So this week I signed up for the Chick-fil-A app.
Is anybody on the Chick-fil-A app?
Got the app going, yeah.
Christy's had the app going for a while, and then I was with a friend this week, and uh we stopped and he had the app and he scanned it.
And I've had actually had the app on my phone for like a year and never followed through with the uh the sign-up process.
That's kind of representative of how I work with technology, is that's about if there's any resistance, and then I'm done.
But I said it's time now, it is time for me to be fully committed into this app because he was getting free food, Chrissy's been getting free food, right?
And this is how it works.
This is the reward program for Chick-fil-A.
If you're not familiar with it, uh you have the app.
By ordering online, you get points, and then you get stuff where you scan the little code there at the register, and by doing that and spending more money, they give you more food, so then you'll go back and spend more money, right?
That's how loyalty programs work or reward programs work.
Now, that's great, right?
Like it's great when a free lemonade pops up on that map.
You're like, free lemonade or a free waffle fry, but you know, when you get the meal, that's when it gets very exciting.
You get a free sandwich or a meal.
Now, what's better than that, right?
That's great, right?
If you have the app, you know what I'm talking about, you love that, or maybe you're part of some other reward pro maybe anybody do the CVS butts, right?
The longest receipt in all of receipts.
It's very awkward when you're standing there in front of the cashier and you feel like you gotta talk about the receipt.
So long, very long receipt.
Um, too long, perhaps.
They could do something about it.
Uh, that's another reward program, or Sky Miles, you're part of Sky Miles, Delta Sky Miles, and the more you fly, then they're gonna give you some free flight, so you fly more, right?
This is how it works.
It's a meritocracy to a certain degree, right?
It's uh you you do something, download the app, you get something.
Spend some money, you get something.
Just you do something and you get something.
That's how reward programs work.
Now, what's better than that is if you're just saying you're walking into the Braves game, right?
And you're out there on that big sidewalk, and there's that lawn, and as you're walking in, Chick-fil-A has a little booth or something going on, they're sponsoring something, and just uh an employee, one of their marketing representatives, walks up to you and just hands you five free sandwich coupons.
Now that is much better, right?
You didn't do anything, you didn't earn anything, right?
This is the difference between reward and gift.
They are two very different things.
Reward programs work, that's why companies use them.
But it is based on our merit.
And so inevitably, with rewards comes some comparison or pride, right?
Like, oh, you're oh you're gold status, oh, I'm just silver, right?
Or oh, I'm silver, oh you're nothing.
Oh, okay, you know.
I mean, so there's a little bit of comparison with it, or or a little bit of fear of well, what if I don't maintain this, right?
Like, what if I don't maintain the spending I'm spending at Chick-fil-A to the degree and I'm gonna start to lose, I'm gonna start losing reward.
And so within reward systems, all reward systems, there is a passive undercurrent of fear-based motivation.
There's pride, there's despair.
And they still work, right?
That's why we use them.
But gifts are different.
Gifts give to you before, they give to you despite.
They just give to you.
They're not earned.
Nothing to do with earning, just given.
And this has everything to do with this passage.
Because this passage this morning in 1 John 4 is very interesting because the Bible talks about perfect love and the grace of God, and then every once in a while we run into a passage that'll say something like, the day of judgment is coming.
Or there's rewards in heaven.
And what do I do with that, right?
Like what do I do with it in light of the gospel that is grace given to me?
What do I do with the idea of the day of judgment?
Do I ignore it like I've always done my entire life?
Or is there is there something here?
What is John saying?
What is John saying when he says perfect love casts out fear and there's a day of judgment?
This sounds like talking out of two sides of the same mouth.
Uh just the past few weeks, we've had four babies born in our church.
Isn't that incredible?
We've had uh two people hospitalized for serious things going on.
We had our first wedding in this room last night, as Audrey, our student ministry coordinator, she married Mason.
They got married here in this room, our first wedding.
That was unbelievable.
And then Friday night, Christy sat behind a man at the football game who walked into the game alive and well, and by the end of the game, he was at the hospital, and as of yesterday afternoon, he was fighting for his life.
Isn't that interesting?
Now, I don't say that to say like fear on you, you're gonna die one day, right?
Like, I don't say that to say that.
I say love, love to you.
Perfect love casts out fear.
Love to you as we talk about not just life, but we also talk about death.
There's babies born, there's weddings, there's hospitalizations, there's deaths.
So our passage comes at all of this.
1 John 4, 16.
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
God is love.
He is love, not just that he loves, but he actually is love, it's his essence.
God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
So this is where we've been for the past month, just kind of over and over and over again.
Perhaps the past six years since our church has existed, is just that God is love toward us.
Point number one is this when we think and relate to God, we should imagine perfect love.
When you think and relate to God, you should think about, you should gaze upon, you should behold, you should understand God as perfect love.
Now, maybe you've been in places where faith leaders use fear as motivation.
Fear is an incredible motivator, right?
I mean, it's gonna kick in next year when the political campaigns for president kick in.
Remember, we're gonna see a lot of fear-based motivation.
You can raise a lot of money off of fear.
Churches can raise a ton of money off of fear.
Fear is an incredible motivator.
You can get a lot of people serving in churches and in the community off of fear.
When I was in high school, still remember it so vividly.
I was in high school, I attended a church event, and there was a skit, and it was a two teenagers driving a car in the skit, and then the car wrecked, and both teenagers died.
One teenager went to hell, the other teenager went to heaven, the one is in heaven and with God, and you're thinking, oh, what an incredible moment for that person.
And then the teenager who went to hell is yelling somehow across this divide of some sort.
We don't know, it's in a skit.
Uh, yelling across to the one in heaven, you know, why didn't you tell me?
You know, like in the skit.
He's like, you know, why didn't you tell me?
Why didn't you tell me?
Blame, fear, regret, worry, all experienced over here in heaven.
And now the preacher got up afterward.
Clearly, he did not see the skin as a parable of some sort.
I mean, he actually saw it as something that would happen.
Because he hammered us with fear.
Fear-based motivation.
And I can remember sitting there as a teenager who rebelled and thought, as as much in action, thinking, this guy's crazy.
This doesn't make any sense.
How can heaven be a place of no fear and no tears and you experience that?
It doesn't make any sense.
How could God, perfect love in a place where there's no fear, allow fear?
John confronts this.
Where in the same few sentences he says, perfect love casts out fear, and he also talks about the day of judgment.
And he says that the baseline here is there's no fear in God.
So that's the baseline.
So if anything's off of that, you go, well, okay, I'm not understanding something fully.
Maybe we need to chalk it up to the mystery, I don't know.
Or maybe I'm wrong, or maybe he's wrong, or she's wrong.
But there's no fear in God.
God is love.
So here's what this means.
This means our motivation for obedience, our motivation for obedience and the call to love others is transformed from fear of judgment by God to motivation by grace alone because we are already loved by God.
That's what John is doing in this entire book.
Verse 17, by this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment.
Because as he is, so also are we in this world.
Now that's a great unbelievable verse for us.
Point number two is this there is no fear of God judging us, because we know the gift of Christ.
So there's good news here in this verse because John says we can have confidence when we die.
It's not something we have to fear because there's no fear in God, and God is perfect love.
We don't show up into the afterlife with our report card.
We don't show up with our app with as much as we've earned, expecting to have some reward of some sort, and maybe I got in or not.
We are free of the wage-earning paradigm.
We are freed into a grace-receiving paradigm.
That's what verse 17 says.
He is, so Jesus is speaking about Jesus, Jesus is, so also are we in this world.
Meaning this, God regards you like he regards Jesus, his own son.
So if you if you want to know how God feels about you or thinks about you, or how he's gonna welcome you, it's the exact same that he would feel about Jesus.
See, the judge already judged you.
There was judgment.
It's just it was already judged in Christ.
He already loves you.
So we have this phrase, this day of judgment that John's talking about.
What is he talking about?
He's talking about that all people are gonna be judged before God, and John is writing about some encounter, and we have to come at this with some mystery.
Some encounter with God, and we're in complete, perfect presence with him.
Paul wrote about this same moment that we will have with God in the afterlife in 2 Corinthians 5, 7 through 10.
For we walk by faith, not by sight.
Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due him, what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
All right, well, okay, this opens up a whole nother kind of can of worms, doesn't it?
You read something like this.
Well, there's four observations we can pull from just verse 10.
And it's this, I'll try to keep it simple.
I do better when it's simple.
All Christians will stand before the judgment seat, okay, because he's writing to the church.
So even as Christians, we will have some sort of moment with God where there's judgment.
Right?
All Christians will stand before the judgment seat.
He's writing to a group of Christians, he's writing to the church.
So us, even as Christians, there'll be some sort of judgment.
Number two, our judgment will be after we die.
Okay, so some judgment after we die.
Okay?
That's what the passage implies.
Number three, when we stand before God, our deeds will be judged.
Right?
Verse 10 there, so that each one may receive what is due to him, what is done in the body, whether good or evil.
So at this point you're going, oh no, this does not feel like grace.
This feels like merit.
This feels like wage.
But there's point number four.
The judgment seat is Christ.
Right?
That's there at the beginning of verse 10.
Before the judgment seat of Christ.
So the idea of a seat, right?
I mean, think about it like we have we have judges who run for seats, right?
Oh, did you hear the seat is open, right?
We say stuff like that.
Oh, that seat, that seat is becoming open.
And what that means is that position that holds power and authority is available.
It's open.
That position holds power and authority.
So this is that language and that imagery, but that position is Christ's.
So now at this point, what you think about Christ and what he did for you and who he is for you now determines whether all of this is fear or all of this is love?
Is it true that all your sin and guilt and shame is gone forever because of Christ's work for you on the cross?
Is it true that your sin is actually put upon Jesus on the cross and he actually gives you his righteousness?
Is that true?
Is it true that you are forever God's beloved because of what Christ did for you?
Because he is your advocate, he is not just your teacher, he is your substitute.
Is that true?
I think that's what John's been arguing for four chapters.
I think the point is that if God is love, then this judgment will be entirely joy for us, not regret.
Now it doesn't stop there because in the New Testament there's this idea of crowns in heaven.
Right?
Maybe you hadn't been around church and you're like, ah, this is all this is a little wild, I understand.
But if you hang around church long enough, you're gonna hear this kind of language.
Like you're gonna hear, like, oh, you gotta, you know, he's gonna earn a crown in heaven, or or you know, oh, they're gonna get a crown in heaven, or you know, what crown in heaven?
You're gonna hear this kind of language.
In the New Testament, there's mention of five different crowns in heaven.
There's the victor's crown, the crown of rejoicing, the crown of righteousness, the crown of life, the crown of glory.
I'm not gonna go through all of them.
You can Google that.
Crowns in heaven.
You'll get all sorts of stuff.
I go safe Google, by the way.
I Googled it this week.
That's a safe one to Google.
You'll get all kinds of information.
Now, you don't have to agree with me on this.
Well, you don't have to agree with me on anything, really.
I just don't think this is anything like reward, like we think about it.
Right?
I mean, we can think about reward.
We could think about like an award ceremony at a school.
Right?
They give out the perfect attendance award, three kids go up.
Everyone's like, oh, this goes so great.
Good for them.
Great job.
Then they give out the good attendance award.
And like 75% of the kids go up.
Right?
Walk across the stage, 25% of the kids are left in their seats.
Having just, they're just filled with regret that their parents took them to Disney World.
Right?
At an off time, so they don't have to wait in lines.
Or they're ashamed that they got sick.
That's what happens with rewards.
There's an eventual condemnation that shows up.
It's just not gospel.
Rewards as we think about them are not gospel.
They're not perfect love.
They have fear built into the motivation.
It is way earning, it is passive fear-based motivation.
Now, we do this, I we do this with our children.
I'm saying we, like Christy and I, we we embrace this fully at times, right?
When we take a child to the doctor to get a shot, we always on the way there say, hey, if you hang in there, you do this, you don't complain, you don't freak out, you don't throw a tantrum, you don't whine, if you do all that, we will get a frozen yogurt, a racetrack on the way home.
I mean, we go all out.
We're all out.
Right?
A reward for behavior.
So we do it, it works.
But it's not love-based, it's not gift, that's not gift, that's reward.
So I think there's three options here for these crowns.
I've been just trying to reconcile this.
First is the language is literal.
And we will experience it like we would any other reward in this life.
So there'll be some shame and regret.
Now, I don't believe that at all, but it's an option.
The second is, is perhaps the language is figurative.
And the biblical writers are trying to come close to some experience we'll have in the afterlife when sin and shame and guilt are completely gone away, and we'll have the fullest extent of fulfillment with God and the fullest extent of peace and wholeness.
And how do you get language around that?
Well, maybe you use some language about crowns.
Or the third option, the language is literal, but the experience of it will be heavenly.
Jonathan Edwards comes into this third option, an amazing theologian from the 18th century.
He said it this way every vessel that is cast into this ocean of happiness is full.
Though there are some vessels far larger than others.
And there shall be no such thing as envy in heaven.
But perfect love shall reign throughout the whole society.
Last verse, verse 18.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.
Point number three is this there is no fear in the love God has for you, so you can live with less fear in life.
Not only do we have fear of death, usually we bottle up and put it way deep down so we can just operate day to day.
But we have fear in life.
Some of us are too busy to understand these fears that are going on in our hearts.
Some of that fear is built out of our own sin, and some of that's built out of shame, of past woundedness.
But it's there, driving us to some extent.
I have a fear of not being significant in the world.
It's probably even why I chose this profession.
I also have a fear of not being seen as competent.
I have a fear I won't have enough.
That the money will run out.
I won't be able to provide in some way.
I have a fear not of death.
I don't fear death, but I fear dying too early.
The idea of death sort of to me is fascinating, that great mystery.
I mean, what is it?
I mean, what will this be?
This great adventure on the other side.
I don't fear that, but I fear dying too early.
I don't want to die for a very long time.
I still have little kids.
I fear something happening to one of my daughters or my wife.
We all have fears.
John simplifies it for us.
He said, God is love, and there's no fear in love.
So at least, right?
So at least in all of our fear, at least.
You don't have to fear God.
And at least you don't have to fear death itself.
So this means our growth and grace here in this world becomes knowing and resting more and more in our acceptance and welcome that we have even now already, while we're imperfect, but not yet fully like we will know one day.
And knowing and resting in that embrace and in that beloved identity that we already have.
That's what maturity is.
Knowing we're wrapped up in love already.
The image we keep revisiting in the series in 1 John is Rembrandt's painting of the prodigal son, the return of the prodigal son.
For the past two chapters of John, we just keep revisiting it over and over again.
Maybe you remember the parable Jesus taught.
The son runs off with the inheritance.
It would be an incredible embarrassment to the dad.
The money runs out.
He's foolish.
He comes back beaten, worn down.
And the loving father, that representation of God, wraps him up.
I told you one of our prisoners went to Russia a few weeks ago with his son, and here's the picture that I referred to.
This is a picture of him in the St.
Petersburg Museum with his boy.
I think he fought off everybody to get that amount of clearance in front of a famous painting.
It's a beautiful image, right?
Of how we love our children.
But then also a biblical image of how God loves us.
Here's what hit me this week in this painting.
What hit me is there is judgment in this painting.
Don't miss that.
There is judgment in our relationship with God.
It's just that he judges us in love.
He judges us through Christ's work for us, not our own merit or our own word.
Right?
There was judgment here.
He showed up beaten, down, nothing to offer.
And this father put judgment over him.
But the judgment was, hey, give him a new robe.
Put a ring on his finger.
Let's throw a party.
The judgment was not of fear.
The judgment was of love because perfect fear, perfect love casts out fear.
Perfect love casts out fear.
This is why the boy is at rest.
This is why we are at rest when we think about death and when we think about the afterlife.
My brothers and sisters in Christ, you will be judged.
But the judgment is in love.
For perfect love casts out fear.
Let's pray together.
God, thank you for your grace and mercy, which we need.
For if judgment was upon our merit, we would not live up to what you have asked of us for holiness.
We don't live up to who we want to be.
We are more broken and more sinful than we originally thought.
Yeah, we look at this first John and see that you are our advocate.
Jesus is enough.
He is our substitute.
You have taken our sin.
You give to us your righteousness.
We have full standing forever as your beloved.
That you don't just love us, you are love.
And your perfect love casts out fear.
There are some of us in this room that fear dying.
Not just fear dying too early, but fear dying.
Would they find greater and greater rest and the sufficiency of Jesus for them?
There are those of us in here that have been put on paths of merit, even as Christians, trying to earn some status in heaven.
Would you free us into being motivated by love and not fear?
Would you give us desire to know you more, to rest in you more, to be more astonished by the greatness of your gospel?
That we are already counted righteous in your sight, and that you regard us as He is righteous.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.