Last weekend, we had fathers and sons youth camp. So we had mothers and daughters dinner on a Friday night and fathers and sons youth camp, which found me and Knox, because Knox is almost coming into youth group, but Knox and I were camping in our tent amongst a bunch of other tents under some trees in the middle of the bush. And it was a really fun experience. Stay tuned because I hear from the youth leaders, there's more things coming, more plans for maybe an all-in, every male camp, every female thing. And so there might be man camp one day. We'll see what happens. Four o'clock in the morning. I'm in my cozy sleeping bag. And I'm woken by the roar of wind. The kind of roar I've heard before, I've been fighting bushfires and I've heard that roar before, so it kind of alarmed me and I realized it wasn't a fire, it was just the wind in trees. So I'm lying awake at four o'clock in the morning, hearing this roar and the creak and sound of trees above us, and I think, what's the structural integrity of this tent? Like it's got those two cross arms. It might do something. It's got the cover sheet. I'm blanking on the name right now. The fly, thank you. But if the tree falls on this tent, it's destroyed. And possibly whatever's inside the tent too. You see, tents are not made to protect us from trees. Rain, yes, wind, yes, even hail, but maybe not trees. And so at four o'clock in the morning, I was quite worried. At that point in time, whether it was physiological or physical, I needed to go to the toilet. And so, maybe that's too much information, I don't know, but I decided to get out of the tent and I will go and do what needs to be done. And I'd look around and with some amount of relief, I remembered the tent that we put these trees under, the trees were only about this thick. And they were quite young, small trees, and I thought, ah, it'll just hurt. It'll be okay. And they probably won't fall over anyway. Well, friends, you don't have to like camping to know much about tents. But you know that tents are temporary. You could say with certainty, tents are made for short-term staycations. They can be easily destroyed. Of all the people that knew about tents, it was the Apostle Paul. Why? Because the Apostle Paul knew a lot about tents. He knew a lot about, from his own experience, even camping. In 2 Corinthians 11, in this letter, in chapter 11, we read the Apostle Paul goes through this, in 11.27, he goes through toil and hardship, many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. That's camping. The Apostle Paul understands camping life. He was a real camper, but more than that, the Apostle Paul was a professional tent maker. We know this in Acts 18. So if you go to Acts 18, you actually read about when the church of Corinth was planted. In Acts 18, this is what happens. The apostle Paul, sent on mission by Jesus to plant churches, goes to Corinth. And when he goes to Corinth, we see in Acts 18, the first few verses, verses one to three, he meets a couple at Corinth. You remember who they are? Priscilla and Aquila. And you remember what Priscilla and Aquila do for a job? They both work. Husband and wife team, they both work. What is their profession? They make tents. And what does Paul do when he meets with Priscilla and Aquila, this working couple? What does he do? We read in Acts 18, verse three. And because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked, for they were tent makers by trade. Paul knows tents. Paul knows tents. Of all the things he could know about, he knows a lot about the Bible. He knows a lot about the Old Testament scriptures. He knows a lot about God, but he knows tents. And Paul turns from speaking last week about clay cups, jars of clay, disposable cups, to this week talking about tents. And he picks up the tent illustration to answer the question, what happens when we die? and he starts talking about this tent which is our earthly home. Why does he do that? Because even churches, even for us, we can be so distracted by the world around us that we think this is all that matters. We think life is all about focusing now, and we forget or neglect to see, and this is point one in the sermon outline, we neglect to see, we actually look forward to being further clothed. Further clothed with something that's better, bigger, more marvelous, more magnificent, more glorious, more weighty, more incomparable even, Paul has said, than the life we experience now. And so we read verse one of our passage. Paul writes, we know that at the tent, that is our body, our earthly home is destroyed. We are looking forward to a building from God made not with hands, but made by him. Remember last time Paul was looking around the room, perhaps of his study or the kitchen table where he wrote his letters from. He's looking around and he saw the clay cup, that disposable jar of clay. Well, perhaps Paul is at his weaving beam. Perhaps he's making some holes in a tent, or the poles. And he's looking around for an illustration, an analogy, and then he thinks, matter-of-fact, I've got it now. We are tents! Our bodies are tents, friends! But it's even more than that. I think it's actually more going on here than Paul looking for the perfect illustration to describe our life. Paul has ringing in his ears because he's heard it before preached. He's heard it said. The words of Jesus. Look at verse one, friends. I hope you've got a Bible in front of you. You'll need the Bible. You will need this. Verse one. Look at those words. Have you heard them before? Have you heard these words before about an earthly home, a body, a tent being destroyed? Yes. This rings bells and raises for us the strongest memory. Someone has said these words before. Someone has talked about this before. And of course you have heard it. I know you have because it was in one of our cross-reference readings from Mark 14 this morning. In Mark 14, this is what is said. As they take Jesus to a cross, we heard him say, we heard him say, here's the accusation, we heard Jesus say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands. And in three days, I will build another not made with hands. We heard him say it. What was Jesus talking about? His body. And what was Jesus talking about his coming? His resurrection body. A newer, better body. This is the hope that we look forward to. Let's just for a moment, ponder the profound moment it is to recognize where Jesus is now. I've got a friend of mine, one of my best friends, he's a lecturer at Moore College in Sydney. We went through college together. He went off to do his PhD at Durham and I went to Bendigo. And I think I got the better deal. I went to visit him when he was doing his PhD and he said, come to my, um, come to my tutorial Russ. And, uh, I want you to meet my, um, my supervisor and friends. And so we're in Durham. Durham's kind of like, it's an English town. There's a, I guess you call, we call it a castle. It's just an old building. And, uh, we went to this very top room and, and sit in the room, uh, academics that I've read their books and they're all around there. And, uh, Pete, my friend said, uh, introduce yourself for us. I said, G'day, my name is Russ. I'm from Australia. Even saying that felt like I was in another realm, and they were all like, oh, that's very interesting. People have done their PhDs. My friend, Pete, did his PhD on where is Jesus now. I asked Pete to come and speak in Bendigo, not many years after he'd done his PhD, and he came to Bendigo, and he spoke with some students at our church, at Reforming Church, and someone said, what was your PhD on? He said, where is Jesus now? And one of the students said, in heaven? Do we need 80,000 words to tell us that, or 150,000 words? The reason we study where Jesus is now, because it is profound. Here, you think about this. We often think, oh, of course Jesus is in heaven. I want you to think about this. The Bible teaches us heaven is a spiritual realm. Heaven is a spiritual realm. Heaven is not yet a physical realm. Not yet. Heaven is a spiritual realm. We see this in Ephesians 6, we see this in Revelation 21, where heaven comes to earth in Revelation 21. Heaven is a spiritual realm. But here's what's profound. Heaven is a spiritual realm, entirely spiritual, except... Except what? Somewhere in the universe, is a man, flesh and blood, feasting, eating, shaking hands, hugging, man. His name is Jesus. He is the only risen person. He is the first fruits of what is to come. But he is the model that we look to. You want to know what our future bodies look like? What is life like one day for us in the new creation? Look to Jesus because there is a risen man. Not spiritual, physical. And he is seated on a throne. And he is the personification of our hope. When we look to Jesus we see what does life look like for us when our body expires and it comes to a shelf life comes to an end. In this life we look forward to a future resurrection day where we will receive bodies just like Jesus. Where we see the contrast in this passage we go from tents to buildings. we go from being naked to further clothed. Have a look at verse 2, 2 Corinthians 5 verse 2. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling. This is what Paul was saying. The language of groaning, of course, Paul used in Romans 8. We groan in this life. Now, get this, Paul is not groaning because he just wants to be free of troubles. We all get that, don't we? Look, if you're above 30, you've got troubles. I'm not saying that people in their 20s don't have troubles, but when you're in your 20s or your teenage years, teenage years do have troubles, 20s do have troubles. When you get to 30, it just feels like it doesn't go away. Like you thought it would get better by 30? You thought you'd have it sorted out? And you get to 30 and you realize, goodness, I've not got this sorted out and this life's difficult. But Paul is not groaning because he just wants to be free of troubles. Paul is groaning because he wants to be with Christ. Because that's where his joy is. That's where his hope is. Where else would you want to be? That's where it's at. That's where real, risen life is at. But I want you to notice something else in this passage. As we ponder that Jesus risen physically, that is our future, a physical resurrection. Ponder this. The groaning we long for to be with Christ between now and the resurrection day, between now and judgment day, between now and the last day of life as we know it. The question is this, what happens for those who die and Jesus has not yet returned? What happens for us? What has happened for my grandmother, whose name was Faith, but by belief she was the one that taught me the gospel at a young age? Where is Grandma Grinta? Where are those we've loved, who've loved Jesus? Where are they now? And the Apostle Paul actually shows us in this passage what is happening. He shows us other places, of course, and we see other writers. John, as he writes Revelation, and here's a little trailer for next year, you know, like movie trailers. I like movie trailers. I always want to get to the movies early. My wife, Amy, is like, no, she's just like totally opposite. I wouldn't say flies by the seat of her pants, but kind of just like, She'd be happy just to get there just as the movie started. And for me, I've lost half the joy of going to the movies. Because I want to see the trailers, even the ads. Call me weird. I think the DCK ad has got it in lovely tune, but anyway. When you go to the movies and you get the trailers, here's a trailer. So here's a trailer for next year. Next year, I would like us as a church, I would like to preach through the book of Revelation. Right? Next year. In Revelation, John writes a revelation, it's a revealing of what God is going to do in the future to John, to us. In Revelation, we see there is, and now but not yet, there is, we are promised resurrection bodies. But until then, and we see this in this passage, until then, there is a state for the believer who dies to be with Christ that scholars, we Christians call often the intermediate state. The state of yes, with Christ, but not yet clothed with new bodies. And with that in mind, this raises all sorts of questions about what happens when we die. We think about the intermediate state. People ask questions like, well, where will we be? We don't yet have physical bodies, but if we're spiritual, where are we as spirits? Are we hanging out together? Are we passing through each other? Will that get weird? Awkward? Woah, Mikey! Woah! What's going on for us? Paul speaks to this. Paul alludes to this. Perhaps for brothers like Mikey, I'm just picking out two brothers who I know will be okay, Mikey and Bren. Will Nike and Bren be able to, like they did just now, if you're listening online, this is what actually happened, like they looked at each other over the room and recognized each other, will Nike and Bren be able to recognize each other spiritually in heaven? All sorts of questions are raised. I know in kids church recently, a kids church teacher told me this, someone in kids church asked an excellent question about the intermediate state. Someone asked this, a child asked this, if we are spiritually in heaven waiting for our resurrection bodies, how can we see each other if we don't have eyeballs? All sorts of good questions are asked about the intermediate state. Look at verse four. In verse four, Paul alludes to this state of being. He says this, for while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened, but not that we would be unclothed. So our final hope, Paul says, is not just the intermediate state. It is being with Christ, but we look forward to physical bodies. Our ultimate hope is in the new creation, is in new bodies. Yet, until that day, what happens when we die? Well, here's what we see. Like we saw last week, the inner you, your soul, your spirit, the inner you is now being renewed day by day. But on that moment, when you die, you get to be with Christ forever. And being with Christ forever is an incredible joy. This is the second point in the sermon outline. We see this in verses six to eight. If you have faith in Christ now, you will be with Christ forever. Now that means there's an opposite by the way. If you don't have your faith in Christ now, there is no with Christ forever. Have a look at verse 5. You wanna have confidence in life? You wanna feel secure and safe in life? Simple answer is this, put your trust in Jesus. Paul says, with people that have trust in Jesus, they have confidence, and he uses another word, courage. Verse six, so we are always of good courage. We know that while we're at home in the body, we're away from the Lord. If we walk by faith, not by sight, yes, we are of good courage. He repeats it, yes, we're of good courage. Verse eight, we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. Even if it's temporary. Our body is a temporary tent. This body we have here is totally temporary. You know this by now. But there's a great comfort to us. The great comfort to us is this. Even when we die. we are with Christ. Even as we wait for new bodies, we are with Christ. Whatever happens, for the believer that dies, their confidence, their courage is held in being with Christ. And this answers a few questions that our society has had, even people in churches, about what happens when we die. Some of us have grown up, perhaps, in the Roman Catholic Church. In the Roman Catholic Church, we've been taught things, false things, about purgatory. Purgatory, I don't have time to go into the ins and outs of it, but here's the short end of the version, here's the abridged version. Purgatory is totally made up. There is no such thing as purgatory in the Bible. It gets its name from the idea that when you die, even for the believer, you're still not quite in heaven yet, but you go to another place where your sins that haven't quite been dealt with are purged from you, and that might take thousands of years. Purgatory totally made up. It is a false understanding and a false answer and no confidence for the person who died. There is no place of limbo in the Bible, no place of purging for your sins as we'll see in a moment at the end of this passage. You can't purge your sins. That's the problem. The Bible shows us what's true and real. and shows us what is comforting. There are other questions that people try to answer. So not just the Roman Catholic Church of Purgatory, but look, the Protestant Church, by and large, particularly coming out of places like America, has led to all sorts of distorted teaching on after death. Sorry, after life, after death, you know what I mean. What happens when you die? What really has caused me to groan? Lately, in the last 12 months, there was a movie doing the rounds. It was, I think, even in our cinemas here. And other Christians were promoting it. Get along in this movie. And it was all about after-death experiences, near-death experiences of people who said, I went to heaven and I came back. And this is what heaven is like. I went to hell and then came back. And now I'm warning people to not go to hell. This has become so much of a phenomenon that people have given it a name. It's called heavenly tourism. People have written books about, and often the books are written because some five-year-old boy has perhaps been unconscious or looked like they needed to have a resuscitation moment. And then the boy came later, this is the famous one here, a little boy, I think his name was Alex. The boy came later and said to his dad, I saw angels in heaven, or I was flying around in heaven. And the dad then wrote this down and made a book about it. And the boy grew up and then said, actually I made it up, but dad made a lot of money out of it. It's not just that I'm concerned that people are cashing in on it and making money out of it, which they are. The problem is it's not biblical. The problem is, nowhere in the Bible do we see that framework. Nowhere in the Bible is that the experience. Hebrews 9.27, anyone who's done Two Ways to Live, anyone who's done any evangelism at all with the Bible, what does Hebrews 9.27 say? You can almost rattle it off straight away, can't you? Man is destined to die once, and after that, face judgment. Nowhere in the scriptures do we see a description of heavenly tourism. But my concern is, the Protestant church, to make money, has cashed in on this. Lastly, my concern is this. Watching the movie, reading the books, and look, you can read the books if you want to, there's some good book reviews by Tim Challies, and he says this, it's just not even good writing. It's terrible writing. My life is short. Ecclesiastes, of the making and reading of many books, there is no end. Ask my wife, of the buying of many books, there is no end. I've got time to read it. But that's not my biggest concern. Here's the biggest concern. You read the books, you watch the movie, it is Christless. Absolutely devoid of Jesus. Nothing about Jesus at all. It's all about, listen to my human-based experience, and ends up telling people warnings or encouragements that aren't about Jesus. But the Apostle Paul, of all the people, by the way, who has had an experience of seeing into heaven, who was that? Paul. He's going to talk about that in chapter 11 and 12. He's going to talk about it and you know what he does? He doesn't say, let me write the book about it, let me cash in on it, let me tell you about what, what does he do? He says this, I don't even want to talk about it. I want to talk about Jesus. We all have questions about what happens when we die. but the answer is not found anywhere else but in the one who's been to death and back." Jesus! Jesus! Of all the people who could be an authority on this, it's Jesus! Why we search for other human experiences and other authorities that in the end have been found to be false, falsified and not true. Why we do that, I get it because we're looking for answers. But friends, you don't need to go to all the multitude of books As someone once said, books can give you insight, but it's the Bible that gives you sight. Go to the Bible. Look at Jesus. Listen to Jesus. There are also other people who have questions and answers about things like soul sleep. So there's a group of people, particularly promoted soul sleep. They're called the Russellites. Can't do much about that. Many of the Russellites become Jehovah's Witnesses, right? And the Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, I've got a cousin, I've got family who are Seventh-day Adventists, many of them promote soul sleep. Soul sleep is the belief that when you die, your soul goes literally to sleep. And you are unconscious to the things of the world, the universe, even to the things of Christ. The reason people have started to think about soul sleep is because when the Old Testament speaks about people dying, for example King David, what does it say about David? He goes to sleep with his fathers. He goes to sleep. In the New Testament we see in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 this language of we do not grieve as those who have no hope for our well-loved ones who have fallen asleep. But why does the Bible use the word sleep? Is it saying we literally go to sleep like our phone goes to sleep at nighttime? Is it literally saying that we're more than that unconscious to the things of the world and Christ? Is that what the Bible says? No. Why does the Bible describe death now as sleep? Why? Because there's a resurrection. because of the resurrection that is to come the Old Testament looks forward to a resurrection to come it speaks about it because of the resurrection that has happened in our past in our history we can now look at death and grieve we've had funerals in this building where we are it's right and good to weep there will be more funerals in this building some of us may choose that we would like to have our funeral from this place that really is an industrial look cafe. But whatever the building, this was our church. Heads up, if I'm still here being pastor of your church and I die, I would like my funeral to be here and I want someone to stand at this pulpit and preach Christ. Don't talk about me all day. Who cares? I'm with Jesus. I don't care. Talk about Jesus. Don't have overflowing eulogies about me, and I've got no favourite footy song to play on the way out. Play songs about Jesus! Talk about Jesus! Don't talk about what I might be experiencing in heaven right now. You don't know the details. I will, and that's what matters to me. But you talk about, to the living, those who will die, about Jesus. But what will those whom we love be doing? They won't be unconscious. The Bible talks about death as sleep because of the resurrection, which means you can say it's someone's funeral. You can say, I look forward to seeing them tomorrow. I look forward to seeing them in the morning. Because death is like sleep, but we're not sleeping. No? Let me give you three Bible passages at least that talk about what are those who have gone to be with Christ doing right now. They're not sleeping. Philippians 1.23, Paul writes, this is some hard press between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ. It's a conscious awareness that you are awake with Jesus. Luke 23 verse 43. Remember the thief from the cross? Thief from the cross, in anguish, turns to Jesus and says, I realize who you are! And what does Jesus say? Today, you will be with me in paradise. Now, the Russellites, they then make an argument about the placement of a comma. Long story short, that's silly. Jesus is promising the thief on the cross he will be with him in paradise. Because Jesus has not yet received his resurrection body that day, has he? But where is Jesus? Also, long story short, he's not in hell. Jesus says at the cross it is finished. He doesn't go to hell to do any sort of mopping up job. It's finished in the cross. You want to know where Jesus goes to hell? He goes to hell on the cross. That is a picture of hell. You know what hell looks like? Hell is the judgment of God. Hell is not just us taking over because we're the bad guys and we're going to take over hell and have a good time. Hell is the judgment of God. And where do we see a picture of the judgment of God? It's at the cross. Jesus goes to hell on a cross. So when Jesus dies, where does his spirit go? What does the Bible say? He committed his spirit to his father in heaven. Jesus spiritually that day in paradise a thief in the cross spiritually that day with Christ very much awake and very much enjoying God Hebrews 23 verse 23 that's an easy one isn't it Hebrews 23 23 make a t-shirt about it actually it's not 23 it's 12 there's no Hebrews 23 Hebrews 12 23 yeah you can ask me about my mind later This is a bit sore still, a bit distracting. And to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to God, the judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, the spirits of the righteous that are with Christ. Now, at this point, people do ask great questions. But the Bible gives us great answers. And we walk by faith, not by sight, to the question about how can we see with no eyeballs? That's verse seven, isn't it? We see by faith in Christ. Look, if he can raise the dead, we can see. Mikey and Bren will be able to recognise each other. We walk by faith, not by sight. We look forward to something that is even better than this life. And we trust, by faith, in the trustworthy One who's got this, who guarantees this. We see He guarantees it, we see, in verse 5, because He's given us His Spirit. There's no ambiguity about the intermediate state. There is instead real hope. And this guarantee gives us courage. And it's important for us to see now for what we're about to see next. Because our future hope shapes how we live now. I think we're so tempted as Christians in our churches to do all sorts of mucking around with discipleship. I don't like the language of different levels of spirituality. I'm not a fan of language that's, you know, like there's disciples and then there's radical disciples, as if there's two types of disciples. I'm not a fan of different levels of spiritual, like that person's really spiritual and this person's less spiritual. I think we all need the encouragement to look to Christ. People who look to Jesus today, who put their trust in Him, receive the Spirit of Christ as a guarantee. You can't be a Christian and not have the Holy Spirit. And the person that has the Holy Spirit, the Christian, now has an experience, an entree of the joy of things to come, enjoying friendship with God, enjoy worshiping God, and enjoying a fellowship with one another. and a longing to be with Christ. We now don't need to cling to the things of this life and grieve their loss. Because I think we do. We so easily focus on the things of this life. Many of us often have the angst of not knowing where we belong in life, what we're doing in life. A lot of us often have issues with identity, and we preach our Ephesians. A few years ago, Ephesians is all about our identity in Christ. But we can be of good courage. We know who we are now, and we know where we're going in the future. We don't need to worry about where our home is, our place in this world is, because our home is with Christ. We don't need anything else in this world to validate us. We often attempt to define something. We want to find something and it's what defines me, what validates me. I work as, I serve as a chaplain in a particular ministry and sporting chaplains can tell you this. I work in an emergency service chaplains area. and I find this too, those who are professional sporting players, when they hit about 30, for some it's a bit older, and they have to stop playing sport professionally. You know what happens for them? There's a big struggle for them. They don't know who they are anymore. The field that I work in as a chaplain, the service workers that work in that field wear a uniform. They put that uniform on every day and they go to work and they tell me one of their fears about ending in this job is when they stop putting the uniform on, they don't know who they are anymore. We all struggle with trying to find our identity in something in this life. Who am I? Where is my place? And we attach it to things of this life. But the hope is we don't have to anymore. We don't have to worry about our identity attached on ground and hit. Our identity is with Christ. That's our identity. That's who we are. That's our home. It doesn't matter what you do in this life, in that sense, for a job, uniform or not, what sport it is or not, find it in Christ. In fact, let me tell you, sporting chaplains or chaplains that work in the field that I work in, I'm being intentionally vague because I don't want to talk too much about that from the front, but the thing that people need most of all is to hear about Jesus. to find their identity in Jesus, to find their home is in Jesus. That gives people courage, that gives people confidence in a world of destability. It's destabilizing, disorientating to not know who you are and where you belong in the world. But to know your home is in heaven with Christ, that's where you can find joy. Now some of us might have questions about, but I don't long for this. It's a real question. At times, I've been a Christian for a bit over 25 years, and at times I've thought, do I actually long to be with Jesus? Do I long for this? And at times, that's a bit of a self-diagnosing kind of question, isn't it? Do I long for this? For me, and this might be for you too, the reason we often don't groan with longing to be in heaven is we start to believe that this life will make me feel fulfilled and happy. But that is a lie. It's the lie of Satan who is snaking around the tree and he whispers into your ear, if you love the things of this world, you will be happy. That's a lie. It's just not true. Cause if you live long enough in this world, long enough to try and find your identity here, you'll, you'll live long enough to know it's a phantom chase. You just never find it. As soon as you think you've got happiness in this life, what happens? It's like a tent that falls down. You get frustrated. It's taken away from you. It doesn't last. This life is not a life of eternal happiness. You know what it is? It's a life of worry, loss, unknowns, in the dark, without Christ. But for those with faith in Christ, you can live this life with courage, real courage. So what does this mean for life now? Third and last, it means we make it our aim to please the Lord Jesus. See this in verse nine, this is the Christian life in a sentence. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. I talk to a lot of people about Jesus. I talk a lot about Christianity. So we run in our home dinners explaining Christianity. I do this in my chaplaincy work. I do this with my wider family. I talk about Jesus. I've come across a very common misunderstanding about Christianity in our world today. And here it is. People think Christianity is just about doing the right thing. Just keeping the rules. So we think it is. We think that we get into heaven by what we do. And even if we think, I don't really believe that. Our heart starts believing it. We move there by default. But Christianity is about the opposite. We don't get in by what we've done. We get in by what Jesus has done. We get in by His grace. It's a gift. Totally. That's what grace means. Undeserved favor. Totally a gift. All you can do with what Jesus has done for you is open empty hands of faith and say, I'm going to hold on to that. I believe it. That's all I've got. Drowning people who get rescued at sea don't then get dumped on the beach, resuscitated, and say, so glad I learned to resuscitate myself. I'm so glad I learned to avert drowning. No, they were drowning, they were hopeless. And they also, by the way, don't say this. They don't say, I'm so glad that I had the strength in my arm to reach up and grab my rescuer. No, you were probably unconscious. You were dragged from the ocean. Ephesians 2 verse 1, we were dead in our sins. We were dragged from death to life. The only thing you can do, you can't do a thing. It's just with empty hands of faith, hold onto Jesus and say, I believe you did it for me. You can believe that? That means anyone can. Anyone can get in on this. Anyone can say, I've heard this good news, this gospel, I believe it. I want to believe on him, I want to stake my life on Jesus. That's good news indeed. That's called gospel. The word gospel means good news. It's actually literally good news. Because if it's something you've got to do, here's the bad news. You'll always muck it up. The hope of Christianity, the hope for the world, is that guilty people before God... It's not that guilty people can now, if they just keep the rules, get in the door. The hope before God is that Christ came and kept the rules, where we couldn't, and then he got punished for the rule breakers like you and I. The hope of Christianity is not in lifeless rules, but in having new life. The hope of Christianity is that we get, we receive, we are given, we are graced, we've been clothed in Christ's righteousness. The gospel of good news frees us from this impersonal performance indicator kind of thing we do, where we live now, not for the rules and how well am I doing and my performance, but for Jesus and his full performance for us on the cross. And to please Jesus, verse nine, is to love Jesus. Because of the blood-bought, sin-destroying, death-defeating, hope-filling, gracious-giving, saving work of Christ for you. And yes, I could have more adjectives. The all-surpassing power of what Christ has done for you is finished. It is enough. So my question is this. What else would you possibly want to do with your life but please Jesus? What other joy could you possibly have? What else is there now? What else is there but to live for Jesus, who gave his life for you? There's nothing more happy that could make you than that. In fact, what saddens the Christian is when we don't please Jesus. But here's the good news. Even when we don't please him, his grace is sufficient. It's all about Jesus. Verse 10, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of, notice who the judgment seat belongs to in verse 10. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. So that each one may receive what is due for what he's done in the body, whether good or evil. This is a verse that is supposed to wake us up. This is a verse that shows us also the grace of the gospel in Christ. We please Him who... who personally secured our salvation. Now what does it mean to be judged by what is done in the body whether good or evil? Well that's what we read in our other cross-reference reading from Matthew 25. Remember Matthew 25? We read that reading earlier. We see in Matthew 25 Jesus gives us a picture into the throne room that day. gives us a picture of what it looks like in Matthew 25 and in the courtroom of Christ there is the judgment we see Jesus giving judgment based upon what you have done in this life what I have done every single one of us in this room right now here today on the 8th of September 2024 at about 11 25 a.m every single person in this room look around every single one of us will be before the throne of Christ every single one you will face him as judge I will face him. What does that judgment look like? The judgment is this. It's based upon how you've lived your life of either trusting in Christ your Savior or not. Of either living with him as Lord or not. We see how this is fleshed out. I love Matthew 25 because it's got a beautiful kind of twist in there. There's a beautiful twist in Matthew 25. It's not what we expect. In fact, you can look at this later, but in Matthew 25, here's what happens. There is the throne, there is everyone, and first he addresses those who are righteous. He judged them for what they'd done, whether good or evil. But notice, what does he say? You can go with me. Let's do that now. Let's go to Matthew 25. Go back to Matthew 25. This is really important to see in how it connects to 2 Corinthians 5. I've already looked at the last verse in 2 Corinthians 5. Matthew 25, verse 24. Sorry, verse 34. Then the king will say, verse 34, the king will say to those on his right, come you who are blessed, come you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. And he says, here's a bunch of things you did in the body. Verse, the numbers are quite small, I'm still wearing glasses, verse 35. For I was hungry, he gave me food. I was thirsty, he gave me drink. I was a stranger, he welcomed me. I was naked, he clothed me. I was sick, and he visited me. I was prison, and so forth. And notice what the righteous say in verse 37. They say, um, when did we do that? They don't even know when they did it. They weren't thinking, you know, I just got to calculate some good works to do, and then Jesus will be pleased with me. Notice this, they were unaware. because they're trusting in Jesus, their life naturally flowed out of that, their works naturally flowed out of that. You see what happens for the Christian person? A Christian is not someone that just thinks, once I get my life sorted, if I'm doing the right things, and I can prove that to everybody else, I'm doing the right things, I am doing the right things, I'm not doing the wrong things, and then I will show that even compared to others, I'm doing the right things, not the wrong things, and my good works, I'll do that, and that means I'm a Christian. That is not what Matthew 25 is saying. Genesis, pleasing Christ, 2nd Corinthians 5 verse 9, to meet the judgment day, on 2nd Corinthians 5 verse 10, is not about you and I going, here's me focusing on myself and how good I am. No, no, no. It's verse 9, pleasing Christ, and then your life will naturally flow with good works. You'll actually, if you love Jesus, you will love people. If you love Jesus most, you will love people best. You'll actually fulfill the great command. The great commandment, which is a summary of all the commandments, is to love God and love people. You will do that naturally. And in fact, when it gets to the judgment day, you won't need to be going to judgment day thinking, well, there's Jesus on the throne. I need to get my list out. What did I do? I did all those things wrong. I did all those things right. I'm hoping it's going to outweigh it. No, you're in by grace. You don't have a list. You don't even remember. But what you have is Jesus. And there, of course, is the unrighteous in that passage in Matthew 25. And they don't know either. They didn't know what they did wrong particularly, but what matters most is they didn't love Jesus. They didn't live to please Jesus. Question is this, on that judgment day, here's a really important question. When you go into that courtroom and you see Christ on the throne, the question is this, will you face judgment without Jesus as your savior? That can all change for you today. You can actually turn to trust in him with your life and death. And look around, if you haven't done that yet, we're a whole church that have done that. And that is such an encouragement to see people reforming. You do this, you long to be with Jesus. And even when you don't, you ask the question, why? And then you long to be with Jesus again, because life now for us as a church is about pleasing Jesus. Church life has not been shaped by keeping the rules. It's about pleasing Jesus. And when you please Jesus, yes, you will keep God's law. You will love God and will love others, but you'll also fail at it. But the point is not to see how much you can pass the test by keeping the rules. It's to please the one who saved you when you broke the rules. Because here's the wonderful thing that we have as a church. On that last day, when we look around and perhaps there is Bren and there is Mikey that featured three times in this sermon today. But there's you, and there's you, and there's me. When we look around that day, the one who is our judge got judged. The one who is the judge on the throne is the one who got judged on the cross. He's the one who sits on a throne who has marks in his hand and in his side. The one who sits on the throne of the judge has all the marks of the one who has been punished for sin. The one who is our judge is our hope, he's our savior. And that gives us courage, friends. What happens when we die? We all have a deep human longing for a better life. No one wants their life to be worse than it is. Who wants that? No one wants their desires or their hopes for life to be dashed. But the only way you can have courage and confidence that'll never happen for you is to put your trust in Jesus now. For Christ is the one. who doesn't just save us, rescue us, more than that. He gives us a new building from God forever. Let's thank him. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we're all like tents camping together in this temporary world. And while we wait to go home to be with you, we thank you for the message of the gospel. Thank you that you have revealed to us what happens to us when we die. Thank you that we don't need to be afraid, but have courage because of your grace in Christ. We're asking now for those in the room who have not yet put their faith in Christ, who have not yet lived to please Jesus as our Lord. We're asking for them that they would now turn and trust in him. That would give them all the confidence in the universe to face life and death. We pray for us that we would not just have that question of what happens when we die, but our answer would be, who happened for us? Who is for us in life and death? Thank you for his grace to us. for dying for us, Jesus for rising for us. We thank you and pray now that this would reorientate our lives, reform us into your people, that our lives now be lived for pleasing Jesus in every moment. So even this morning, as we finish singing, that we would not think about what I can do for me today, but that we would now think differently, that we would think, how can I please Jesus at morning tea this morning? That we would think differently, that we would think, how can I please Jesus in my conversation with my friend this morning here at church? That we would think, how can I please Jesus by just staying an extra few minutes to minister to someone else in their need? That we would think like Jesus and welcome one another because we are now welcome with Jesus forever. Father, we pray for this, that we would find our identity in Jesus, our hope in Jesus, security and now our service, our works in Jesus. So we pray, no matter what happens when we die or how that tent is destroyed, we pray that Jesus will shape how we live. And we ask this in the power of Jesus' name. Amen.