like it on the surface, but deeper diving helps us better understand just how important moderation is. Christianity is, brethren, so much more important than just attending Sabbath services and then going home for the week and waiting until next Sabbath to come back to services and fellowship for a few hours and then go back and live your life. It’s not just about keeping the Holy Days. Christianity is a way of life. When God called us, He didn’t call us to just keep the Sabbath, keep the Holy Days, tithe, stop eating unclean meats.

He called us to transform our life. And one of the ways He’s called us to transform the way that we live is through the concept of moderation because moderation touches everything that we do. There’s nothing we do in life that doesn’t need or involve moderation. The food that we eat, the time that we spend having free time, what we do in our free time. There’s so much that moderation touches. That’s why it’s such a core aspect of Christianity. First Corinthians chapter nine. Let’s turn there. We’ll pick it up in verse eighteen. First Corinthians nine, eighteen. We’ll just spot through a few verses.

First Corinthians nine, eighteen. “What is my reward then? Truly, that when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel. For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.” Paul is able to become moderate, if you will, toward all people. He can become a Jew when he needs to be a Jew. He can become a poor man when he needs to become a poor man. He’s able to meet people where they are because he understands how to work with all of these different kinds of people.

“Unto the Jews I became a Jew, that I might gain the Jews. To them that are under the law, under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law. To them that are without the law, as without the law. Being not without the law to God, but under the law to Christ, that I might gain them that are without the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might gain the weak. I made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you. Know you not that they which run in a race, run all? But one receives the prize, so run that you may obtain. And every man that strives for the mastery is temperate in all things.”

Temperate in all things. What does moderation really come down to? We have to become temperate. We have to control ourselves. Moderation is a way that God has given us to stay within the bounds, if you will. God has lovingly given us moderation so that we don’t look too odd to the world. If we’re supposed to let our moderation be known to all men, God says that He’s kind of given us this plan so that when we go out in the world, when we’re with our brethren... You know, He’s called the weak, the foolish, the base, the things that are despised, the things that are not.

He’s called the people of the world, who naturally aren’t... maybe we’re not naturally very moderate. But by calling us to become moderate, it will help us to be seen by the world as not so odd, if we could put it that way. We’re peculiar people, but we don’t want to be too peculiar. If we get into extravagant ideas or thoughts or ways of living that are outside the bounds of what God says that we should be doing, that’s odd. That’s outside of moderation. And the people in the world will notice it, and they’ll say, “That person is strange.” And not for the right reasons.

Turn over to Romans chapter seven, verse fourteen. Romans seven, fourteen. “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I allow not, for what I would, that do I not, but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that is good. Now then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwells no good thing. For the will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not.”

Paul had this struggle within himself. The carnal mind, the natural mind that we have in us, hates God’s laws. And naturally, that carnal mind pulls us out of balance, out of moderation. Because we now are understanding how important moderation is. It’s the core of wisdom and judgment. We now understand how important being moderate is to God. So, if it’s important to God, you can be sure that it’s important, from Satan’s perspective, to try to have us not be moderate. Satan is going to do everything in his power to pull us out of moderation. And our carnal mind, naturally, will do the same. Because where does human nature come from? Human nature comes from, is developed from, the prince of the power of the air. Satan’s nature.

The carnal mind hates God. It’s enmity against God. It doesn’t want to do anything that God says is good or right. So we have to fight that. God’s spirit in us gives us the ability to pull ourselves into moderation. God says in Second Timothy one, verse seven, that He’s given us the spirit of power, love, and of a sound mind. The spirit of a sound mind will help us remain, pull us back into moderation. So let’s get into the two ditches of moderation. Naturally, if you think about what moderation is, it’s like a path, or it’s like if you’re walking on your rug at your home.

I have a rug in my living room. The rug doesn’t fill up the whole living room, but it fills up a portion of the living room. Let’s imagine the rug is what’s moderate. If I’m walking on the rug, I’m in the realm of being what’s moderate in life. If I find myself stepping off the rug, on either side, I’m lacking moderation in one way or another. For music people, like I play the violin, if I play a note, if I play a note, I have to hit the note right on if I want it to be in tune. I can’t be a little bit sharp or a little bit flat. I’ve got to be right on the note. That’s not really what moderation is like in real life.

Moderation isn’t walking a tightrope where you’re on this wobbly tightrope in life, and you have to make sure that you’re exactly moderate in everything. Moderation is more like, think of a guitar. Think of a guitar. You’ve seen the frets on the guitar, it’s different than a violin. A violin doesn’t have frets. There are instruments like a viola and a cello, they don’t have frets. With a violin, a viola, or a cello, you have to hit the note dead on, or else it’s going to be out of tune. You can’t be moderate. Your moderation is, you’ve got to be precise. It’s like walking that fine line, that tightrope.

Moderation in real life is more like a guitar. You know the frets on a guitar? They’ve got the fret all the way up the fretboard. If you put your finger anywhere inside that fret between the frets, you’re going to hit the right note. Moderation is much more like that. It’s much more closely defined as there’s wiggle room. Moderation isn’t walking a tightrope. And if you just happen to take one micro step to the right or to the left, now you’re not in moderation. Moderation is like walking on that rug. It’s like walking on a regular path. A regular path has width to it.

Now we should know where the boundaries of that path are. The boundaries of that path are different for different people. But let’s start discussing one side of that path of moderation, which is slothfulness. We can fall out of moderation because we’re too slothful. We don’t do enough. We’re lazy. Turn over to Hebrews chapter six. If we just don’t want to put forth the effort in life to do the things that we need to do, for example, let’s just take Bible study, prayer, fasting, meditation, all of those things. If we don’t put forth the effort in life to do them, we’re landing on the side of lacking moderation. We’re lacking moderation insofar as we’re being slothful. We’re not doing enough.

Hebrews chapter six and verse eleven. “We desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope to the end, that you be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” God knows that the natural tendency for all of us, really, in various aspects of our lives, is to become slothful. It’s easy to fall into being slothful. It takes very little effort, obviously. And the danger here, though, is it says, “...be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

What that’s saying is don’t be slothful, but follow people who are more diligent, who are going to receive eternal life. In effect, what that’s saying is if we’re slothful, we’re not going to receive eternal life. That’s the danger. Slothfulness and not doing enough, not even rising to the level of what is moderate, is highly dangerous. And if we’re naturally lazy, it takes work and effort to push ourselves to become moderate in all things. Ecclesiastes chapter ten. Ecclesiastes chapter ten and verse eighteen.

Ecclesiastes ten, eighteen. What happens when we become slothful? “By much slothfulness the building decays, and through idleness of the hands the house drops through.” Think about this. You’ve all heard of the term entropy. Naturally, things deteriorate in life. Things don’t get better as time goes on. I mean, I guess you could theorize good whiskey does or something, but eventually it’ll just... who knows what will happen after a long time? Things naturally decay over time. They get worse. If you let a house idle, it’ll fill with dust. Mice will start to enter in, mold will grow. All kinds of problems will occur. And that’s because of slothfulness.

Slothfulness in our own bodies, that’s true. If we don’t tend to our bodies properly, if we don’t tend to our physical lives properly, it’ll start to decay. That’s what this is saying here. So we have to do all things in moderation. Starting with, if we find ourselves on the slothful side of moderation, not doing enough, we have to work ourselves up to build that desire to become moderate. And here’s the other part of moderation. You know, if you’ve been in God’s church for, let’s say, a long time, maybe you’ve been in God’s church for decades, it can be a danger to become high-minded in our thinking.

Like, “Oh, I’ve arrived. I’ve been in God’s way for a long time. I know the ropes. I know what to do, what not to do. I know how to look like a Christian and act like a Christian. I know what I can and cannot get away with.” And you begin to get lazy. The things that you once were hot and on fire for, you’ve kind of let grow cold in your mind. “Oh, maybe I don’t have to participate in this, that, or the other social or special event or whatever it would be.” The feeling that you’ve ‘arrived’ can lead to a lack of diligence and not doing enough, and end up leading to slothfulness, which will pull you out of moderation and pull you out of the kingdom of God.

So maybe you were once in your life balanced, but having lived God’s way long enough, you start slipping, doing less and less. That’s a danger with slothfulness and moderation. Keep that in mind as you look through your own life because that’s what this is about. We’re going to get into the other side of... right now, we’re touching on slothfulness. We’ll touch on the other side of the ditch of moderation here in a moment. But the whole purpose of this is to begin to examine ourselves in such a way where we’re looking to see where do I see myself out of moderation?

Where am I not doing enough yet? Where am I falling short of being moderate? Or you could say, where am I on the other side of the spectrum? And this is the other side of the spectrum. Zeal is good, right? We all know, we’ve heard of the term zeal. Zeal is sort of the fire that’s within us. It helps us to develop more, you know, be excited for the truth and to do stuff, do the work, get out there and live the way that God wants us to live. Zeal, frankly, is one of the ways that if you feel like you’re slothful, pray for more zeal and determination to just get to the level of moderate. But there is an issue with zeal, if you will.

We could ask, zeal is good, right? Zeal is a good thing. I think we could all agree that that’s true. Well, not necessarily always. What do I mean by that? If zeal is used improperly, that’s where we get into a problem. Turn over to Romans chapter ten. How do we use zeal? Because zeal used improperly actually pull us out of moderation. Think about that. Romans chapter ten and verse one. “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God...” It’s good, Israel, they have a zeal. “...but not according to knowledge.”

Now, they lacked the understanding of what to be zealous for. And we’re about to read in verse three what that means exactly. The problem. The root problem and trouble with having zeal without knowledge. What that means is, “...For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” If we have zeal, I can, in my zeal, go out and do all kinds of things. But if I don’t do it according to knowledge, according to the right ways that God has shown us in the word of God, I can fly off the handle.

I can fly off the rail and start establishing my own righteousness. That’s the problem with zeal. Zeal is great. But zeal used incorrectly can pull us out of balance. And zeal without knowledge, which can also mean full discernment, you need to have zeal with full discernment. That’s what that word knowledge means. Zeal without full discernment leads to establishing one’s own righteousness or self-righteousness, which is a terrible thing to have. Self-righteousness is very difficult to eradicate in our lives. We all have it. And frankly, if we don’t think that we have it, we probably have a greater amount of self-righteousness than others in the room.

Self-righteousness is a terrible plague. Why it’s so difficult to see is because we naturally see ourselves as doing things right. And when we look at ourselves and say, “You know what, the way of man is right in his own eyes,” we go about, and we do things in life thinking that we’re doing it the right way and we’re doing it God’s way, when in fact we’re not doing it God’s way. We’re doing it our own way and establishing our own righteousness. And what that is, is it’s pulling us out of moderation. Pulling us out of moderation. So another way that this verse could be read correctly is having zeal but not according to wisdom or discernment. Meaning not according to moderation.

We’re supposed to have zeal, but according to moderation. That’s another way to read this verse. Let me read that again. Verse two. “I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to moderation.” Let that sink in. We must have zeal, but it has to be according to moderation. We can’t let zeal be an excuse to pull us out of being moderate. Now, zeal means to be hot. That’s what zeal means. And we should be zealous to obey the truth and follow God’s ways. And here’s how we use zeal with moderation. If we want to know how to use zeal with moderation, this is how we do it.

We first look to God’s word for what is moderate. God gave us all kinds of instructions that we can follow, guidance that we can follow to know where to land inside that moderate path. We don’t want to be slothful, but we don’t want to be too zealous. So how do we find that middle ground? Well, God’s word tells us oftentimes how to find that middle ground. God talks a lot about prayer. I’ll get into a bunch of examples of where we can examine our own selves and our own lives to see where we’re falling out of balance. But before we go to that, again, we’re asking the question, how do we build zeal with knowledge or zeal with moderation? And again, the first point is to look to God’s word for guidance. But oftentimes the Bible is silent on certain matters.

The Bible doesn’t tell us what color of car to get or what kind of car to get. There are cars that are moderate, and there are cars that are not moderate in life. There are colors that are moderate, and there are colors that are not moderate. If I have a sparkling pink car sitting in the parking lot here at headquarters, it is not going to be considered moderate. If I have a Maserati or, you know, whatever, if I pull up an F750 or an F850 or something, some huge, massive truck to the church parking lot, people will look at me, saying, “Who are you and where did you come from? What’s going on here?”

Moderation comes in all areas, but not always does the Bible or God tell us distinctly what is moderate. He doesn’t tell us what kind of car or what color of car to get. We have to use discernment, judgment, and moderation to know where the bounds are, what’s right, and what’s wrong. But again, you know, if you don’t find something in God’s word that tells us what is moderate, like a car, for example, you can always ask God’s ministry or use your observation. Use the God-given tool of observation to look around you and say, “You know what? My car doesn’t fit with the rest of the cars that the brethren have. Maybe I should consider getting a different car. Maybe I should consider getting a different color of car,” if you have the hot, sparkly pink.

You know, that can apply in all areas of our lives. If we look to ourselves and our lifestyles and the choices that we make in life, and we... The Bible says don’t compare yourself among yourself, but if you’re comparing where you might be lacking among yourself, that’s a whole different thing. If you’re looking at the brethren and saying, “You know what? What I’m doing doesn’t fit in with the rest of the brethren.” And you’re looking at it from a self-critical perspective, you’re looking at it to try and improve yourself, “You know what? My conduct is very different from what the brethren do here at large.

I don’t ever see the minister, I don’t ever see any of the other brethren acting this way or saying these words.” Then you can look to yourself and say, “If I am doing something that is just different from what the rest of the brethren are doing, it may be outside of moderation.” Consider that. And if you have a question about it, ask your minister. Because if the Bible, again, doesn’t say everything, it’s not an instruction manual that’s a million pages long and tells you all of the exact words that you can and cannot say, the exact piece of clothing that you can and cannot wear. It doesn’t do that. That’s where traditions and moderation over the years, if you ask God’s ministers, they’ll be able to help you if you are unsure.

So James chapter three and verse one. You know, we come back to this idea, this discussion about how moderation is like a path, remember? It’s like this path that we have here. Well, the path for brethren is a little bit different, you could argue, than the path for the ministers. The path for ministers is even tighter. Ministers, we read, it’s one of the qualifications is to be moderate. But here it says in James chapter three and verse one, “My brethren, be not many masters or teachers, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.” The greater judgment. Ministers receive the greater judgment. You could ask, well, why? Why do ministers get a greater judgment?

Well, they’re not only in charge of their own spiritual well-being, they’re in charge of the well-being of those around them. They’re there to help them. They’re responsible in part for making sure that brethren are on the right track and on the right path. They’re responsible for correcting when needed, to help that person see where their error might be, so that they can stay on the right track. So brethren, think of it from this perspective. If the brethren’s path of moderation is out here like this, naturally, the ministers must be in a little bit further.

Ministers have to walk a little bit tighter paths because they get the greater judgment. Why is that? Well, let’s use dress, for example. If a lady, a minister’s wife, wears a dress to services, and I mean, it is right at the knee, maybe even slightly above, just kind of, I mean, hitting that line of what is moderate and what is not moderate, what will the brethren generally do? Brethren will generally look at that and say, “Well, that’s the minister’s example.” The minister set the example. Paul said, “Follow me as I follow Christ.”

We’re supposed to follow the minister’s example, see what they do, and replicate that behavior. Because they are supposed to be moderate in all things. It’s one of the qualifications. But the danger of a minister is if they just have the same line of moderation as everybody else, then naturally what happens is the human nature, this is what happens, is brethren will take that standard and push the lines even further, push the bounds even further. So that’s why ministers have a greater judgment. They have to set the standard. They have to set the example. They can’t be riding on the edge of what is okay or not okay in terms of moderation.

So let’s go over a few examples, things that we can consider in our lives, areas that we can look at and ask, “Do I have moderation in this area?” Let’s first talk about appearance. Appearance is a big thing. We all know about first impressions. When we see somebody in the grocery store, remember what the Bible says in Philippians four, five, “Let your moderation be known to all men.” Not just the brethren. Your moderation must be seen from every person that you encounter. So let’s imagine we go to the grocery store, we go to the department store, we go to the convenience store.

All of the people that we interact with get a first impression just from how you behave and how you look, and maybe the things that you say. But let’s just focus on the things that you are wearing, first of all. First Corinthians chapter eleven, you know, the things that you’re wearing, your appearance, you could say, breaks down into all kinds of different categories. It could be your hair, your hair length, your hair style. It could be whether you’re a man or a woman, what God says on hair length and hair style differs. It could be the clothes that you wear. It could be the posture that you have.

If you’re walking around slumped over... this is actually a fascinating thing. In today’s society, you look at younger people today, oftentimes their posture is very poor. And the reason is because they’re on their phones. This is what happens. You’re on your phone, and when you’re sitting in a chair without posture, say a couch, you’re rounding your back, and you’re naturally looking down at your phone like this. So what’s happening is people’s posture, younger people’s posture, is becoming poor because of technology. Let’s imagine that you, in your life, play a lot of video games. That’s not something that the ministry can just readily see and say, “You know what, you should really pull back on that.”

That’s not something we should be focusing a lot of our time on. Or we play, we spend hours on our phone like this at home. Actually, it will become evident by your posture. And so people in the world will be able to see, “Oh wow, that person probably spends a lot of time on their phone,” if they see that your posture is down here like this. Now, for aging, if we’re getting older, naturally, our posture is going to get worse. That’s a whole different thing. I’m not saying that. I’m saying if we’re younger, if we don’t have any kind of spinal issues, degeneration in our spine or whatnot, we should be focusing on our posture, focusing on the way that we look in society.

It holds a very different impression to people than if you’re hunched over, you’re walking around, and you’re kind of walking like this. It’s just a very different first impression. But turn over to First Corinthians chapter eleven. The Bible does have actually quite a bit to say about our appearance, what we should do, what is moderate, and what’s not moderate. First Corinthians chapter eleven gets into hair lengths. Paul’s saying this, “Be you followers of me, even as I am also of Christ.” When you see Paul’s example, Paul said, “Look at my example. I strive to be moderate in all areas of my life. So follow me. Do what I do. Live your life like I live my life because I’m striving for moderation.”

“Now I praise you, brethren. You remember me in all things and keep the ordinances as I deliver them to you. But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonors his head. But every woman that prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head. For that is even all one as if she were shaven.”

Now talking about this is getting into hair lengths. Covered, uncovered, shaven. “For if the woman be not covered...” meaning doesn’t have long enough hair, “...let her also be shorn. For if she be ashamed for a woman to be shorn or shaven...” Not having hair long enough, you might as well be shaved up to here, in effect. It’s the same thing. So “…let her be covered…” at the end of verse six. “For a man indeed ought not to cover his head forasmuch as he is the image of the glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman is of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man.”

So hair lengths are laid out in the Bible, particularly for women in that instance. Look at Second Corinthians chapter five. How important is it, is our appearance? Second Corinthians chapter five and verse twenty. Second Corinthians five and verse twenty. We can read here, it says, “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ...” The word ambassadors means a representative. Do you and do I represent God with the things that we wear, with the posture that we have, with the hair choices that we make? Do we make good impressions? Do we smile?

There’s a lot that we can do that makes good impressions. If we have a scowl on our face, that doesn’t make a good impression. We come across as hard, and mean, and angry, and unapproachable. I don’t want to get near that guy. I might get hurt if I go near him. You don’t want that. We want to have a good first impression because we’re ambassadors, representatives for Christ. “...as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you that Christ said that you be reconciled to God, for he has made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

So that’s the appearance. Let’s go one more example in Ecclesiastes nine. This is fascinating. Ecclesiastes chapter nine. How important is appearance? You know, we started this discussion about judgment, how important judgment is. And in order to have judgment, we have to have wisdom. And before you have wisdom, you have to be moderate, right? Let’s read the account here in Ecclesiastes nine and verse fourteen. Verse thirteen says, “This wisdom have I seen also under the sun, and it seemed great unto me. There was a little city and a few men within it. And there came a great king against the city, besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it.”

So there’s this king, great king, is sieging this town, this city, little city. “Now, there was found in the city a poor, wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city.” He was wise, but he was poor. But he delivered the city, yet no man remembered that same poor man. Why? “Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength. Nevertheless, the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.” How many have heard the story of the poor man’s wisdom that we’re reading here? It’s only three verses long. This man’s wisdom was so great that he delivered his city from a great king with his siege armies coming at them. That’s how great his wisdom was, but he was poor. He probably looked disheveled. Let’s imagine that I come to you, and I’m wearing a suit and tie, and I’ve got my hair combed, what’s left of it, and I’m coming before you, and I have great wisdom to help end the siege that this king is coming. Or if I come to you and I’m disheveled, I’ve got dirt all over my face, I’m wearing rags, and I come with the exact same wisdom, which person are you going to believe? Which person are you going to trust?

Are you going to trust the poor man with a disheveled look and rags on? Dirt all over his face? Maybe he’s missing teeth? Maybe he’s...whatever. It could be anything. Had he just simply cleaned up a little bit, had he chosen to put on a different outfit, had he washed his face, had he combed his hair, had he done something to make himself look, just simply look more presentable, that poor man’s wisdom may have been remembered. Rather than being despised and his words not heard, he would have been venerated. That’s the importance of moderation.

Again, we’re talking about wisdom here. This is a huge verse. Think about this. If we want to build wisdom, we have to have moderation in everything, including our appearance. Moderation is the core to wisdom. No amount of wisdom that we can speak on this earth will be able to deliver us from lacking moderation first. Let that truly sink in. The poor man’s wisdom, had he just cleaned up a little bit, his wisdom would have been heard. Had he been more moderate.

Let’s go on to speech. Think about the words that you say. Word choice. We have a world full of all kinds of slang, and it’s getting stranger and stranger by the day and week. Foul words that are being used. I mean, by top officials and governments, it’s becoming just a normal thing. Curse words have always been, but people kept it behind doors. They kept it behind closed doors or in private lives. Now it’s just out in the open.

They still bleep it on television if a bad word is said, but you can’t watch a football game or a basketball game or any kind of a game without the cameraman zooming in, and after a bad call was made, you see the players cursing out the referees. You can literally read it on their faces, on their lips. Foul language is everywhere.

Euphemisms. In God’s church, we’re even more conservative than the world. Euphemisms that you can read about, I don’t need to get into what they are, you can read about them in our literature, what are the euphemisms, and so forth, but we don’t say certain things even because they imply a wrong meaning. So what is our speech like? How moderate is our speech? Do we abstain from saying things that are negative, that are bad?

First Corinthians chapter six. Speech is an amazing thing. It’s a very complicated subject in many regards, so we’re not going to get into the depths of it, but this verse in First Corinthians six verse twelve kind of helps lay a little bit of the groundwork before we go on to another area in our lives that we need to look at. Let’s ask if we’re moderate. First Corinthians chapter six and verse twelve says...oh, that’s seven, twelve, excuse me.

Verse twelve, First Corinthians six, “All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. All things are lawful, but not all things are expedient.” Now, how does that tie to speech? There are things that are true in life. There are a lot of true things that can be said in life.

It’s true that if somebody has a bad haircut, you can just straight up tell them that is a terrible haircut, and it’s a true statement, but is that the right thing to say to the person? Speech is something that’s delicate. Moderation in speech is a...it takes a lifetime to grow in moderation in speech because there’s so many nuances. There’s things that can be applied. There’s tone. There’s all kinds of things that you need to be careful on.

But with speech, generally speaking, are we being moderate? Are we being careful with what we say and how we say it? It’s not just what we say. It’s in definitely, definitely how we say it. Are we careful? What about health? The food we eat, both the quality of the food and the quantity of the food. Or exercise. Do we exercise? Are we slothful in exercise? Are we too vigorous, too zealous in exercise?

Are we slothful with the food choices that we make or are we too overly focused on the food choices that we make where everything has to be just right? There’s ditches to everything in life, brethren. Proverbs twenty-five and verse sixteen. When we get into being overly zealous about things, the danger with that is it can almost become like an idol.

You can take any of these things that we’re talking about, you can take your appearance and turn it into an idol. All kinds of people in the world focus way too much on their appearance. Way too much. And it can become an idol, making sure that everything is just perfectly right, that all the clothes that you wear are exactly the way that you need them to be. Your hair is exactly perfect.

They go so far as to put all this stuff in their face, Botox and all this stuff, just to make themselves...they become an idol themselves. They worship their own appearance. We can do the same with health. We can almost turn health and having good health into an idol. If we’re overly focused on what we’re eating, making sure that every last thing is organic or every last thing is perfect for our bodies.

Brethren, we have to stay moderate. We have to stay moderate. We have to be sure that we’re not eating complete junk and being slothful with our food choices, but we can’t go to the other ditch and live outside of our means, for example, or do things that are outside of the norm. Outside of the norm among Christians.

Proverbs twenty-five and verse sixteen says this, “Have you found honey? Eat so much as is sufficient for you, lest you be filled therewith and vomit.” Honey will naturally, if you eat too much of it, it will induce moderation for you. You don’t have to worry about it because once you eat too much of it, you will know it because you will vomit it up, the Bible says. So there’s a built-in moderator on honey.

And that’s the same with all kinds of foods. How many have eaten too much on Thanksgiving? I think I might have. I might have been out of moderation on Thanksgiving. But we’re supposed to strive. We’re not going to be perfect. Nobody is going to live a perfectly moderate life, but we have to strive for moderation. And if we see areas where we are outside of the norm, if we look around and say nobody else is doing that, nobody else is living their life like that, nobody else is saying those kinds of things, nobody else is eating those kinds of things, nobody else is wearing those kinds of things, I’m probably out of moderation.

And again, if we’re out of moderation, we can’t have wisdom, and we therefore can’t have judgment. Moderation will build wisdom. Moderation will build judgment. We can’t forget that. Proverbs twenty-five and verse seventeen is the next point about hospitality and visiting people. Verse seventeen, “Withdraw your foot from your neighbor’s house, lest he be weary of you and he hate you.”

Hey, you want to be moderate with how much you are spending time at other people’s homes. If you’re immoderate, the person that’s hosting you might begin to hate you. That’s what the Bible says. Know when to leave. Know when to say, “You know what, thank you for having us. We’re going to be on our way now. We really appreciate it. It was a wonderful time for fellowship and enjoying these things.” But if you overstay your welcome, the host may begin to hate you. That’s what the Bible says.

There’s moderation everywhere and everything that we do, brethren. The point of this is so that we can start to look intently at all aspects of our lives now to see where are we falling out of moderation. Where are we sticking out compared to where the brethren are? Who you spend your time with. Go back one page to Proverbs twenty-three and verse twenty. Proverbs twenty-three, twenty, “Be not among winebibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.”

The more we spend our time with people who are carnally minded, who naturally are bent toward lacking moderation, the more we are going to follow their examples. Because our natural minds want to be out of moderation too. That’s why we have to spend as much time with brethren as we can. Fellowship with brethren. That’s why Sabbath is so important.

We get together so that we can not only talk to each other but we can see each other’s example. So that we can learn by it. So that we can live by it and become moderate ourselves. How much time we spend with those outside the church is directly proportional to how much we are being pulled out of moderation because they are not moderate in most cases.

How about our Bible study? I mentioned this earlier. But Second Timothy two fifteen says that we are supposed to study to show ourselves approved. Well, I want to make sure that I am doing that so I am going to study for five hours every day. I’m going to make sure that I study for many, many, many hours every single day.

Well, Ecclesiastes twelve and verse twelve says this. Let’s just go over there a couple pages over. Ecclesiastes twelve, twelve, “And further by these, my son, be admonished. Of making many books, there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” Studying too much has issues. First of all, God says it is a weariness of the flesh. You can burn yourself out from it.

But secondly, if you are studying all the time, where are you actually having the opportunity to go live what you studied? The purpose of Bible study is so that you can find ways to improve yourself, grow, learn, develop, be more like God. But it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t go out and live it. So if we are studying all day, every day, and we are not actually going out and living the Bible, it doesn’t mean anything.

We have to practice moderation. We can learn all we want about it, about moderation, but we have to go out and now practice it. We have to practice it. Same is true with prayer and fasting. We can’t do too much, and we can’t do too little. We have to find the right balance. And finally, finances. Are we moderate in our finances? What do I mean by that? Well, God says plainly that He wants us to live the abundant life now.

God doesn’t want us to live in poverty. He doesn’t want us to live in squalor. He wants us to live the abundant life. He wants us to enjoy the things that we have. He gives us second tithe so that we can save second tithe, so that we can go to the feast and enjoy a wonderful eight days together. He wants us to live the abundant life. He doesn’t want us to live like minimalists, where we only have one spoon and one fork and then one single plate, and then we don’t have any excess in our houses. That’s not what God wants us to live like.

But, but, He does say and He does have the doctrine of common. For the purpose of making sure that we, ensuring that we don’t have too much. He doesn’t want us to have too little. He wants us to live the abundant life, but the abundant life is defined by God as being in moderation. It’s not having excess. Not having way too much. Not having multiple homes that we don’t need. Multiple assets that we’re just sitting there. That is outside of moderation. And if God says we’re supposed to be moderate in all things, finances is one of those things.

So, let’s turn over to chapter thirty-one of Job as we come to a conclusion here. Job thirty-one. There are so many areas, and I could have just kept going and going. There’s so much more that you can look at yourself, brethren. Find where am I lacking moderation? Where am I either being too slothful or being zealous without knowledge? Job thirty-one and verse six says this. As we come to a close. “Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know my integrity,” Job says.

Job says that he wants to be weighed in an even balance. You’ve seen balances and scales. Job wants to be found weighed evenly and balanced on that scale. We must strive to be as Job. Seeking to be weighed by God in an even balance. Meaning, we’re moderate in all things. None of us are perfect. We’re not going to be perfect. No matter how long we’re in God’s way, we’re never going to be perfect, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for perfection.

Job included. Job wasn’t perfect, we all know that. But he strove to be in balance. We must do the same in all that we do. So let’s walk back to where we started. We read earlier on in the message that James chapter three and verse seventeen showed that moderation is necessary to develop wisdom. Just remember your diagram. Moderation is necessary. It’s the core to develop wisdom.

Proverbs chapter two and verse six prove that we must have wisdom in order to have judgment. So let’s never let the idea of building judgment, or wisdom for that matter, be too hard to grow grasp or conceptualize. It’s a big subject to discuss, but brethren, let’s break it down in your mind.

Next time you think, how do I make the right judgment? What is judgment? How do I apply judgment all throughout my life? Well, it’s simple. Ask yourself, am I moderate? Am I being moderate? If you’re moderate in all things, brethren, if we’re balanced in all areas of our life, judgment will naturally follow.