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This week I took my third oldest son, Will, to the Grand Canyon. And I've been there before, I've been there twice before, and it's probably my favorite place. And I got to take part in one of my favorite things to do. One of my favorite things to do as I've gotten older is look at the face of somebody when they see something for the first time. That's what gives me pleasure. I just love it. I love it. We were standing on the edge of Pima Point, which is about six miles down from the middle of the canyon, kind of down there where most tourists don't make it, and it was a cloudy day, but we could see the sun, and he wanted to see the sunset, and we could see that it was working behind the clouds, and we knew it was gonna come under this cloud, and we were just at the exact right place, and then the whole canyon lit up, and his face lit up, and it was just glorious. And I got to be there, I got to see him there. I love that, I love being in that place. The favorite part of my job is being up here when a groom sees his bride walk down the aisle. I love to see his face light up, this beauty that he's been expecting and he's been longing for and it's finally here and his whole aspect changes. And I'm excited today to preach about the Judgment Day because I can't wait to see some of you on that day. I just can't wait to see you get the rewards that you so richly deserve. for you to believe for the first time, to really, deeply, truly, honestly believe that the Lord of the universe knows you and loves you, for you to stop doubting His goodness, I just cannot wait to see the look on your face. And I want to tell you about it. I want to tell you about that day, and we don't talk much about it, Like I said, I don't think I've ever actually preached a whole sermon on it before. And there's a lot of reasons for that. I think, partially, we're a little bit embarrassed. That sounds a little, you know, a little too much like the old-time religion, a little too much like the fire and brimstone and the shouters and the uneducated crowd out there. They talk about Judgment Day, but we kind of know better, don't we? That's kind of foolish. And I think we don't talk about it much because we've had a bad theology, honestly. We have a theology that's frankly formed out of this desire to make evangelism easy. We want to make evangelism really easy. And so we've kind of reduced Judgment Day. This is funny. We were sitting at dinner actually talking about this. This is what we've done. We've created a great question in our evangelistic zeal. We've created a great question. The question is, if God were to say to you, why should I let you into heaven, what would you say? Now that's a great question because it shows me whether you understand the gospel or not. It's called a diagnostic question. But it's important for you to know that's not what's gonna happen, okay? He's not gonna ask you that and you're not gonna get in or out based on whether you know the answer or not. It's not a theology exam. It's not a secret test. It's not a pop quiz. That's not what's gonna happen. You're gonna stand before the Lord and you're gonna be judged for the works that you have done in the flesh. Period. The Bible says that a lot. That's what's going to happen. And you are, most of you, the ones here I know, you're ready for that day and you long for that day whether you know it or not. It is better than any Christmas morning. It is better than any wedding day. It is gonna be better than the birth of your child. It's gonna be better than the New Orleans Saints winning the Super Bowl. It's gonna be better than any day that you've longed for. Because you're going to see how much Jesus loves you. And that's what I want you to know. I want you to know that Judgment Day, the day you finally see Jesus on the throne, is the day that you have longed for, even though you don't know it. It is the day that you have longed for, even though you don't know it. Please read with me about this from Romans chapter 2. Let me explain a little bit. I'll explain afterwards. Stand and we'll read from Romans chapter 2. Hear the word of the Lord. This is Paul explaining Why we need to be righteous in Christ? And he's explaining, well, he's talking about those who have heard the gospel, who have heard God's law, and who haven't. And he says, you have no excuse, oh man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself. Because you, the judge, practice the very same things. Now we know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, oh man, that you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, do you suppose that you will escape the judgment of God? Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God's judgment will be revealed. For he will render to each one according to his works. To those who by patience and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also for the Greek. But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also for the Greek. For God shows no partiality. For all who have sinned without the law will perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of God's law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. As far as the reading of God's Word, all men are like grass, and all of our glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers will fall, but not God's Word. God's Word is going to stand forever. You may be seated. Judgment Day, the day God judges the secrets of your heart, that is the day that you are longing for, even if you didn't know it. Even if you didn't know it. Let me explain a little bit about while we're doing this series. I was talking with some friends about Advent, Christmas. And this is the funny thing that, everything got messed up, okay. Advent actually isn't connected to Christmas. Okay, Christmas is the first day of the Christian year. Advent is the last season of the Christian year. So what we're supposed to do is be studying during Advent, it's the expectation of Christ's coming, but it's His coming again. It's the final things. That's why we sing songs like, O come, O come, Emmanuel, come thou long-expected Jesus. And we're supposed to be celebrating or meditating on the end things, the coming again of Christ. The four historic sermon topics for the four weeks of Advent are death, judgment, heaven, and hell. Now that would have had me preaching on hell on December 23rd. I wasn't going to do that. Pure cowardice, right? And Macy's kind of changed everything with their parade and creating the shopping days to a Christmas. And, you know, you used to put your Christmas tree up on Christmas Eve, right? And that's when Christmas started. And it went into the new year, the 12 days of Christmas start on December 25th. That's the first day of Christmas, the first day of the Christian year. But we changed all that and that's fine and I'm not going to change all that. But I'm sure not preaching on hell the Sunday before Christmas. I'm not going to do that. And so I was talking with some friends and I said, well, I want to do it. Just not then. I'm gonna do it free stream. And the reason I decided that I wanted to do it was this. I overheard that there's a little girl in our church, sweet, precious nine-year-old girl, who's just scared to death that she's gonna go to hell. And I just wanted the chance to tell her. that Jesus loves her way too much to ever let that happen. And it overwhelmed me that if we don't talk about these things, these kind of ugly topics, then other people are going to talk to you about them and you're going to be filled with lies. And you're going to hear, you're going to have false ideas. And I want you to know the truth. And so we're going to talk about them. We're going to talk about them for the next four weeks. And we're going to start talking about them with some regularity. And the first thing I want you to know about the Judgment Day is that it is certain. It is certainly going to happen. I thought up this outline. I had all these S sounds in my mind, and then I got into my office, and I was trying to write them down. I forgot the word certainty, and certainty begins with a C. I couldn't remember it, and so I wrote down assurance, but certainty is a much better word. The certainty of the judgment day is going to happen. I want you to understand that. You are going to stand before the Lord. Every human who's ever walked this planet is going to stand before the Lord. and give an account for the things that he has done in the flesh. And like I said, we've kind of watered that down and we've made Christianity all about, well basically, okay, I'll give you a brief history lesson. Basically, what has happened in evangelicalism, southern evangelicalism for the last 200 years, is about 200 years ago, When people preached about the Judgment Day and giving an account for the deeds they had done in the flesh, they had to mention slavery. And you could get lynched for preaching on that. And so we didn't, because it's always better to preach and run away and live to preach another day. And so we created this kind of hyper-spiritualized Christianity that didn't really talk about anything that you did in the flesh and only talked about what you believed and kind of what was going on in your heart. And then, basically, gospel preaching turned out to be just trying over and over again to make people feel bad about what was going on in their hearts, so they would get baptized over and over again, I guess. And that has done two awful things. One is, it's taken tender-hearted Christians who love Jesus and just beaten them up with the question of, are you sure you love him enough? And it's taken callous-hearted people who are in the church, because the church is the center of society, and it's made them just feel like they can do whatever they want, because they know the gospel. It doesn't matter how racist they are, how selfish they are, how greedy they are, how sexually immoral they are, because they know Jesus. They know the answers to the questions. And we need to be reminded that watered-down theology is dangerous, and if you think you can make a mockery of God by knowing the right answers, you're terribly mistaken. Paul says in Galatians chapter 6 that the book that teaches the justification by faith more purely and more clearly than any other book of the Bible says this, do not be deceived, God is not mocked. Whatever one sows, that he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. What you do matters. When you stand before the Lord, you're gonna find out that what you do matters. This is taught throughout the Bible. Judgment day is coming. You will give an account before the Lord. Psalm 1-5, the wicked will not stand in the judgment. Matthew 12, I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give an account for every careless word they spoke. Matthew 16 the Son of Man is gonna come with his angels in the glory of his father and he will repay each person according to what he has done Matthew 25 when son when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him he will sit on his glorious throne and before him will be gathered all the nations and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats Romans 2 God will render each to each one according to his works and Hebrews 9 27 it is appointed for man wants to die and after that comes the judgment revelation chapter 20 I saw the great and the dead standing before the throne and the book was opened and Another book was opened which is the book of life and the dead were judged by what was written in the books According to what they had done. It's going to happen if there's a single word in the Bible. That's true It's going to happen that you can just throw the whole Bible out and Or you can believe that the judgment is going to happen. Those are your only two options. It's extremely consistent. It is a painfully consistent book. You're going to stand before the Lord and give an account for what you have said and done. Why? But why? Isn't God all about love? Isn't He a loving God? Well, you got that idea from the Bible and you need to take the whole Bible. But you see, love, if you understand, if you have any idea what love actually is and you understand why judgment has to happen. Love is not just kind of a nice, sweet feeling about people that is disinterested in what's going on in their life. Love is a fierce emotion. It is an emotion that is protective. It is an emotion that is just filled with fury and care and concern. And God loves us too much to fail to protect us. He just loves us too much to fail to protect us. And everyone who has harmed one of his children will be terribly sorry about that. That's what love does, right? When my kids were little, you know, we had the trampoline and the swimming pools. We had kids in the neighborhood who'd come. And I'm not proud of this, but they're not here, so I can tell y'all. I ran off a lot of their friends. I remember one day in particular, my kids came home to me crying because some neighborhood kids had been threatening them. They said they were going to hit me with a bar. I'm so sorry. And they came in and we sat them down in front of the television and calmed them down. And I went out the back door. My wife doesn't know this, but I climbed the fence and I went down the street. And they found the kids who were playing with a curtain rod, and I took it away from them, and I hit the ground. And I said, how would you like it if I hit you with it? I said, it doesn't feel good to be scared, does it? Don't scare my kids again. I did not touch them. But what kind of dad would I be if I just let somebody bully my kids? You call that love? And you need to know that every abused child, every sex-trafficked young lady and boy, their Father in Heaven sees what they're going through. And He will exact justice. Do not be fooled. God will not be mocked. And His children will be protected. And His patience drives us crazy. And we're so mad at Him for taking so long. And we long for it to happen, but I promise you it is going to happen. It is going to happen. He loves us too much to fail to protect us. And he loves us too much to let the cancer of sin kill us. He is gonna judge us, why? Because he wants to get every impurity out of us. He wants to get every impurity out of us. He wants to get it out. You know how things just grow and fester, right? My sin just grows and festers. It won't stay in place. I'm filling out a little grant right now, basically for an extended vacation. I had to give a reason for it. I said, you know, as I get older, I don't want to become bitter. I see it in me. I see that self-righteousness in me. I'm afraid if it grows for another 10 years, 20 years, I'm probably going to live way too long. 30 years? Good night. I'm afraid of what I'll be if this self-righteous bitterness grows for another 30 years. Imagine what I would be if that self-righteous bitterness grew for a thousand years. God loves me too much to let that happen. And He is going to apply the judgment to me to get that out. He's going to apply the radiation treatment of His judgment to me. And the good news is, you know when you go to the dentist and they're taking an x-ray and they put that big heavy vest on you? That lead vest. What's the lead vest do? It protects you because you don't want all that radiation going through you, right? I guess. I'd take the word for it. That's what Jesus has done. He lays down on us and He absorbs all the radiation to protect everything that's good about you. You're gonna be safe. But every little bit of sin in you is going to get taken out. Because the next kingdom is going to be perfect, and in order for that kingdom to be perfect, we have to be perfect to walk in it. He loves us too much to let a little bit of the cancer of sin kill us. He's going to refine us, and He's going to show that our faith is purer than gold, 1 Peter 1 says. Judgment is certain. The love of God demands it, and the Scripture teaches it. Secondly, the standard of judgment is fair. Now, Romans, Paul's anticipating a question here. How can God judge everybody if not everybody's heard God's law? That's not fair. What are you gonna do? Come up to this person who's never heard God's law and say, hey, did you sacrifice some grain every time you wanted to eat a rabbit? Because that's what the Old Testament law teaches. Did you do that? Well, you didn't, so you're going to hell. That's not fair. And Paul says, don't be ridiculous. God's not unjust. He's not unfair. Everybody's gonna be judged by the law that they knew. So somebody who's never heard the Bible, how are they gonna be judged? Well, they're gonna be judged by their own conscience. God has written his law on their conscience. How do you know God's written the law on their conscience, Paul? Because they criticize people. Because they judge other people. It's as if Francis Schaeffer used this illustration a million years ago. He said it's as if every human's walked around with a tape recorder around his neck, and every time you've ever criticized somebody or judged somebody, that's been recorded. And God's gonna say, well, hmm, let's see, did you know my law? And he's gonna play that tape recording of your voice. And when you criticize somebody for being selfish, or for being mean, or for being sexually impure, or for being greedy, you're gonna hear your own voice. And then God's gonna say, okay, did you do those things? And he's gonna show you the video of you doing the very things that you condemned in others. You knew my law, and you didn't keep it. And then for those who knew the law, it's going to be a more strenuous judgment. Jesus says in Luke 12, the servant who does not know his master's will will be beaten with a few stripes. This is another big misconception. We'll talk about it in a few weeks. Hell is not one-size-fits-all. It's not. Neither is heaven. We'll talk about that next week. The servant who did not know his master's will will be given a sparing judgment. The one who knew his master's will, the person who was in church his entire life, but never feared the Lord, never did his master's will, will be given a more severe judgment. The standard is going to be based upon what you know. Paul says it's not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law. Well then, what's it gonna be like? And this is where I really wanted to get to. I've kind of rushed through everything else to get to this. The surprises of the judgment day. Everything about that day is gonna be shocking, and I wanna take you through all five, and I'm asking you to hang in there with me. Get to the end, it'll be worth it, okay? The payoff's good. We got two rough ones, we got three good ones, so hang in there. All right, first one is, The surprise of false religion. False religion is going to be unmasked. Jesus says there's going to be many, many who come to me on that day and say, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do mighty works in your name? And I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. There's gonna be a shock. People who think they know the right answer, people who think that all they have to do is pass a little theology exam that they've been studying for their whole life in Sunday school are gonna be shocked. They're not gonna get in because they know the right answer. God's gonna look at their lives and it's gonna be obvious to all, you did not know Jesus. You did not love him. Your behavior was not in line with someone who loves him. God is not mocked. You spent your entire life sowing to the flesh, and so from the flesh you will reap destruction. God's not going to be mocked. He knows the truth. That's so important. I wish that message had been preached more. I think it's important for our children to hear that. Some of the meanest things I hear repeated to me were said by children who should have known better. Some of the meanest treatment that our children in our church have received have come by kids who grew up in a church somewhere. They need to know. It's not what they know, but how they behave that demonstrates the truth. You're going to be surprised when false religion is unmasked. We're going to be shocked also, secondly, by how personally Christ takes our sin against his own children. What did Christ say to the Apostle Paul when he met him on the road to Damascus? He said, why are you persecuting me? Why did you do this to me in Matthew 25? He says on that day They will answer me saying Lord, when did you we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to you and he will answer them saying you did not do it to the least of these therefore you did not do it to me and These will go away in eternal punishment to internal eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life The sins that we commit against Christ's children, we're committing against Him. He takes it personally when we abuse His children. And the good things, the grace that we refuse to extend to His children, He takes it as though we were denying Him. He takes it personally when we deny His children. We're going to be shocked at how personally Jesus takes our sin. There's no such thing as a victimless crime. He takes it personally. That's the bad news. But there's a lot of good news. And this is what I want to share with you. This is why I've raked you through this to get you to this point. You're going to be utterly surprised by how personally Jesus takes every good thing that you've done. Completely surprised. Look what the righteous answered him. Lord, when do we do good things? When do we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink? When do we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you? When do we do all that, Lord? And the King will answer them, as you did it to the least of my brothers, you did it to me. I can't wait for this. I can't wait for you to see it. I can't wait for you to see how thankful Jesus is for every drop of water you gave to one of his children. I can't wait for you to see the massiveness of it, the magnitude of it. Mary Ann Robinson. teaches, the writer teaches that Judgment Day has to come at the resurrection. It can't come at death. It has to come at the resurrection. Why? Because all the fruits of your labors won't be done until then. We won't even know them until then. When you're being kind to a child today, when you're showing kindness to a kid through Compassion International today, you're not blessing him. You're blessing him and his family and his children and his children's children and his children's children's children. And Jesus is going to be so thankful to you for that. Do you think of God in that way? He's just going to be so thankful. You're going to be shocked by how personally He takes every good thing that you've done. You're going to be shocked by the extravagance of His grace. By the extravagance of His grace. Luke 19 says this, in the judgment, He said to him, Well done, good servant, because you've been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities. And the second came saying, Lord, your coin has made five coins. And he said to him, you will be over five cities. What's that demonstrating? Just an incredible magnitude of grace. Look what you did. I gave you so little. And you blessed that? Let me give you a city. You want Tulsa? Take it. Dallas? Miami? You want a place with some beaches? You can have that too. You want Denver? You want some mountains? Take it. The magnitude of His grace. It just draws out from you. I loved hearing Sinclair Ferguson talk about this. He said the last words, the last negative words that are ever going to come out of your mouth, will be, Lord, if I'd just known you were this kind, I would have done so much more. And he's gonna go, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh. No negative things will be spoken here, least of all by you. Shh. When you see how gracious he is, and that's why Jesus tells us about it, so we will know how gracious he's gonna be. It's why it's so silly when people talk about, you know, preaching grace is gonna make people sin. It's gonna make them lazy. That's ridiculous. Look, there are people out in the world who overpay you. One Christmas, Bruce Berman asked me to rake his leaves. And me and my two oldest boys went and raked for about an hour, maybe an hour. I don't know. Did a terrible job. And he paid us $100. wildly overpaid us. He was just looking for an excuse to give me a Christmas present. Do you think that made me go, woo, I'm never gonna work for Bruce again? No, every Christmas I'm like, man, I wonder if how his leaves are doing. I wish I had the chance to do it more. When you hear that God is going to be this gracious that every drop of water you give to a child is going to be rewarded, if that doesn't make you want to give more water to more children, I don't think you're listening. The extravagance of His grace is going to be overwhelming. We're going to be shocked by how personally He takes our good acts. We're going to be shocked by the extravagance of His grace. And finally, we're going to be shocked by the completeness of our forgiveness. We're going to be shocked by the completion of our forgiveness. He's going to welcome us into His kingdom, and we're going to go, but what about my sin? What about my sin, Lord? And He's going to look at us with a face of absolute, pure befuddlement. And He's going to say, I don't know what you're talking about. And he's gonna look at Jesus. And he's gonna say, Jesus, do you know what she's talking about? And he's gonna say, ah, Dad, I took care of that. Come into my kingdom. There's sins I will remember no more. If anyone sins, He has an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and is appointed for man once to die, and after that, the judgment. So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. Please pray with me. Our Father in heaven, We come to you with gracious, overwhelmed, and expectant hearts longing for the day when we will see you. And I pray that you would prepare us for it. In Jesus' name, amen.
Judgment Day: The Greatest Day of Your Life
Serie The Final Four
Everyone will stand before the Lord and give an account of the deeds he has done in the flesh.
ID del sermone | 324191327233711 |
Durata | 33:27 |
Data | |
Categoria | Servizio domenicale |
Testo della Bibbia | Rivelazione 20:11-15; Romani 2:1-16 |
Lingua | inglese |
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