Life is filled with certain events that we want to make sure we don’t miss: jury duty, court appearance for a speeding ticket, April 15th. There will be tremendous consequences if we choose to ignore important appearances. Paul reminds us that there are also going to be appearances that we cannot avoid even if we wanted to: our death(unless rapture occurs) and JUDGMENT.
• You would think that the most certain appearance of our lives would be the one we would prepare for the most but the truth is that many are not prepared.
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
11Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God; and I hope that we are made manifest also in your consciences.
• We can easily break these two verses up three ways:
1) Our Judgment Appearance will be a Certainty
2) Our Unjust Actions will be a Casualty
3) Our Just Attitudes are to be our Concern
OUR JUDGMENT APPEARANCE WILL BE A CERTAINTY:
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, (There is an appointment book with my name in it. I don't know when but I do know where)
The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. C. S. Lewis
HEB 9:27….it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,
appear – to make manifest or visible or known what has been hidden or unknown, to manifest, whether by words, or deeds, or in any other way
judgment seat of Christ – bema – a step, pace, the space which a foot covers, a foot-breath; of the official seat of a judge; of the judgment seat of Christ; Herod built a structure resembling a throne at Caesarea, from which he viewed the games and made speeches to the people
In Paul's day, in every city there was a place called the Bema, or judgment seat. It was from this raised platform, usually in the center of town, that announcements were made, judgments rendered and commendations handed out. All public proclamations came from this Bema seat.
1 Cor.4:4-5 “For I know nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who judges me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one's praise will come from God.”
Remember that Paul is not writing to the lost people in Corinth but to the church. We need to remember that although we tell those around us that they will stand before God someday for their sins that we also will stand before Him to answer for our lives as well.
They will discover they are lost but we will discover what we have lost.
1 Cor 3:11-15 For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire
• Seat of Christ: Not Joseph Smith as Mormons believe.
There are those who are going to stand before Him that has continually used His name as a curse word in this life.
Others took His name in vain by living a casual apathetic religious life and professing to have done it in His name.
I want to stand before Him having told the world that His was the ‘only Name by which they could be saved’ and that His Name was the ‘sweetest Name I know’.
OUR UNJUST ACTIONS WILL BE A CASUALTY:
so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
When I was a kid my family went to Six Flags and one of the ways they were able to determine whether you had paid the park entrance fee was to stamp you with a stamp that was only visible under a certain type of light. When you came to the entrance you put your hand under the light and there appeared there what was already there but unable to be seen in normal light with normal eyesight. One day all our actions and attitudes, words and works will all be seen in the light of God’s holiness and will be shown to be what they truly are.
1 Cor.3:13-15 …for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire
• We won’t truly know ourselves until that day. The wool we have pulled over our eyes and others will finally be removed and we will finally see the person God has always known us to be.
Lot is the perfect picture of a believer who was saved from wrath, but he lost everything else - Gen. 13-19.)
• There will be certain things made evident on that day:
REWARDS: Crowns of all kinds. Incorruptible Crown - Awarded for faithfulness to the Lord - 1 Cor. 9:25. Crown Of Life - For the person who endures and overcomes temptation - James 1:12.
Crown Of Rejoicing - Soul winners crown - 1 Thes. 2:19. Crown Of Righteousness - Given to those who live in the light of the His return - 2 Tim. 4:8 Crown Of Glory -Given to the faithful ministers who give themselves to lead and feed the flock of God - 1 Pet. 5:4.
REBUKES - All the motives, methods, attitudes and activities will pass beneath the microscope of God's just judgment and will be brought to light.
Wood, Hay and Stubble
There will be many who will come before Jesus expecting great rewards, but will instead receive great rebuke.
In the context of Jesus warning about those who build their houses on the ROCK or on the SAND He gives this warning:
MATTHEW 7:21-23 "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'
Notice that Jesus did not talk of those who had gone to church in His name or prayed a prayer to be saved or walked an aisle in a revival but those who appeared to be doing significant things in His name.
One of many books I am reading at the present time is one called Christianity in Crisis by Hank Hanagraf. In it he shares some of the beliefs of modern and popular ‘Christian’ personalities. Most would be shocked at how far we have traveled from genuine Christian doctrine and moved into the world of health and wealth and word of faith teachings.
People like Kenneth Hagin, Ken & Gloria Copeland(memorized and preached Hagin’s sermons/biggest failure in the Bible is God), Benny Hinn(Adam superman, women birth out of side, no verifiable miracle), Joel Olsteen(Jesus did not finish work of redemption on cross but had to go to hell, words of faith are like giving birth), Joyce Meyer(if you are a paraplegic or paralytic you are the problem, get up and get going), John Hagee(Jesus was a rich man, Cefelo Dollar(denies Jesus was fully God), T.D. Jakes(denies the Trinity), Rod Parsley and many more who are so well known today.
These and many others are going to have a shock one day when they hear Jesus say, , 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'
OUR JUST ATTITUDES ARE TO BE OUR CONCERN:
11Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God; and I hope that we are made manifest also in your consciences.
• Therefore: Having this knowledge how will we choose to live our lives.
There are things that should be true of a person who understands that one day they will stand before God for all the actions, attitudes, words, choices, decisions and all the rest that they have done while living this life.
THEY HAVE AN AWE OF GOD: knowing the fear of the Lord
Robert Ingersoll, an American Agnostic after delivering one of his addresses, pulled his watch from his pocket and said, “According to the Bible, God has struck men to death for blasphemy. I will blaspheme Him and give Him five minutes to strike me dead and damn my soul.”
There was a period of perfect silence while one minute went by; two minutes passed, and people began to get nervous; three minutes, and a woman fainted; four minutes, and at five minutes, he snapped shut his watch, put it in his pocket, and said: “You see, there is no God, or He would have taken me at my word.”
There are moments that the world should be glad that I am not God. That would be one of them. If I were God there would be a Lightning Bolt factory on every corner. I would have Ingersolls head in my trophy case if I was God.
The story was told later to another famous man of the time named Joseph Parker, who said, “And did the American think he could exhaust the patience of God in five minutes?”
I am glad I did not exhaust God’s patience over the span of 20+ years but that He gave me time and space to repent.
• There are those in those world who don’t seem to have the ability to what I call ‘bottom line’ specific truths about life: Such as life will end and then what. There will be a next moment when that moment arrives: then what? Our life now should be lived in the light of that ‘bottom line’ truth.
THEY HAVE AN ATTITUDE TOWARDS OTHERS: we persuade men
Living with such a fear will cause us to have certain attitudes in our life:
First – We will want to make sure we are obedient to what God asks of us.
Second – We will be concerned for others who do not understand the costs.
We Persuade: Too many are living a life that does everything but persuade others that God is important to them. They seem to have little interest and show little effort in serving Him. Their interest in Him seems to fall lower in the list than things like: this week’s TV schedule, their favorite hobby or sports team, their checkbook, their time, earthly relationships, their reputation with others…
THEY HAVE AN AWARENESS OF TRANSPARENCY: we are made manifest to God; and I hope that we are made manifest also in your consciences.
They realize that God is in every moment that they live: He is a constant witness to their lives and every moment reveals to Him what He already knows is true about us.
Paul hopes that the Church in Corinthian was also getting a true understanding of who Paul and the others with him truly were. They had been given so much wrong information by Paul’s enemies. But even if they still did not understand Paul’s heart it was ultimately about what God thinks.
12 We are not again commending ourselves to you but are giving you an occasion to be proud of us, so that you will have an answer for those who take pride in appearance and not in heart. 13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are of sound mind, it is for you.
beside ourselves – to stand out of oneself. It is a condition that Paul assumes as true the charge that he was crazy for the sake of argument.
Billings Gazette - a true report of a happening in Michigan, USA. A man bought a brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee for $30,000, and has $400 monthly payments. He and a friend go duck hunting when all the lakes are frozen. They go to the lake with the guns, the dog, the beer and the new vehicle. They drive out onto the lake ice and get ready. They want to make some kind of a natural landing area for the ducks where the decoys can float. In order to make a hole large enough to look like something a duck would fly down and land on it is going to take a little more than an ice-hole drill. These two do take into consideration that if they place the stick of dynamite on the ice at a location far from where they are standing they take the risk for slipping on the ice when they run and possibly go up in smoke with the resulting blast. So they decide to light this 40-second fuse and throw the dynamite.
ONE PROBLEM WITH THIS IDEA. Their DOG is a highly trained black Labrador retriever used for retrieving. The dog takes off at a high rate of speed on the ice and captures the stick of dynamite with the burning 40-second fuse about the time it hits the ice. The two men yell, scream, wave arms, holler, and the dog, seemingly cheered on, keeps coming, tail a wagging thinking he is doing great!
One of the guys grabs one of the shotguns and shoots the dog. The shot gun is loaded with "duck" shot, hardly big enough to stop a black lab. The dog stops for a moment, slightly confused, but continues on... doing what he was taught to do... retrieving "anything" thrown by his master. Another shot was fired, and this time the dog, still standing, becomes REALLY confused and scared, thinking his owner has gone insane the dog takes off to find cover... and where does a dog find cover on a frozen lake? UNDER the brand new Cherokee.
BOOM!!! Dog and Cherokee are blown to bits and sink to the bottom of the lake in a very large hole, leaving the two duck hunters standing there with this with the new hole they had wanted.
The insurance company says that sinking a vehicle in a lake by illegal use of explosives is not covered in their policy. The owner still has those $400-plus a month payments.
THERE CAN BE A HIGH COST TO CRAZINESS BUT ALSO HIGH REWARDS
Festus said of Paul “Paul, you are beside yourself! Much learning is driving you mad!” (Acts 26:24)
Others said of Jesus, "He is out of His mind."(Mark 3:21).
The Scribes said, Jn.10:21 “many of them said, "He has a demon and is mad."”
Q: Do people think you’re a little weird for being a Christian?
“When Dwight L. Moody was ministering at his large Sunday School and church in Chicago, people often called him “Crazy Moody.”
In the eyes of the world, Moody was “crazy” to have given up a successful business career to become a Sunday School worker and evangelist; but time has proved his decision to be a wise one.”
It is not crazy to:
1. Know that this life will end and there will be a day of judgment for all who have lived.
2. To realize that things done in this life will all matter and that we will be held accountable for the things we have said, done, not said and not done.
3. To understand that we live what we truly believe and if we know what we know about these truths then we will live a life of obedience and a concern for the eternal welfare of others.
IF LIVING IN THE LIGHT OF THESE TRUTHS MAKES US LOOK CRAZY IN THE EYES OF THE WORLD THEN SO BE IT.
C.S. LEWIS said it this way, ‘Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.
I Say, 'IF GOD IS WORTH ANYTHING THEN HE IS WORTH EVERYTHING.'
One day we will all find out who the crazy people truly were!
