Alright, let's return to the
passage that Brother Doug just read, 2 Corinthians chapter 5. The title of the message this
morning is Heavenly Glory and Judgment. Heavenly Glory and
Judgment. Now, let me just say a few words
about how I arrived at this message, because I believe that's important.
And I was just sitting there thinking about it when we were
singing that hymn, Wonderful Words of Life. You know, the
Bible, God's Word, are all wonderful words of life. And it's my prayer
for all of us that these will be words of life, not just another
sermon. not just another homily, but
something that we can take away with us and live our lives to
the praise of God's glory and grace in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The way I arrived at this message, I've been thinking about this
passage of scripture for several months, actually. As you know,
in the past few Sunday morning messages, I've been dealing with
issues of substitution. That is the substitutionary death
of Christ. When we say Christ died for our
sins, that's what we're talking about. He substituted himself
in our place. And if you look at 2 Corinthians
chapter 5, look at verse 21, the very last verse of that chapter. This is a verse that has been
called the heart of the gospel. And I agree with that. And it's
a profound verse. It's a verse that sets forth
the substitutionary death of Christ. And it says, for he hath
made him to be sin. That is, God the Father made
God the Son to be sin for us. For us. That's substitution.
Who knew no sin. That's Christ who knew no sin.
That who knew no sin doesn't refer back to us. Because if
there's anything we know, it's sin. That's talking about Christ
knew no sin. And it says that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Him. That's substitution. And so I'm going to get to that
verse, not today, but I'm always really desirous that we see the context
of any particular verse of Scripture if we're going to understand
it. You know, often I say this jokingly, but I'm really not,
I'm not joking when I say this. I'm serious about this. The three
rules of scriptural interpretation. Number one, context. Number two,
context. And number three, context. Because
it is so important. There are other rules, obviously,
but that's so important. And people, you know, we're so
apt to just pull out a verse. You know, just use it to whatever
purpose or We want or whatever argument we're trying to make
and I don't want to do that I don't want to lead you to do that as
your pastor So I've been thinking about this for for quite a long
time and going back to 2nd Corinthians 5 and In fact, I preached this
Friday at the funeral of one of our dear departed sisters
Wilma Hampton at her funeral I use this passage and I want
to go into more detail on it this morning, but we're going
to talk about heavenly glory and judgment here and And we're
going to see how the Holy Spirit brought Paul to write what he
wrote here. And the thing you need to understand,
this book of 2 Corinthians, you know, Paul wrote two letters
to the church at Corinth. And to say that the church of
Corinth was a church with problems is an understatement to the max,
because they had a lot of problems. You can read more about them
in 1 Corinthians. They were dividing over preachers.
They were dividing over other things. But in 2 Corinthians,
he wrote another, this second letter, he's writing for several
reasons, but the main theme of 2 Corinthians is the glory of
the gospel of God's grace in Christ and the glory of the ministry
of the gospel. as opposed to anything else that
might pervade in our lives. This ministry, the ministry of
this church, it's not my ministry, it's God's ministry through us,
the people of God. He says over in verse 6 of chapter
4, look across the page there, he talks about God who commanded
2nd Corinthians 4 6 God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness
Has shined in our hearts as our minds our affections our wills
our inner man To give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ And the reason he uses the word
face there is because a face is what identifies and distinguishes
a person and When you see somebody's face, you know who they are.
And that's what this does. This glory of God identifies
and distinguishes the Lord Jesus Christ as the only true Lord
and Savior. There are not many. There's only
one. And it is a glorious thing. But as glorious as it is, this
ministry, you know, he says back up there in verse 1, look there
in 2 Corinthians 4, he says, Therefore, seem we have this
ministry, As we receive mercy, we don't quit. We faint not,
we don't quit. A lot of times we want to quit.
A lot of times I want to quit. A lot of times you want to quit. But see, we've got to understand,
we've got to keep things in perspective. We've got to realize why we are
here. You see, we're not here for ourselves. We're here for
the glory of God in Christ. That's why we're here. And that's
not just why you're sitting here, that's our lives, you see. I
think about that chorus we sing called Worship Him and we'll
say forget about yourself and concentrate on Him. And you know
what the hard part is, isn't it? Forgetting about ourselves. We just don't want to do that.
But we're here to worship Him. And so this is a glorious thing.
We really, like the old farmer looking at the ocean said, we've
really only seen the top of it. We haven't seen the depth of
it. And we haven't seen the perfection of it yet. I'll say this, we
see the perfection of it as we see Christ, because He is the
perfection of it. Somebody said, give me a definition
of heaven. It's eternal fellowship with
Christ. There's heaven. Anything else? pales in comparison. But as glorious as this gospel
is, as glorious as this salvation is, as glorious as this ministry
is, there are still a lot of hard times, a lot of trials,
a lot of persecutions, a lot of problems. And we go through
here on this earth, look at verse 7 of 2 Corinthians 4. Now he
said, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But, verse
7, we have this treasure, this gospel, this glory, in earthen
vessels. Now that's talking about, Paul's
mainly talking about ministers there, he's talking about preachers,
but he's also talking about all of us. You have this treasure
too, if you know Christ. If you've been born again of
the Spirit, you have this treasure. It's your possession. He gave
it to you. But you have it in a clay pot. That's what an earthen
vessel is. A breakable pot. And there's
a reason for that. We'll often say, why does the
Lord let this happen? Why all this? The Bible tells
us now. We just don't want to accept
the reason. Maybe it sounds a little too simple for us. We like things
complicated up. I guess that's kind of like the
legal system, you know, people like the loopholes, that kind
of thing. But it's very simple. Here it
is. Look at verse 7 again. He says, We have this treasure
in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be
of God and not of us. That's why. Because God's going
to get the glory. The excellency of the power is
not in you or me. It's totally of God. And listen
to how he describes it. This is the Christian life right
here. Look at verse 8. We're troubled on every side. North, south, east, west. There's
not a side that we're not troubled on. Yet not distressed. Now, that word distressed means
crushed. I mean, you might look at that
and you say, well, a lot of times I'm in distress about things. But what it means is we're not
crushed, we're not totally destroyed. And I think about that because
Christ as our substitute, he was totally crushed on the cross,
wasn't he? He was crushed for us. That's
why a lot of times that's what the word means when it says like
he was bruised for our iniquities, he was crushed. But we're distressed. We're perplexed. We're troubled. But we're not
crushed. And we're perplexed. That means
confused. Now, there are things we're not
confused about. There are things God has taught
us. There are things that are plain
in His Word. Salvation is by grace. I hope
you're not confused about that. What does that mean? I often
say this, but I'll tell you, it's line upon line, precept
upon precept. That means you don't deserve it and you don't
earn it. It's a gift from God. And it's based upon the work
of another, our substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. So we're not
confused about how God saves a sinner. If you're confused
about that, you don't know the gospel. Now, I don't, you know,
somebody says, well, that's too hard. Well, I'm sorry, that's
just what the scripture says. You see, grace and works will
not mix. But now, there are a lot of things we don't know. There
are a lot of things we're perplexed about, confused about. About
ourselves, about each other, about things that happened to
us in Providence. We're studying the book of Job
on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights. You talk about somebody
who's perplexed, think about Job. He was truly perplexed. And I would be too. You would
be too. But he says, but not in despair. That is not without
hope. Not without help. Because God is our help. Christ
is our help. And we know some things even
about Providence. We know this. I don't understand
all things, but I understand this. All things work together
for good to them that are called according to His purpose. Them
that love God. I know that. I don't understand
how it all works out that way, but I know God's working all
things after the counsel of his own will. He's sovereign. He's
in control. Look at verse 9. He says, persecuted
but not forsaken. I hate to be persecuted, but
we're persecuted. Blessed are you when men shall
persecute you for righteousness' sake, shall say all manner of
evil against you. He says, but we're not forsaken.
He hasn't forsaken us. Men may forsake us, but he won't.
Christ won't. Cast down, but not destroyed.
You know what that means. Always bearing about in the body
the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might
be made manifest in our body. What he's saying here, in our
sufferings through this world, we identify with Christ. when
we suffer for righteousness sake. So we as ministers of this glory
must keep our eyes on Christ at all times and what's really
important, what's eternal. Temporal things will pass away.
Eternal things will last look at verse 17 of 2nd Corinthians
4 He says he says for our light affliction. That's now Paul You
know, I think this would include any affliction that we go through
and it doesn't seem like to us But he's speaking in comparative
terms here He's saying compared to the things that could be what
listen. What if we were troubled and
without help What if we were perplexed and without any means
or any help or hope? Persecuted and forsaken. What
if that? You see, that's our light affliction,
which is but for a moment. Now, sometimes it seems longer
than a moment, doesn't it? But in God's timetable, it's
just a moment. It worketh for us a far more
exceeding and eternal weight of glory. There's something That's worth it all. That's what
he's saying. That outweighs anything that
we go through, and he says in verse 18, while we look not at
the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.
You see, he says later on, we walk by faith, not by sight.
That's what he's talking about. For the things which are seen
are temporal. but the things which are not
seen are eternal and then he says now here's the first thing
he said in other words we must remember why we are here and
what it's all about and here's the number one thing that we
need to keep our eyes on as he puts this in in this order and
that's the assurance of heavenly glory the assurance of heavenly
glory job pose the question He said,
if a man dies, shall he live again? And then he answered the
question. In the same verse, Job 14, 14,
he said, all the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change
come. There's going to be a great change.
What is that change? Well, this chapter starts out
by expressing what that change is. It doesn't give us all the
details now of the change. But it says there's an assurance
of a change, and it's a change for the good, and it's the saint's
assurance of and desire for heavenly glory. Look at verse 1. He says,
For we know, that is, we're assured of, that if our earthly house
of this tabernacle were dissolved. Now what's he talking about?
He's talking about this body. The earthly house. of this tabernacle,
this tent, it's something which our soul dwells. Our spirits
dwell in this body. Now if that were dissolved, and
it's going to be dissolved, the body is dead because of sin.
We have a building of God. This is what we know. We have
a building of God, a house not made with hands, this is not
man's making, eternal in the heavens. This building of God
will go on forever and ever and ever. It's eternal. And he says
in verse 2, For in this we groan earnestly, desiring to be clothed
upon with our house which is from heaven. Now what he's talking
about there is when this body aches and hurts and troubles
and goes through the trials that we go through naturally. We groan. That groaning is the outcropping
of the pain and the distress that we go through. And what
are we groan for? To be clothed upon with our house
which is from heaven. To have a new body. It's called
a spiritual body. The only place that I know of
in scripture Well, we can know anything about that new body,
that spiritual body, is Christ himself after his resurrection. You can tell some things about
that. But he says in verse 3, if so being that being clothed
we shall not be found naked. In other words, we're not just
going to be flittering spirits out there. Little pixies floating
around. We're not going to grow wings
and halos and have harps and sit on a cloud. We're going to
be clothed with a new body. He says, verse 4, for we that
are in this tabernacle do groan. We groan. And it gets worse and
worse as we grow older, doesn't it? We groan even more. Being burdened. You young people,
the body's not such a burden right now, but just give it time.
And exercise, now exercise, I exercise, but it's still going to get worse. And he says, he says, not for
that we would be unclothed. In other words, we're not doing
this for nothing. But clothed upon, that mortality might be
swallowed up of life. I love that phrase. Mortality,
that's death. Where'd mortality come from?
Read about it in Genesis chapter 2 and 3. That's where mortality
came from. Remember Adam in the garden,
God told him, he said, you can eat of all the trees of this
garden except one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. And he said there, I believe it's verse 16 or 17, he says,
in the day that you eat thereof, thou shalt surely die. That's mortality. Dying thou
shalt die. So where did mortality come from?
Why is mortality so prevalent in our life? Why are our graveyards
so full? Why are we headed the way of
all flesh? I'll tell you why. It's sin. Plain, simple, sin. Which sin? All sin. How many
sins? One sin. James 1. I can't remember what verse it
says. It says, sin when it's finished. In other words, if
sin reaches its goal, what's the goal? Death. For the wages
of sin is death. Why are we mortals? Because we're
sinners. And anybody that tells you that
they're sinlessly perfect in themselves, let me tell you something
about them. They're no longer mortal. That's
right. They're just lying to themselves. They won't age anymore. They
won't get sick. You will never see them crying
because there's no tears without sin. It's all the result of sin. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. And so the only hope that we
have is that mortality, death, might be swallowed up of life. Well, where does life come from? Well, as sin brings death, What
brings life? Righteousness, the scripture
says. Romans chapter 8 and verse 10. The body is dead because
of sin. The spirit is life because of
righteousness. Where there's sin, there's death.
Where there's righteousness, there's life. What's the problem
then? The problem is that among men
there's none righteous, no not one. Romans 3 and verse 10. There's none that seeketh after
God. There's none that doeth good.
And by deeds of law shall no flesh be righteous in God's sight. In other words, we don't have
righteousness and we can't work our way to righteousness by our
best deeds. You know, the best, most moral,
most dedicated, most sincere, most religious, most kind men
on earth have died. Haven't they? The most self-sacrificing
men have died. Why? Because of sin. You say, but they did good. Not
good enough. Is that being too hard? Well,
meet the God with whom we have to do. Period. That's the way it is. Mortality
might be swallowed up of life. Well, what is our only hope?
Well, that's what 2 Corinthians 5.21 is about. God the Father
made God the Son incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ, sin. And what happened to Him when
He was made sin? He died. Why? Sin demands death. Christ, who knew no sin? He himself
was not a sinner, and he knew no sin. Yet he was made sin. And when he was made sin, he
died. That's the only just penalty
for sin. God cannot lighten that. He cannot
compromise that. And you cannot sweet-talk him
out of it. It just will not work. You can't
work your way out of it. So Christ died. But he died as
a substitute for us. That we might be made what? The
righteousness of God. Now where does life come from?
From man's righteousness? No. It comes from the righteousness
of God. That's the only one God will
accept. That's the only life that will
swallow up immortality. The life of God in Christ. And
his righteousness is the entire work that he did in his obedience
unto death. Look at 1 Corinthians 15 with
me, just back a few pages. You see, this is why the assurance
of heavenly glory can only be found in Christ. Nowhere else. It cannot be found in anything
you've done, anything you plan to do, It cannot come from your
reformations, your baptism, your church membership, your works,
your gifts. It cannot come from any of those
things. None of those things can swallow up immortality. It takes the life of God the
Son incarnate and the righteousness he established by his bloody
death on the cross to put away sin, to swallow up immortality. Look at 1 Corinthians 15 verse
53. The last part of this chapter. And you know, this whole chapter
is revolving around the resurrection of Christ. Because some men were
saying there would be no resurrection of the dead. And Paul says, well,
if that's true, then Christ is not risen, because he's the first
fruit. He arose for our justification. But he says Christ is risen. And look at verse 53. He says,
for this corruptible must put on incorruption. Now that's the
same thing Paul was saying over here in 2 Corinthians 5 when
he talks about how we'll be clothed with that new body. This corruptible,
what you see before you, must put on incorruption. And this
mortal, this dying body, must put on immortality. Now again,
where's immortality? Where does the mortal come from?
Death. Sin. Where does the immortality
come from? Righteousness. Where are we going
to get that? Christ. He's it. He died, was buried, rose again
the third day. Why? Because he put away sin.
Now our death cannot put away sin, but his death did. Verse
54, so when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption,
and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be
brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed
up in victory. Immortality is swallowed up by
life. O death, where is thy sting? That's the killing power of sin. O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin. And
the strength of sin is the law. What do you suppose that means?
The strength of sin is the law. What do you think that means?
Well, I'll tell you exactly what it means. The strength of sin,
what is it? That's the power of sin. What
is the power of sin? To kill. To put to death. Sin demands death. Now why is
that so? Because where sin is charged,
Where sin is imputed, where sin is reckoned on the account, what's
the result? The law says die. The law says
die. That's the justice of God in
the law. That's why David said, blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. So, where is this? Well, look
at verse 57. Now, here's the conclusion of
it all. He says, "...but thanks be to God, which giveth us the
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Through the God-man,
through the substitute, through Him who was made sin, who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Go back to 2 Corinthians 5. So death is swallowed up of life. Life swallowed it up. Life put
it away. Whose life? Well, let me read
you this. 2 Timothy chapter 1. Mark this
down. If you want to try to get there,
you may beat me. But look at 2 Timothy. It's in
2 Timothy chapter 1. Paul's talking about the gospel,
the ministry of it, He says, don't be ashamed of the testimony,
verse 8, of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner. But be thou
partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power
of God, who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling,
not according to our works. You see, not according to what
you earn or what you deserve. The only thing you can earn or
deserve is death. But according to his own purpose and grace,
which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus
Christ, who hath abolished death. How did he abolish death? Through
his own death. and have brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel. And what is revealed in the gospel,
Romans 1, 17, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith. Now go back to 2 Corinthians
5. You see, that's how mortality is swallowed up of life. Now
that's the assurance of heavenly glory. You say, how can I know
that when I lay my head down and breathe my last breath that
I'll wake up in the bosom of Christ, in heavenly glory? There's not but one way, and
that's this. Are you looking to Christ now,
today, for all salvation, for all the forgiveness of sins,
by his blood, for all righteousness, For all hope and final glory,
what is your hope? What can wash away my sins? You really mean this? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. Now, is there anything else that
can do it? If there is, life hasn't swallowed up immortality
for you. You see that? Nothing but the
blood of Jesus. Nothing. No thing. No person. No work. Nothing but
the blood of Jesus. That's it. His righteousness
alone. That's my life. He's my life. Now here's the
second thing he gives. Here's the earnest for heavenly
glory. Look at verse 5. There's an earnest. What's an
earnest? Well, listen to this. Listen
to these verses. He says in verse 5, he says, Now he that hath
wrought us For the selfsame thing is God." Now what he's talking
about, that word raw, means to work. And he's saying, he that
worked all this for us, worked us, made us, for that glory,
the selfsame thing is that heavenly glory, is God. In other words,
what he's saying is, this is all the work of God. It's not
your work. It's not my work. It's not the
preacher's. This is the work of God. Not of man. It's like in Ephesians chapter
2 where he says, verse 10, for we are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, not because of, say, but unto
good works which God hath foreordained that we should walk in them.
We're his workmanship. And it says in verse 5, who also
hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Now, you all know
what an earnest is. bought a car or bought a house,
you might put down what they call earnest money. It's a down
payment which is given as a promise to pay the whole amount. And
what he's saying here is this earnest for heavenly glory is
the work and the presence of the Holy Spirit in the new birth.
We've been born again. You see, it's like, look over
Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8. You know, he
starts out in Romans chapter 8, he talks about, "...there
is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ."
Here's the ground of salvation. And he says, "...who walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit." There's the fruit of
salvation. So he begins by talking about how Christ, as the substitute,
put away sin, conquered death, and brought life by what he accomplished
that we couldn't accomplish. He says there, For what the law
could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sent
in his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And for sin
condemned sin in the flesh. He condemned sin. Listen, Christ
in his death condemned sin and conquered death. And then he
says in verse 8, look at verse 8 of Romans 8, he says, So then
they that are in the flesh cannot please God. What is it to be
in the flesh? It's an unbeliever. It's a person
who's not born again by the Spirit. He says in verse 9, But you are
not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. You see, you've been
given the Spirit. He indwells us. If so, be that
the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you,
Christ is in us by his Spirit and his Word. The body is dead
because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness."
In other words, we have life from God because of the righteousness
of God in Christ. He swallowed up death with his
victory. Go back to 2 Corinthians 5. Now, what's he saying here?
Well, look at it. He's given us the earnest of
the Spirit. Well, how do we know we have
the Holy Spirit? Well, again, and I'm not trying
to oversimplify things by this, but it's simply this. If we truly
have life from God, the life of Christ, the Spirit giving
life and the Spirit indwelling us, what does the Bible say is
the evidence of that? Huh? It's faith in Christ and
repentance of dead works and idolatry. It's the love of God
shed abroad in our hearts. That's what it is. Are we looking
elsewhere for salvation other than Christ and Him crucified?
Well, I'm going to tell you something. If you are, it's not the Holy
Spirit. To be born again, Christ said you must be born again.
You see, that's what it is to have a new heart. Ezekiel describes
it that way. That's the inner man. In other
words, in my innermost being, by the power of the Spirit, I'm
looking to Christ, I'm clinging to Him for all salvation, for
all hope. I'm not looking to you and I'm
not looking to myself. That's why I've told people,
I say, you can't run me off from the gospel because I'm not looking
to you. I'm looking to Christ. as he's presented in the gospel.
If I were looking to you, you could run me off, but I'm not
looking to you. You're not my salvation. And
if you were, we'd all fall in the ditch together. You see,
my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
That's the indwelling presence of the Spirit, if you're singing
that from the heart. That's what it's all about. Look
at it. Look here at verse 6. He gave us the earnest of the
Spirit. Therefore, we are always confident, knowing that whilst
we are at home in the body, we're absent from the Lord. In other
words, I haven't been glorified yet. I know that while I'm in
this body, I'm absent from the Lord in the sense of not being
glorified. Now, the Lord's with me all the
time. He said, I'll never leave you or forsake you. I'm not absent
in that way. Christ indwells his people, his
indwelling presence through the Spirit and through the Word.
He said, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I'll
be with them. I'll be with you. He said, I'll never leave you
forsake. So he's always with us, but in the sense of being
glorified. I'm not yet perfect in myself. That's how I'm absent
from the Lord. David said, I'll be satisfied
when I awake with thy likeness. Perfectly conformed. A new body. Sinless eyes, sinless ears, sinless
minds. Perfect. I'm already sinless
in Christ, based on His righteousness given to me, charged to me, but
I'm not yet in myself, you see. That's why I stay perplexed and
troubled and all that. But he says in verse 7, for we
walk by faith, not by sight. Now, how do we know all this
is true? Well, according to my view of it. No, we don't walk
by your view of it. Or my view of it. How do we know
this is true? God said it. That's what it is
to walk by faith. To walk by faith is to walk according
to what God says. His word. It's not just hoping
something or wishing something that you desire. No, we walk
by faith, not by sight. In verse 8, we are confident,
I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body and to
be present with the Lord. I believe Paul was at a stage
of his life where he could honestly say, I've heard people joke about
it, you know. Some say, well, you know, I want
to go to heaven, but I don't want to be on the next train
pulling out and stuff like that. I believe Paul was at the point
of his life where the Lord gave him the grace. to say, I just
soon leave here and go on to be with the Lord. And then he
says in verse 9, wherefore, for this reason we labor, we endeavor,
we try hard, that whether present or absent, we may be accepted
of him. And here's what he's saying,
now listen to this, don't confuse this, many people do. He's saying
from the vantage point of this assurance of final glory in Christ
and based upon His accomplished work, His blood, His righteousness,
with the motive of grace and love and gratitude, we labor. We work hard. Not to earn heaven's
glory. If that's what we were doing,
there'd be no assurance of final glory. If you're working, in
order to get to heaven, then there's no assurance for you
to get there. In fact, there's an assurance
the opposite. Because your works aren't good enough to get you
into heaven. Mine aren't either. Nobody's is. The only work that's
good enough to get a sinner into heaven is the work of Christ.
So it's not to earn heaven, not to earn God's favor, but simply
this. I want to please God. I have
that desire. That's part of the Holy Spirit's
work in us to give us a desire to honor and glorify God in our
lives. To be examples of His grace and
to point to Him and not to ourselves, not to draw attention to myself,
but to the Lord of glory. I must decrease, He must increase. That's what he's talking about.
You see, we're already eternally accepted of God in the Beloved,
Ephesians 1, 6, in Christ. And that'll never change. And
the assurance of that by the grace of God in Christ is what
inspires and motivates a believer to want to please Him, to desire
to please Him. Now, you might say, well, I don't
desire that enough. No, you don't. Neither do I. But my friend, there is a struggle
there, isn't there? There is a struggle. And then he comes
to the judgment before heavenly glory. Now, I'm going to pick
up with this next week, but let me just say a few words about
it now, and I want you to keep this in mind. Now, he brings
up judgment. He's talking about laboring to
be accepted, not to be saved. But just simply, I want to please
my Heavenly Father. I want to please the One who
gave me all of salvation by His Son, which I didn't deserve and
didn't earn. The One who freely gave me all
things in Christ. I want to please the One who
died for me And he did it for me unconditionally. You know,
we look at each other and say, well, if you meet certain conditions,
I'll do this, I'll be kind to you. No. That's not what he said
to me, and if he had, I'd be doomed forever. I just want to
please him. And then he brings back the judgment
before heavenly glory. He says in verse 10, look at
it. For we must all appear. Now that word appear means be
made manifest. Be made known. Before the judgment
seat of Christ, you've probably heard of the word, the Bema.
Bema judgment, that's what this is. The judgment seat of Christ. That everyone may receive the
things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether
good or bad. Whether it be good or bad. There's
the judgment. What he's saying here is this.
Let me just conclude with this. I'll give you these thoughts
and I'll pick up there next Sunday. All of us will be manifested
Make known what was before hidden at the judgment seat of Christ.
We'll be revealed in reality as to what we are. Exposed in
our true character, you might say. He mentions the things done
in his body. That refers to actions performed
by this body as instruments of the heart. So as to expose either
a person standing in himself upon the ground of his own works,
or a true believer standing in Christ upon the ground of his
righteousness imputed and charged. And so as to expose the state
of a person's heart, that everyone may receive. Receive what? Their
due reward. Whether it be good or bad. Now
listen to this. Keep this thought in mind. This is, when it talks
about whether these works be good or bad, what's going to
happen at this judgment is this. It's going to be made known before
the whole world whether these works are good or bad. Now, what's
the determining factor of whether they're good or bad? Is it man's works and efforts
in trying to establish his own righteousness before God? Well,
the Lord says that's evil. That's bad. In other words, if
you're working hard in order to gain or maintain or earn your
way into God's favor and earn your way into heaven, the Bible
says that's evil because it denies the glory of God. It denies Christ.
What are these works? This is not talking about what
our works earn for us. is simply talking about this,
what our works say about us. Do my works say that I'm a sinner
saved by the grace of God, assured for heaven's glory because of
what Christ did for me and gave to me? Or do my works evidence
unbelief? Do my works redound to the glory
of God in Christ? Or do they draw attention to
me? and increase man's estimation of me. Do my works reek of grace
and gratitude and love for God? Paul says later on, we'll talk
about this next week, the love of Christ constraineth me. I'm
not trying to establish my own righteousness. I'm not trying
to earn my own. I can't do that. But I want to
please Him because He loved me. Herein is love. Not that we love
God, but that he loved us and gave his son to be the propitiation
for our sin. That's what that judgment is
all about. It's just exposing the reality of what is already
true. Of whether or not I'm a sinner
saved by the grace of God in Christ, or I'm a man who's trying
to earn my way by my works. That's bad. Only Christ is good.