SPEAKER_00: Well, for the last uh couple of months we have been doing something a little bit unusual.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we've been dealing with a number of topics rather than taking a passage and working it's our way through it necessarily.
SPEAKER_00: There's some times where you need to draw from various places in scripture because there's major, major themes that we must not miss.
SPEAKER_00: So we have been dealing with a theme which we have called life, death, and life after death.
SPEAKER_00: Life, death, and life after death.
SPEAKER_00: And we've approached it in a wide variety of areas.
SPEAKER_00: We're coming to the close of this series.
SPEAKER_00: We started talking a little bit about the brevity of life and the certainty of death.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about what the nature of death is: spiritual death, physical death.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about the utter certainty and reality of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: We have talked about the nature of the resurrection body, the body you would die for, the body you can only get by dying, the body you've always wanted.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked at some length about heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Goodness, if we don't talk about heaven, who's going to talk about it?
SPEAKER_00: We talked about that it's forever and ever and that it's good.
SPEAKER_00: We talked about what we can anticipate and what we might expect about heaven.
SPEAKER_00: But there is another topic.
SPEAKER_00: There's another topic we must deal with.
SPEAKER_00: It is the matter of judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I know you would prefer that we stop where we are and not go here, but we don't get to pick and choose.
SPEAKER_00: God, if we're talking about life, death, and life after death, then my goodness, we need to deal with the reality of judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said in John chapter 5, truly, truly, in other words, listen up, Jesus speaking, I say to you, an hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
SPEAKER_00: For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
SPEAKER_00: And he has given all authority to exercise judgment because he is the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_00: Don't marvel at this.
SPEAKER_00: An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, and those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgments.
SPEAKER_00: We don't get to pick and choose.
SPEAKER_00: We need to say what God says.
SPEAKER_00: And if we're going to understand life, death, and life after death, we understand we need to understand both heaven and hell.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's a lot of confusion when it comes to judgment, just like there is about the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: The future, there are a whole series of resurrections.
SPEAKER_00: We saw that briefly.
SPEAKER_00: There's a whole series of them.
SPEAKER_00: There's not one day of resurrection, not one great getting up morning.
SPEAKER_00: That's a superficial and really incorrect understanding of future resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And similarly, there is not just one judgment day.
SPEAKER_00: There's not just one time of judgment.
SPEAKER_00: There's a whole series of judgments.
SPEAKER_00: We find, and we're not going to look at really most of them, all, but just two.
SPEAKER_00: There's a judgment of Old Testament believers.
SPEAKER_00: There's a judgment of believers who have gone through the tribulation.
SPEAKER_00: There's a judgment of Jews, and then one of Gentiles who survived the tribulation, a judgment of Satan and fallen angels.
SPEAKER_00: But for our purpose, there's two judgments, two of them, that we need to have an understanding of if we're going to understand life, death, and life after death.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to look at the first today, that is called the judgment seat of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It is only for believers.
SPEAKER_00: There are no non-believers who will experience what the Bible talks about as the judgment seat of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll look at that very briefly.
SPEAKER_00: And then, in the next message, the final message in this series, and you will be profoundly glad when we're finally done talking about life, death, and life after death.
SPEAKER_00: Now, next week, Peter Sofel from the Czech Republic will be here.
SPEAKER_00: And then the following week we'll talk about the Great White Throne Judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And that is a judgment to which there will be no believers, only non-believers.
SPEAKER_00: It's the judgment of the unsaved dead of all ages.
SPEAKER_00: But today we're talking about what we call the Great White Throne Judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And in the little bit of time that we have, I'm pretty confident that we can cover the highlights of what we need to talk about.
SPEAKER_00: So let's uh give ourselves to that.
SPEAKER_00: There's three main passages that we want to look at briefly and then draw together at the end and say, okay, this is our total understanding, or this sums up our understanding of what we call the judgment seat of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The first passage is in 2 Corinthians, the second passage is in 1 Corinthians, and then we're going to look at Romans chapter 8, verses 1 through 3 as well.
SPEAKER_00: And in the process, I trust we'll get an understanding of what this judgment is that we shall most definitely experience as believers.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not a believer, come two weeks from now, because we'll talk about the judgment which unbelievers will experience.
SPEAKER_00: Life, death, and life after death.
SPEAKER_00: So turn in your Bibles, please, to 2 Corinthians chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: Let me simply read it for you, verses 6 through 10.
SPEAKER_00: We're in the middle of Paul talking to the church.
SPEAKER_00: We're jumping in in the middle.
SPEAKER_00: I'll talk just briefly about the broader context, but look at verses 6 through 10.
SPEAKER_00: So, and that would take us back into the previous paragraph, we are always of good courage.
SPEAKER_00: It's very interesting.
SPEAKER_00: When he talks about what he will call the judgment seat of Christ, he's giving it by way of encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: If we don't understand what the judgment seat of Christ is all about, then we may be very discouraged or fearful.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Be of good courage.
SPEAKER_00: We know that now, while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith and not by sight.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we are of good courage.
SPEAKER_00: We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just try to briefly unpack this.
SPEAKER_00: Thousands of details here I'd love to take the next three hours on.
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to do that.
SPEAKER_00: A couple of thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: The context here.
SPEAKER_00: Always have to read a passage or a verse in its context.
SPEAKER_00: The context is about the Christian life now.
SPEAKER_00: We know, verse 1 of chapter 5, that our tent, if the tent that is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
SPEAKER_00: And he's talking about our tent now, our body.
SPEAKER_00: In the context, he's talking about this phase of our life.
SPEAKER_00: The here and now.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, in the here and now, we are to live in light of the there and then.
SPEAKER_00: We are to live in light of that which we know shall surely come.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we've been talking about for weeks, the there and then, what that is, what that looks like.
SPEAKER_00: And what he's saying is that the Christian life, this Christian life, is lived not primarily in function of the world around us, but primarily in function of the world to come.
SPEAKER_00: And so what he says is we, in this phase of our life, we groan.
SPEAKER_00: We're longing to put on our heavenly dwelling.
SPEAKER_00: We're longing to be home.
SPEAKER_00: We're longing for that which is to come.
SPEAKER_00: This is but a brief moment.
SPEAKER_00: Home, home, home.
SPEAKER_00: That's forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And we live now in light of that wonderful, encouraging, positive reality.
SPEAKER_00: Or at least we're supposed to.
SPEAKER_00: At least we're supposed to.
SPEAKER_00: When we don't, we do not understand what this life is all about.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we have to talk about life, death, and life after death.
SPEAKER_00: Because what you experience in this life, this year, this week, next week only makes sense when you stand back and put it in the broader picture.
SPEAKER_00: And we see this, the here and now, in light of the there and then.
SPEAKER_00: So the whole context is that this is not what we're designed for.
SPEAKER_00: This body, this earthly tent, this phase of our existence, this is not what it's all about.
SPEAKER_00: It is about this, but this is by no means what it's all about.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, this is an anomaly.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't begin this way, Adam and Eve, and sin came in and broke the world, and us, we are broken.
SPEAKER_00: This is a broken, uh, sad, uh, frustrating experience.
SPEAKER_00: Life is.
SPEAKER_00: Now, thankfully, there's wonderful moments.
SPEAKER_00: But basically, this is not the way it was intended to be, and this is not what it's all about, and this is not what we're destined for.
SPEAKER_00: So we look forward and we long for something beyond what we see in the here and now, and we live our lives in light of that.
SPEAKER_00: We are destined for so much more.
SPEAKER_00: And in the meanwhile, in the present, with all of its pain, with all of its frustration, with all of our failures, with all of our sin, yours and mine, with all of us not being what we most want to be, with all of that, we take heart, we take courage, we get strength because of what is sure and certain and future and awaits us.
SPEAKER_00: And if we don't see that, we cannot live now the way we were intended to live.
SPEAKER_00: Then we'll live as though it's all about the here and now.
SPEAKER_00: It's all about the stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing wrong with stuff.
SPEAKER_00: It's just that's not what life is all about.
SPEAKER_00: It's not all about family.
SPEAKER_00: Family is God's idea, but that's not what it's all about.
SPEAKER_00: It's not all about enjoying worship, it's not all about the good life.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing inherently wrong with those things unless, unless we fail to understand that this is just a preparation.
SPEAKER_00: This phase of life is a preparation for life to come.
SPEAKER_00: So in this process here of talking about the future and saying, take heart, be of good courage, uh, we long for something else because that's what we're made for.
SPEAKER_00: Be aware, um, take heart, be encouraged, because there is a future event that Paul talks about here, he talks about it elsewhere, and we find it throughout the New Testament, what is called here the judgment seat of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For we must all appear, verse 10, before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
SPEAKER_00: So, what is this judgment seat of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: That's a term that, uh, unless you've been around Christian circles for a long time, and you may not have even heard that term for a long time, you may not know what that is really saying.
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty simple, it's pretty clear.
SPEAKER_00: It's a it's in part a the word itself is bema, b-e-m-a, uh Greek, actually in Greek Bema, bima, in English, the bimah seat of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's what it's referred to.
SPEAKER_00: What in the world is abhima?
SPEAKER_00: Well, abhima was something that was well known in that culture and that society, and therefore they had a word for it.
SPEAKER_00: Um is a raised platform, a dais, a raised platform, typically for a speaker to give a formal oration, to give a formal talk, and he typically or she would on this raised platform be seated and the hearers would be standing.
SPEAKER_00: I think we've got it all backwards.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to sit and I'd like to have you guys stand.
SPEAKER_00: Don't do it, but uh but but that's what it was.
SPEAKER_00: It was simply an elevated platform for a formal verbal oration or pronouncement or something.
SPEAKER_00: We see that in the book of Acts, chapter 12, 21.
SPEAKER_00: We won't turn there.
SPEAKER_00: It says, on the appointed day, Herod put on, King Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the Bimah, and delivered an oration.
SPEAKER_00: So this was this was calm.
SPEAKER_00: It was a platform for formal public communication.
SPEAKER_00: Um that merged very easily into a second aspect of Bhima, and that's a tribunal or a gathering of a legal or royal court which would be held.
SPEAKER_00: And we find an example of that in Acts chapter 18, where Paul, in Acts chapter 18, was brought before the Roman Proconsul's tribunal.
SPEAKER_00: And there was a determination made of Paul and his circumstances and guilt or innocence or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: So this, the judgment seat, is simply an elevated place, and the focus is not necessarily on judgment in the sense of condemnation to hell.
SPEAKER_00: It's really a place of pronouncement, of evaluation on the part of a king or a formal court or individual.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what he's really talking about.
SPEAKER_00: And in verse 10, what he says is that the Bemah of Christ, verse 10, we will all stand before, and he's talking to believers.
SPEAKER_00: We put this together with the rest of Scripture, and this is not for non-believers.
SPEAKER_00: And the judgment of non-believers is not for us.
SPEAKER_00: But the believers will appear before the Bemah of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body.
SPEAKER_00: And in the body, in this context, means in this phase of life.
SPEAKER_00: Between our birth and our death, phase two.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there was life before birth, there is life after death.
SPEAKER_00: What happens before birth affects life now.
SPEAKER_00: What happens in the womb affects life now.
SPEAKER_00: Fetal alcohol syndrome, just many examples.
SPEAKER_00: What happens then affects life now, and what happens in this phase of life, phase of life, affects what happens forever and ever in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So he's saying that there will be a Bema that we will come before, and Christ will, as it says, give us what is appropriate for what we have done in this life, whether good or evil.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's as much of this as this passage talks about, but we're beginning to understand what the Bema of Christ is.
SPEAKER_00: Let's turn now to 1 Corinthians 3, verses 10 to 15.
SPEAKER_00: And similarly, we will just uh quickly move through this.
SPEAKER_00: Here's another place, another major passage.
SPEAKER_00: There's many other verses elsewhere, but Paul, speaking to the church in Rome, says the following According to the grace of God given to me like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it.
SPEAKER_00: Let each take care how he builds upon it.
SPEAKER_00: For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, or precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one's work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it, the day of the Bama of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't specifically use that expression here, but this is Paul talking about the same thing he talks about elsewhere.
SPEAKER_00: And each one's work will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
SPEAKER_00: If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone's work is burned up, not the person.
SPEAKER_00: This is not talking about hellfire.
SPEAKER_00: This is talking about if what we have done with this life has no value, uh, that will simply be taken away.
SPEAKER_00: And the benefits that we could have had from that will not be experienced.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but he will suffer loss as though through fire.
SPEAKER_00: Now let's try to unpack that one just a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: The context here in this passage, Paul is talking to a troubled, struggling, divided church with moral and theological problems of the greatest order.
SPEAKER_00: This was the most difficult church of all of the churches that Paul dealt with, as far as we understand.
SPEAKER_00: This book in 2 Corinthians deal with problems.
SPEAKER_00: You think we have problems, we don't have any problems.
SPEAKER_00: Not in comparison.
SPEAKER_00: This church was in deep trouble.
SPEAKER_00: These believers were in deep trouble.
SPEAKER_00: And what he seeks to do is to motivate them, to motivate and correct them and motivate them to godliness and to godly living.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's doing.
SPEAKER_00: We've jumped in the middle of his talking with them, but the context is him seeking to correct and motivate a church and believers who need some instruction and they need some correction.
SPEAKER_00: So he uses a metaphor here, a word picture.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a very simple metaphor.
SPEAKER_00: There's a building that's being built.
SPEAKER_00: And the building is the Church of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, a skilled master builder, I've laid a foundation.
SPEAKER_00: But that foundation is Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You have the building, you have the foundation.
SPEAKER_00: The church is built on Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The foundation.
SPEAKER_00: And then you have us.
SPEAKER_00: Just us.
SPEAKER_00: Just you and me.
SPEAKER_00: No better, no worse.
SPEAKER_00: We're all God has here in this church.
SPEAKER_00: Except His Word and except the Holy Spirit and powerful, wonderful things.
SPEAKER_00: But just normal believers.
SPEAKER_00: That's us.
SPEAKER_00: So we're involved.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not involved, you ought to get involved.
SPEAKER_00: Come help help build the building.
SPEAKER_00: Help glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: Help build up one another.
SPEAKER_00: Thousand different ways we can do it.
SPEAKER_00: We ought to be engaged and involved.
SPEAKER_00: And the assumption is believers are.
SPEAKER_00: So we have a metaphor: a building, a foundation, and labors.
SPEAKER_00: The church, Christ, and you and me.
SPEAKER_00: So having spelled that out, he talks about the fact that the quality of the worksmanship will one day be inspected.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing surprising about that.
SPEAKER_00: The quality of the worksmanship, both the materials and the motives with which we carry out our activity.
SPEAKER_00: In this passage, it's the materials that are emphasized.
SPEAKER_00: So if anyone builds on the foundation, verse 12, with gold, silver, and precious stones, those are things of great value, worthy, makes a worthy contribution to the building.
SPEAKER_00: Could also build with things that don't stand the test, that don't have great value, whose value will pass, build with wood, hay, or straw, but each one's work will become manifest.
SPEAKER_00: The day of evaluation will Will disclose it because it'll be revealed.
SPEAKER_00: And the nature and quality of each of our labors in the kingdom will be evaluated.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, live now in light of that reality.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here he's talking primarily about the materials with which we build.
SPEAKER_00: If we go one chapter further, in chapter four, verses four and five, he talks about motives and the spirit and the attitude with which we work.
SPEAKER_00: So both the character of our work and our motives and our heart.
SPEAKER_00: He says there in chapter 4, verse 4, speaking of himself, who had been criticized highly, and he said, I'm not aware of anything against myself.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not by that acquitted.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Lord who judges me.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He will judge.
SPEAKER_00: He knows how to judge.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, don't pronounce judgment before the time, before he comes.
SPEAKER_00: He'll bring to light the things now hidden in darkness, and will disclose the purposes of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: And each one will receive his commendation from God.
SPEAKER_00: So it's both the material, the things that we do as we serve Christ, as we seek to build up the body, as we seek to be involved in the building up of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: It's the things that we do, but it's also the attitudes of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: You can do the right thing for the absolute wrong reason.
SPEAKER_00: And both motives and what we do will be evaluated at the Bimah, the judgment seat of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, how should we envision this?
SPEAKER_00: If the work of anyone is built on the foundation, he'll receive a reward.
SPEAKER_00: If the work is built up, he'll suffer loss.
SPEAKER_00: Getting a reward, suffering loss of reward.
SPEAKER_00: This has nothing to do with salvation, folks.
SPEAKER_00: This is not condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: This is commendation, commending.
SPEAKER_00: How should we envision this?
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a couple of different ways.
SPEAKER_00: You might think about a sports banquet, the end of the basketball or the hockey season, the coach and the players and maybe the family, they get together, and there's an award ceremony.
SPEAKER_00: There's an award ceremony.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody gets best player of the year.
SPEAKER_00: Someone gets singled out for their wonderful attitude.
SPEAKER_00: Someone gets singled out for the way they've encouraged others.
SPEAKER_00: There's awards that are given.
SPEAKER_00: That's normal.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a microcosm of the fact that there'll be an awards ceremony for us.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone will be there.
SPEAKER_00: And some will be particularly honored because they serve joyously in the power of the Holy Spirit using the gifts and abilities and opportunities that God gave them with the right spirit from within, and there will be a commendation given.
SPEAKER_00: And others of us, and frankly, it's mixed for everybody.
SPEAKER_00: Aren't there things in your Christian life that you have done ostensibly for God?
SPEAKER_00: I hope there are.
SPEAKER_00: Hope you haven't just, you're not just floating along.
SPEAKER_00: And it's really not all that great.
SPEAKER_00: There's things that I wish I had done better in serving Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I experience that all the time.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you.
SPEAKER_00: Quite frankly, about 1215 every Sunday, I experience that intensely.
SPEAKER_00: I wish I could have done that differently.
SPEAKER_00: I wish I could have done it better.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get makeovers.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you, I won't get into the Cubs winning the World Series, but sometimes you hit it out of the park, and sometimes you fly out.
SPEAKER_00: That's just the nature of reality.
SPEAKER_00: That's the nature of life in the here and now.
SPEAKER_00: And all of that will be evaluated.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of an award ceremony.
SPEAKER_00: Another person, and I think this was actually very helpful to put it this way, described it as follows.
SPEAKER_00: The judgment seat of Christ, the Bama of Christ, might be compared to a commencement ceremony.
SPEAKER_00: Now we know what a commencement ceremony.
SPEAKER_00: Graduation, what that is, is like.
SPEAKER_00: At graduation, there is some measure of disappointment and remorse that one did not do better and work harder.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it takes a few years for us to say, boy, I really blew high school.
SPEAKER_00: I just wasn't with it.
SPEAKER_00: Or college or that.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's you're you're not destroyed over it, but you realize, uh, yeah, I really could have done that better.
SPEAKER_00: I wish now, I wish then that I knew what I know now, and I would have done it all differently.
SPEAKER_00: So there can be a measure of disappointment and remorse that you didn't do better and work harder.
SPEAKER_00: However, this writer says, at such an event, the overwhelming emotion is joy, not remorse.
SPEAKER_00: The graduates do not leave the auditorium weeping because they didn't earn better grades.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, they thankful, they're thankful that they have been graduated.
SPEAKER_00: Finished, done.
SPEAKER_00: My college graduation, the commencement speaker, uh, two sentences, stood up, said, It's over, it's over, it's over.
SPEAKER_00: Thank God it's over.
SPEAKER_00: Second sentence, it's time to begin again.
SPEAKER_00: And he sat down.
SPEAKER_00: Just thankful it's passed.
SPEAKER_00: Um but we don't, we're we're not stricken, we're not destroyed by the fact that we haven't done everything the way we want to, and the way we could, and the way we should, and the way we wish we did.
SPEAKER_00: The graduates do not leave the auditorium weeping because they did not earn better grades.
SPEAKER_00: They're grateful for what they did achieve.
SPEAKER_00: And so reflecting on this thought of the judgment seat of Christ and both the joy and the sorrow, the gain and the loss, he says to overdo the sorrow aspect of the judgment seat of Christ is to make heaven hell.
SPEAKER_00: To overdo the sorrow of what could have been is to make heaven into hell.
SPEAKER_00: To underdo the sorrow aspect is to make faithfulness inconsequential.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul really brings both together.
SPEAKER_00: So he's talking about living life in the here and now, in light of the there and then, knowing that what we do in this phase of life, between life and physical death, has direct impact on what we will experience for all eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Not just heaven or hell.
SPEAKER_00: But for believers, there are benefits and rewards.
SPEAKER_00: It's clearly spelled out in Scripture, and some of this idea of rewards, which is a clear New Testament biblical teaching, makes people nervous.
SPEAKER_00: As though that just makes us mercenaries, that we just do it for what we get out of it.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's because we think sinfully, we experience things sinfully.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the way it will be.
SPEAKER_00: Think about this.
SPEAKER_00: One of the examples of rewards, we didn't turn to those multiple passages where it talks about uh earning and receiving crowns, a sign of honor, a sign of uh commendation.
SPEAKER_00: Um what do believers in the future in heaven do with those crowns?
SPEAKER_00: Do they walk around and say, whoa, look at me! I'm pretty cool, aren't I?
SPEAKER_00: They don't make much of themselves.
SPEAKER_00: What do they do?
SPEAKER_00: They take those crowns and they lay them down before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And the more the honor that they could bear and carry for all eternity that they laid down before Christ gives greater honor to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So, really, the honors that we ought to be motivated to work for, while we can enjoy them and they are rewards.
SPEAKER_00: The real joy, I think, is going to be to give those and use those to glorify God and to make even more of God as we have these honors entrusted to us.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not a mercenary thing, just getting it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not uh some people don't like awana.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why they don't like awana.
SPEAKER_00: I think awana is one of the best things going.
SPEAKER_00: But because they work for uh for badges, as though there's something evil about that, give me a break.
SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to work for honors that would be given to us.
SPEAKER_00: We will turn around and give those honors to God.
SPEAKER_00: But we're supposed to be motivated by pleasing God with the right motive, with the right spirit, doing the right kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: That ought to be part of our life in the here and now.
SPEAKER_00: That is not wrong, that's right.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the motivation behind all of this.
SPEAKER_00: Well, very quickly, let me turn to one more passage.
SPEAKER_00: The point is to strive for honor that will come with sacrificial service and a right heart.
SPEAKER_00: Let's turn, though, uh, just for a couple of moments to Romans chapter 8, because we will easily confuse things that must be kept separate.
SPEAKER_00: So let me read Romans 8, verses 1 through 3.
SPEAKER_00: Paul again talking totally different context in the middle of this theological, rich, glorious Romans 6, 7, and 8.
SPEAKER_00: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read that again.
SPEAKER_00: There is no condemnation for believers.
SPEAKER_00: All of the condemnation which we deserve has been placed upon Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So when we're talking about an award ceremony, it's not a condemnation, it's a commendation.
SPEAKER_00: A huge difference there.
SPEAKER_00: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life has set us free from the law of sin and death, and the condemnation and the judgment and the punishment of sin.
SPEAKER_00: For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin.
SPEAKER_00: He condemned sin in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's we could talk for hours about that, and it would be glorious, it'd be wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: But here's a couple of things I want us to understand.
SPEAKER_00: Don't confuse the condemnation, the judgment, the punishment which sin will surely bring with it, with the commendation that right and godly service from the right heart with the gifts and abilities God has given us will surely come to believers.
SPEAKER_00: They're two fundamentally different things.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8:1, there's no condemnation, helps us understand what the commendation of those other passages are all about and the bama of Christ, the bama seat.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we ought to just use the word bamase, because when we think of judgment seat, we assume condemnation and we quickly think the punishment of sin leading to hell.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not at all what it's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: But be of good courage.
SPEAKER_00: There's a time coming of commendation.
SPEAKER_00: Or not?
SPEAKER_00: But it's not a matter of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: It's a matter of what this what we've done in this body.
SPEAKER_00: Um there is no condemnation now for those who are in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The believer has, and this is one of the clearest, it's not the only one, one of the clearest promises, an absolute guarantee.
SPEAKER_00: There is no condemnation to eternal wrath.
SPEAKER_00: The believer will not experience the wrath of God, the full fury of the wrath of an angry God righteously given upon those who sin.
SPEAKER_00: We won't experience that if we've trusted Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the condemnation of sin has been placed on the cross, on Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What we deserve, we don't get.
SPEAKER_00: We deserve condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: Our punishment, our condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: The judgment upon our sin was placed on another.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we celebrate with the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_00: We remember that.
SPEAKER_00: We don't get what we do deserve, and you deserve it.
SPEAKER_00: I deserve it.
SPEAKER_00: We don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: Because one who didn't deserve any of it, the sinless Savior, voluntarily took the condemnation which we deserve and bore it.
SPEAKER_00: God made him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to become our sin, sin for us, bearing the punishment that we deserved, that we might receive the righteousness of God in him.
SPEAKER_00: What we don't deserve is exactly what we get: grace, forgiveness, the favor of God for the believer, for the one who has trusted Christ, for the one who by simple faith, by grace, through faith, receives the free gift of eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: There is now no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Your sins have been dealt with, not by you, by another, by a substitute.
SPEAKER_00: That's the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Your sins, past, present, and future, are heaped upon Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That the righteousness of Christ we get.
SPEAKER_00: We get.
SPEAKER_00: What we don't deserve, the wrath of God, because it went on him, we don't suffer, and the righteousness of Christ is credited to us.
SPEAKER_00: And so when God looks at you, he is not angry.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to work to try to retain or get his favor.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the gospel is all about.
SPEAKER_00: The Bema of Christ is something quite different than that.
SPEAKER_00: We don't get what we do deserve, we do get what we don't deserve.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah! Good news, my friends.
SPEAKER_00: Worth talking about, worth making a big deal about, worth talking with our family, our friends, and our neighbors about, making much of the one who did all of this for us, which, and we don't deserve an ounce of it.
SPEAKER_00: And so we praise him, we thank him, and we seek to bring pleasure and delight and to build well with right motives.
SPEAKER_00: So let me pull this all together by way of closing.
SPEAKER_00: The judgment seat of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: A few simple observations.
SPEAKER_00: It's for believers only, the bimah of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The Bema of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: No non-believer will experience that.
SPEAKER_00: No believer will experience the great white throne judgment that we'll talk about in two weeks.
SPEAKER_00: Believers only.
SPEAKER_00: The timing is a little bit unclear.
SPEAKER_00: It's not actually specified that much.
SPEAKER_00: My best reading of it is that we receive this when Christ comes for his own, as I understand future things at or after the rapture, before the beginning of the millennial kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Critically important, it has to do with honors bestowed for faithful service.
SPEAKER_00: It does not have to do with punishment.
SPEAKER_00: This is an award ceremony, not a criminal trial.
SPEAKER_00: Be of good courage.
SPEAKER_00: Look forward to it.
SPEAKER_00: This is not judgment in the sense of condemnation, but it's an award ceremony for good and right service in a good and right heart.
SPEAKER_00: And it's based on the believer's works of faith, the works that flow from faith, the works that come from a heart that is being transformed.
SPEAKER_00: You're not perfect.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you know that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not perfect, I know you know that.
SPEAKER_00: We're not who we should be, not yet.
SPEAKER_00: But in this life, every once in a while, God catches us doing something right.
SPEAKER_00: Just kind of like our kids.
SPEAKER_00: Every once in a while, I catch them doing something right.
SPEAKER_00: And by God's grace and through the power of His Spirit, we're able to serve in a right way with the right heart.
SPEAKER_00: Because God is transforming us.
SPEAKER_00: It's those works that flow out of our part of sanctification, not the basis of our relationship.
SPEAKER_00: So we can think of human works that seek to gain God's favor.
SPEAKER_00: That has nothing.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, it doesn't happen.
SPEAKER_00: There's none who is righteous.
SPEAKER_00: We can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about works that earns God's favor.
SPEAKER_00: It's talking about works that flow out of a right heart, works that ultimately are the result of salvation, not the cause of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And this is designed to graciously motivate us.
SPEAKER_00: The Bama's seed of Christ is not given to instill fear or to make us feel guilty.
SPEAKER_00: The whole context is be of good courage, be strong, deal in this life with the things of this life in light of the life to come, and everything will be fine.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I want to share this morning, the Bema of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's a wonderful teaching.
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't heard about it, it's good news.
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't heard about it for a long time, shame on us.
SPEAKER_00: Next time, more difficult.
SPEAKER_00: Let me simply ask you to stand for the benediction.
SPEAKER_00: Now, my friends, go into the world in peace.
SPEAKER_00: Have courage.
SPEAKER_00: Hold on to that which is good.
SPEAKER_00: And honor all men.
SPEAKER_00: Strengthen the faint-hearted.
SPEAKER_00: Support the weak.
SPEAKER_00: Help the suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Comfort the grieving.
SPEAKER_00: Restore the wandering.
SPEAKER_00: And share the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: The good news.
SPEAKER_00: Love and serve the Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And may the grace and the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be ours.
SPEAKER_00: God bless.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.