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Redeemer Bible Church of Fort Bend

What Is Mortal Will Be Swallowed Up By Life (2 Corinthians 5:1-10)

Duration:
53m
Broadcast on:
28 Nov 2024
Audio Format:
other

Benjamin Hatch brings a message from 2 Corinthians 5:1-10 as part of our series "God's Power in Our Weakness," a series in the book of 2 Corinthians.

(soft piano music) - You're listening to a podcast by Redeemer Bible Church. Come visit us Sunday mornings at 10.30 a.m. or visit our website at redeemerfortbend.org for more information. Thanks and enjoy. (soft piano music) Trust me, now the second Corinthians chapter five. If you're using one of the seatback Bibles, you can find today's text on page 908, 908. Second Corinthians chapter five. And this morning I'm gonna read verses one through 10. Here's what scripture says. For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling. If indeed by putting it on, we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan being burdened. Not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed. So that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the lore. For we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage. And we would rather be away from the body and at home with the lore. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Oh God's people said, Amen, let's pray. Father this is a rich passage with much deep theology, in which points us to some important truths about life. Lord help us to be mentally engaged that we might think seriously about eternal matters. Lord we live in an age of great triviality where we don't want to think about the things that pertain to you. We just want some pop psychology and go on our way. Lord help us not to think like that today. Help us to be in awe of your great plan and your great kindness to us, which is evident in the declaration of the resurrection of the dead. Let me pray these things in Jesus name, Amen. Former world champion boxer Mike Tyson was asked about his legacy this week. I will not attempt to Mike Tyson impersonation, but he said, quote, "Legacy doesn't mean nothing. "I'm gonna die and it's gonna be over." Who cares about legacy after that? We're dust, we're absolutely nothing. Our legacy is nothing, end quote. That's pretty bleak stuff, isn't it? And yet that's how many people think today about life and death. You live for a while and then it's lights out and nothingness. Others are more optimistic. Some picture the afterlife as a kind of glorified retirement. Lots of buddy time and fishing or other hobbies. Some speak of it as something out of a cartoon. We're all floating around in little bathrobes on little clouds, plucking little harps with little angel wings and little halos over our head and there goes Elmer Fudd next to us. What's the Bible say? Is there life after death? And if so, what is it like and how should it shape the way that we live? Well, that's what we're gonna see today as we continue our series that we've been in the last few months and the second biblical letter of the Apostle Paul to the ancient church in Corinth. And today we're gonna be again in Second Corinthians chapter five verses one through 10. If you don't have your Bible open there, I'd invite you to turn there with me. And as you're turning there, let me remind you what we talked about in last week's passage. In chapter four, Paul confronted a false idea known as prosperity theology, which says that if God loves you, you'll get loss of health and wealth. And if you're suffering, then God must be mad at you. The ancient Corinthians held this false idea and it made them doubt the legitimacy of Paul's ministry because Paul suffered a lot. But in chapter four, Paul showed that prosperity theology is false because suffering is a normal part of the Christian life. And he explained how we can endure that suffering well. Chapter four verse 17. He says, for this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. Believing friends, we will suffer. And God wants us to endure that suffering by looking with the eyes of faith beyond our painful circumstances to the future, to the certain hope promised in the gospel, to that eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. And that hope relativizes our pain and suffering because no matter how intense or enduring your hardships might be today, friend, God has promised you something far better if you know Christ, something immeasurable in depth and duration. And that's what we've talked about last time. But now Paul's gonna probe this hope more deeply as he's gonna explain what is this eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. And that's what we're gonna see today as we ask two questions. First, what is the wondrous hope that the believer in Jesus is promised? And second, how should that hope change the way that we live? We saw with our first point, what is the wondrous hope promised to the believer? Look at chapter five, verse one. Paul says, for we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. Now at the end of chapter four, Paul made a whole series of contrasts. He contrasted our outer self, which is wasting away with our inner self, which is being renewed day by day. And he contrasted the things which are seeing that are transient with the things that are unseen but eternal. And he contrasted the light momentary affliction with that eternal weight of glory. And in each case, Paul is contrasting our mortal experience, which is marked by frailty and brevity with the hope that awaits believers, which is characterized by glory and eternality. And now chapter five begins with another such contrast, the tent that is our earthly home versus the heavenly building that is from God. And the tent is a metaphor, again, for the weakness of our mortal experience. Because, and remember Paul would know about this, he was a tent maker. Tents are temporary shelters, unstable, easily dismantled. They just don't long endure. And unfortunately, that's like our bodies, isn't it? That's like the metaphor he used in chapter four, where he said, we're just like jars of clay. Paul is showing that in this life, we are fragile and weak and we're all heading for death. But now Paul talks about what happens when the tent of our mortal bodies comes down, when we die. And he says, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Believing friends, understand this. Your hope is the continuation of life beyond death in a new experience. Which is radically different from our present frail mortality. And this one verse, I think has four things I wanna draw your attention to. This is a very important and loaded verse. Number one, Paul describes our hope as a building. Note that Paul's contrast here is not between a tent and a wide open space. The idea is not that we are presently constrained by our bodies and that after death, we're liberated from that constraint to enjoy a superior existence in a disembodied condition. Many ancient Greek people thought like that. Many of the Corinthians would have thought like that. Many people in our world today think like that. Paul did not. We'll see what Paul thought about disembodied existence in a minute. Now our hope is that we go from a tent to a building from an embodied existence that is weak and temporary and short lived to a better and more durable and stable bodily existence. Paul made this point to the Corinthians back in first Corinthians chapter 15 verse 35. Someone will ask, how are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? You foolish person. What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare kernel perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. Paul preached bodily resurrection. And the Corinthians struggled with that. They thought, well, how did dead people come back to life? And Paul's answer is they've got to be changed. The body that goes into the ground does come back out of the ground but not in the same state, it was buried in. Okay, this is not a zombie movie, right? We don't rise in a dead decaying state. No, resurrection is the transformation of the body. Think about Jesus, his body went into the tomb and walked out, it was the same body. That's why the tomb was empty, but it was changed. It was glorified, so it will be with us. And Paul illustrates this and he says, it's like planting a seed. The seed changes in the ground. It sprouts into a plant. It's still the seed, but it's changed its form. Resurrection is the same way. 1 Corinthians 1542, he says, what is sown is perishable. What is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it's raised in glory. It's sown in weakness, it's raised in power. Paul says, think about a dead body, it's lifeless and it's perished and it's decaying, but when it's raised, it's got vitality and glory and it will never die again. Friends in the resurrection, we won't have to worry about illness anymore. Or injury, or death. When we are raised, we will live eternally, Paul says. So the resurrection body is a body, it's a real body, but it's in every way better than what we have right now. That is our home. Number two, Paul says it's a building not built by human hands. That sounds strange, doesn't it? The phrasing has deep theological significance. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the phrase made with human hands appears several times and it always speaks of idol worship. So what's Paul's point here? It's about worship. At first Corinthians 6, 19, Paul says, your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. You know, in the Old Testament, when people wanted to worship God, they had to go somewhere, they had to go to the temple building 'cause that's where God had his presence uniquely on earth. Today God has put his spirit in each of us believing friends. Your body is now God's temple. You don't have to go to a special place to meet with God. He lives in you. And worship's not just about going to the right place at the right time. Romans 12, one says present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. I'm not saying that corporate worship doesn't matter, of course it does, but the worship God most desires from us and is most entitled to is that we should live for him in every way all the time, that we should strive to bring every thought and action in obedience to him, seeking his glory. But how often do we fail at that? How often do we still sin and give our minds and our bodies over to things that God hates? Say, oh, my sin is not that bad, okay. How often do we treat things or people or achievements as being more important to us than God? Friends, when we do that, we are robbing God of the place that he's owed first place. We are diverting his worship. We are committing idolatry. But in the resurrection, that will no longer be the case. Our bodies will be temples built without human hands, free from sin, free from idolatrous desire. We will worship God purely in all that we say and think and do. Everything will glorify him as it ought to. That also is our hope, a body free from sin. Number three, this building is in the heavens. God's plan is not just to make his people new. No, God's plan is to make all creation new. The new creation will be the ultimate setting for our resurrection existence. But to enjoy that glorious inheritance, we first must be made new. Now, verse 17 in this chapter tells us if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. That process has already begun for believers. We've been regenerated. We have a taste of the newness of life. A foretaste of the new creation is within us. But to enter eternal life, we have to be even more thoroughly and utterly transformed. First Corinthians 1550 says flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. We must be changed. And the resurrection body that we will receive is a body fit for the heavens. The very domain of God capable of living forever in his presence face to face. That too is our hope. And number four, all of this comes from God. And how could it be otherwise? God says in Deuteronomy 32, I am he. And there is no God beside me. I kill and I make alive. Friends, God is the giver of life. And God is the giver of resurrection life. The father raised Jesus from the dead and believing friends, he'll raise us too. And give us these immortal, indestructible, glorious bodies free from the power of sin and sickness and injury and death that are perfectly oriented to worship and serve him forever. Is all of that not vastly better than what we have right now? Friends, that is the certain hope that God gives to all who trust Jesus. Death is not the end. Our destiny is resurrection life in the new creation. And as we live now in this dark evil world filled with suffering, we yearn for this hope to soon become our reality, don't we? Look at verse two. He says, "For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent we groan, being burdened, not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up in life. Believers, there's a great hope for the future. But right now we live in this present evil age, which we saw in chapter four is under the dominion of Satan. So no wonder God's people suffer all the time. The Lord Jesus suffered. And chapter one of this book tells us that as Christians we can expect to share abundantly in Christ's sufferings. Life is hard, is it not? And even when we're not aware of any acute pain in our life because of some hardship, we groan just because of the weight of life. Do we not groan as we age, groan as we work? I think Ted said no to groaning as we age, but I'm pretty sure. I know I groan as I age. We groan as we hurt, we grow as we sorrow, and there's something that just feels so innately wrong by that, isn't there? We look at it and we say, "I know it shouldn't be this way." And yet as we look everywhere in our fallen world, we see that it is this way. On some level I think all of us perceives that we were made for something better, because we were. When God made this world, He made it very good. Free from sin, free from the curse. But now because of the sin of Adam and Eve, Paul says in Romans 8, 22, the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly, as we wait eagerly for the adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies. Creation is groaning, yearning for things to be set right, even as it erupts in chaos and natural disaster. The world is going through labor pains, longing for the consummation, the recreation of everything. And as the world groans, we groan too. We long for our decaying bodies to be made new. We long for that better existence that we were made for. So we long for our heavenly dwellings. There's resurrection bodies. But as Paul makes this point, he now changes his metaphor. In verse one, he said, the resurrection body was like a building. Now he says it's like clothing. And he says, resurrection's like changing your clothes. Or more precisely, it's like putting on a coat. Our frail mortality will be covered by something infinitely better. That's what we long for. But even as Paul says that, he also is clear what he is not longing for. He says he does not want to be found naked. He does not want to be unclothed. Now in the world of the clothing metaphor, to be naked is to be without a body. And we said earlier that many ancient Greek people thought that was a good thing, to be disembodied. Because you've probably heard of a guy named Plato. Plato was a philosopher. He said, spirit is good, matter is bad. So disembodied souls are good, souls trapped in bodies are bad. Paul does not share that idea. Why? Because God made people to be a unity of body and soul. Genesis two seven says, the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living creature. God sculpted Adam's body, but that didn't give Adam life. It wasn't until God gave him a soul that Adam lived. So from the beginning, human existence has always been a soul body unity. That is God's good design. And therefore, the separation of the body from the soul is not good. In fact, that's the definition of physical death. Is it not? And that is part of the judgment that sits over our fallen race as a result of sin. That unless Christ returns first, each of us will go through physical death someday. We will have our bodies separate from our souls and enter a disembodied state. Now to be clear, believers in Christ who die and go into this disembodied state, enjoy a conscious participation in blessedness. Over the years, there have been people that have tried to deny that. They teach what's called soul sleep. They say, well, when you die here, it's lights out until the resurrection. Friends, that is unbiblical. And if you have questions about that, read Revelation 6, verse 10. Where the disembodied souls of the martyrs are explicitly said to be in heaven, calling out to God before the resurrection. So the disembodied state is a conscious, blessed existence in heaven for believers. As Paul will say later in this chapter, being away from the body means that we are at home with the Lord. And so at death while our lifeless bodies remain here believing friends, our souls go to dwell in God's presence. And that's a great thing. It's why in Philippians 1, Paul says, deporting and being with Christ is preferable to life in this world. And yet while all of that is true, and while that should be an encouragement to us as we think of those believers who have gone on before us to glory, at the same time we see here in verses three and four that Paul recognizes this spiritual nakedness, this disembodiment is not best. Because God's design for life is an embodied existence. And because the separation of our soul from our body is fundamentally a judgment upon sin. And so what Paul longs for here, what he says we long for is not the intermediate state of being a disembodied soul in heaven. We long for bodily resurrection and friends that will surely take place at the end of history. Now while believers today sometimes disagree about the exact sequence of future events, what's clear is this. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4, since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. At some point in the future, Jesus will return accompanied by the souls of those who have died in faith. The 1 Thessalonians 4 says the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive, who are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. In one single moment, the soul body unity of dead believers will be restored. They will rise in resurrection bodies and all believers who live to see it will be simultaneously changed into resurrection bodies. And we will have blessed union with all believers and Christ. Friends, that is what we long for. That as Paul says, we would be further clothed so that what is mortal may be swallowed up in life. There earlier Daniel read from Isaiah 25. God says he's gonna swallow up death forever. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 54, death is swallowed up in victory. Friends, that is what we long for. That is the victory we have in Jesus, resurrection, that these weak bodies will be overtaken by unending life and vitality and power and glory. And we can take that promise to the bank. We can have great confidence in it because God has given us confirmation of that promise even now, look at chapter five, verse five. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God who has given us the spirit as a guarantee. God has put a guarantee on this promise by giving us His Holy Spirit. Now that word guarantee there can also mean a down payment or a first installment. And think about that, what that is telling us then is that the first foretaste of eternal life and the new creation that will one day be ours, we already have, and it's that God the spirit dwells in us. Now how's that work? What is the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the resurrection body? I'm glad you asked. Back at first Corinthians 1544, Paul calls the future resurrection body a spiritual body. Now please understand, he's not saying, "Oh, we're mortal now and we'll be spirits later." That's not the idea. The resurrection body is a physical material reality. But the Greek word translated spiritual is used throughout first Corinthians to speak of that which is related to the Holy Spirit. That which the spirit distributes and directs. Same word is used throughout first Corinthians 12 through 14 to talk about our spiritual gifts. So think of your resurrection body as the ultimate spiritual gift that God's gonna give you. It is a body given to us by the spirit made for the heavenly realms by the spirit in an existence empowered by the spirit. That's why Paul says in Romans 823, we have the first fruits of the spirit as we wait eagerly for the redemption of our bodies. That word first fruits is again, theologically significant. It speaks of the first small part of something really big that's coming later. Friends, if we have the Holy Spirit now, that's the first taste of what is to come later. The redemption of our bodies, Paul says, that we will live forever in God's presence in a new transformed body that comes from and is empowered by the Holy Spirit. And in that existence, Christ will pour upon us all of his kindness and grace and good gifts throughout all the ages to come. That is the hope that God has promised to us believing friends. But that brings us now to our second point, which is what should we do with this? How should this hope change the way that we live? Paul now tells us, look at verse six. So we're always of good courage. We know that while we're at home in the body, we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. These verses point to two practical applications that come from the glorious truth of resurrection. Number one, the resurrection should shape our outlook. We've said life is hard. Man, it's easy to get discouraged, isn't it? It's easy to despair. Even as believers, I think, sometimes it's hard not to feel overwhelmed by hard things that we experience. And that's because as believers, we must constantly guard our faith from being overwhelmed by our experience. Because as embodied people, what we see and experience with our senses can seem more real to us than what we perceive with the eyes of faith. You know, it's all well and good for us to be here on a Sunday morning and sing songs and hear the scripture read. And under these conditions, it's probably pretty easy for us to think about resurrection life and get pretty excited. It's a lot harder when we're out there, isn't it? And when we're mired down by interpersonal drama or sickness or unemployment or because we've just buried a loved one or we see evil triumphing all around us, those things can make us doubt. And the doubt sounds like this. You know, are the Bible's promises true? If God was really on his throne, shouldn't things look a lot different than this? And that doubt can lock us into a vicious circle in which our growing pain causes growing doubt, which causes growing unbelief, which causes us to look away from the things of God and focus more on our pain, which points us back to doubt and so on and so on. If we let our senses dictate our notion of reality, if we let our eyes fix only on our circumstances, it will corrode our confidence in God and his promises. That's why it's so vital, especially in the hardest times, to consciously resist allowing what is visible to take primacy in our minds and hearts and said, we've got to do what Jesus did. When Jesus faced the horrors of the cross, Hebrews 12 tells us for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and I seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Jesus did not fixate on the visible and tangible experience of the cross, the shame and the pain. Yes, he endured them fully, but he looked beyond it with the eyes of faith to that which nobody could see at Calvary. That there was joy set before him, his glorification in heaven, his bringing many sons and daughters to glory. That's what he fixed his mind on as he suffered and died. He considered the promises of God and he endured to the end. That's what all the believers in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11 did. Hebrews 11, 13 says, these all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. Believers in every age have to come to the realization that this world is not our home, that the wealth and power and trinkets here really aren't all that. We must look beyond them, just as we must look beyond the sufferings that we experience, recognizing that what really matters and what really will last forever are the promises of God. Believing friends, we must hold firmly to that assurance of things hoped for, that conviction of things not seen, knowing that without faith it is impossible to please God. Friends, God has given us the examples of believers from the past so that we can learn the lessons they learned and imitate them, not fixing our eyes on our circumstances and allowing them to overcome us, but that we too might not look to the things that are seen, which are transient, but instead to the things that are unseen, which are eternal. Friends, that also is why God tells us about the hope of resurrection life that is before us, so that we might not cling to the things of this world which won't endure, so that we won't love this world and mistake it for our true home, but that we can maintain the right perspective and long for that which is truly life. And when we maintain that perspective, then we will see our afflictions as they really are. Oh, they may be terrible and long-lasting from an earthly perspective, but in the light of eternity, they are light and momentary, in light of what awaits. So the truth of the resurrection gives us the perspective we need to live in this world. And the challenges we must resist the temptations that come from living in this age, both the temptations that come from abundance and from suffering, which make us want to forget God's promises and think that this world is ultimate, which want to distract us from God's word and the resurrection and the perspective that it gives us. So friends, we must work at intentionally keeping the promise of the resurrection front and center in our minds by spending more time in prayer, telling God how we long to be at home with Him, by spending more time in the scriptures, immersing our minds in His promises. I think that a spiritual discipline is just contemplating our future hope more so that even if the worst circumstances in this life should befall us, we will be encouraged because we'll be able to say with Paul, living is Christ and dying is gain because God will raise us from the dead and give us new bodies to live forever with Him. Friends, we must remember that these things are real and true. And one way to remember that, I think, is to try to be a little bit more conscious about the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. As He helps us better understand the scripture, the insight He gives us proves that He's there. As He convicts us of sin, that pang reminds us that He's there. As we look back at the course of our lives and see that we aren't who we used to be, it proves that He's there. And friends, if He's there, then this text tells us He's guaranteeing our salvation and He's getting us ready for eternal life. So don't be discouraged. Don't let this world make you think this is all there is. Don't let its hardships make you despair. Don't let its vanities preoccupy your hopes. Live by faith. Remind yourselves of these truths every day. This world is not your home, the new creation is. And remember that death, whenever it should come, is gained for us believing friends. Now I'm not saying we should become a death cult and hope for death, no. In a minute, we're gonna see we should live to please God. And that means we should endure to the end, not take the easy way out when we suffer. But when death comes, it's gained for us. And it's gained for our believing loved ones because it immediately brings us into the blessed presence of God and it will result in our inevitable resurrection life. Application number two, we need to let our knowledge about the future shape or choices. Many Christians today get very excited thinking about the future. But unfortunately, that interest often does not align with Paul's interest in this passage. Many Christians today seem very preoccupied with building or defending systems that claim to have figured all the biblical prophecies out. Others get really excited pouring over the headlines, trying to connect current events to biblical prophecy. I've gotta tell you, I'm concerned by both of these approaches. Isaac Newton, the famed mathematician and Bible scholar said this. The folly of interpreters has been to foretell times and things by prophecy, as if God designed to make them prophets. By this rashness, they have not only exposed themselves, but brought prophecy also into contempt. The design of God was much otherwise. He gave prophecies not to gratify men's curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled, they might be interpreted by the event and God's own providence, not the interpreters, be manifested to the world. So what's that mean? You guys remember a few years ago when Harold Camping said the rapture is gonna happen on this date? I'm a prophet, I've got it all figured out. How did that work out? A lot of people laughed at the faith about that, right? Friends, that's not how we should handle the scriptures. That's not what God's talking about the future is, is therefore there to accomplish. Friends, speculative efforts tend to fail catastrophically and harm the faith. So why then has God revealed anything about the future to us? To glorify himself, to help the people that live to see the fulfillment of prophecy, understand God said this was gonna happen, he's real. And it's also to encourage us in this dark world. But more than that, what Paul points out next is that our future hope should motivate us towards Godly living. That's what the Apostle John said when he talked about the Second Coming of Christ in 1 John chapter three. Beloved, we are God's children now and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. A real contemplation of our future hope should produce personal purity, a growth in godliness. Peter says the same thing, Second Peter 3.14. Beloved, since you are waiting for these things, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish. The truth of the resurrection should motivate us to personal holiness and to war against sin. That's Paul's point here in verse nine. The truth of the resurrection should drive us to make it our aim to please him. It should compel us towards more and more obedience. And friends, I wanna challenge you here. If you're somebody that loves end-time speculations, examine yourself by this test. What is that mental exercise producing in you? A growing desire for holiness and obedience? Or growing revelry in intellectual pride about doctrinal minutiae? The apostles tell us if we really love the appearing of Christ, it's gonna grow us in godliness. But why is that the case? Because to think about the future is not just to think about the resurrection, it's also to think about related truths. Like the final judgment. And that's what the last verse in our passage talks about. Look at chapter five, verse 10. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Here's another critical truth about the future. Friends, we're all gonna stand before Jesus for judgment. Hebrews 927 says it is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment. And John 522 says the father judges know one, but has given all judgment to the son. So we each must appear before Jesus who sits on the judgment seat. Now what is this judgment seat? The Greek word here is Bema. And the Bema was a common feature in the public square in many ancient Greco-Roman cities. It was a big stage. And it was often used for judicial proceedings. They'd put a chair on the platform, the judge would sit on the chair, he would hear the evidence and render his verdict. Now I bring this up because over the last 200 years, there's been a theory which is often repeated in some Christian circles that the Bema was only used to honor triumphant athletes or distribute rewards. Anybody in here ever heard this theory? Friends, I have to tell you, that is not true. And you can figure this out yourself with a concordance. Of the 12 times the word Bema appears in the New Testament, eight of the times it's used to describe the seat of judgment in a criminal trial. Most importantly, we find this same word several times in Acts chapter 18, which speaks of Paul's own personal experience in Corinth, in which he was dragged before the Bema there and put on trial for criminality. So the Bema was not just a seat of reward, it was also a place where criminal verdicts were rendered. And Paul tells us ultimately, each of us must appear before such a judgment throne, where we will encounter Jesus as a judge. Now what is this judgment? Over the centuries, Christians have taken this verse in two ways. Many Christians have understood it to refer to the final judgment of all humanity. Other Christians have understood it to an event specific only to believers in which Jesus hands out rewards for Godly living. Both are true, both are taught in the scriptures. Right here, I think the first view is more likely that this is a reference to the final judgment of all people. I say that because it's more consistent with the way the word Bema is used in the New Testament. And second, because the way Paul describes this judgment sounds a lot like the way the final judgment is described elsewhere in the New Testament. Now, if you're not familiar with a lot of these arguments about Bema, you're probably lost by the last few minutes. I'm sorry about that. The big point I want you to take away is this. Judgment is coming, judgment is coming. Jesus says in Matthew 25, "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne, and before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people from one from another." Revelation 20 says, "I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it from his presence, earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great, and small standing before the throne, and books were opened." Friends, Jesus is gonna judge every person that's ever lived. Nobody can escape. You can't pay for a good enough lawyer to get you out of this one. No one has enough standing or power to subvert justice at this judgment. No friends, it will be perfectly fair. And everyone will be sorted into one of just two groups. A group that will inherit life, and a group that will receive condemnation. Now Paul says in verse 10, "That the standard for the judgment is this. Each one will receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil." Now this verse says that we're gonna be judged by our works. That might really confuse us. Because of course, the Bible's crystal clear that salvation is never something earned or merited on the basis of works. Amen? Ephesians 2, 8 says, "By grace you've been saved through faith. This is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works." Titus 3, 5 says, "He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. And we pour out richly on us through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." Which is to say the Bible's really clear. Salvation's always on the basis of God's grace. It's unmerited favor. It's always received by faith. It's never on the basis of works. But while that's all crystal clear, the Bible also quite often says that God ultimately judges people on the basis of their works. So we've got a bunch of verses here. Just listen to these if you have questions. Psalm 62, 12, "You will render to a man according to his work." Jeremiah 17, 10, "I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds." Jesus says in Matthew 16, 27, "The son of man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done." Romans 2, 6, "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." And even one of the last verses in the Bible, Jesus says in Revelation 22, 12, "Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me to repay each one for what he has done." It's a lot of verses. They all tell the same story. God judges our works. It's why in Revelation 20, books are opened. Those books record our deeds. And if you're here today and you have never trusted Jesus for salvation, you need to know this is some really bad news 'cause you're a sinner. And Romans 3, 23 says, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." And Romans 6, 23 says, "The wages of sin is death." And that doesn't just mean physical death. It means spiritual alienation from God. And it means eternal death, the eternal experience of the wrath of God who is justly furious about our sinful rebellion against him. And friends, that is a terrifying truth. Yeah, this morning we've talked a lot about hope, right? And resurrection life in the new creation. If you don't know Christ, none of that applies to you. If you're an unbeliever, here's the experience that you await. Daniel 12 verse three says, "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame, and everlasting contempt." If you're not a believer, that is what you want a collision course with. God's wrath, shame, and everlasting contempt in hell. 'Cause you cannot satisfy a holy God on the basis of your worst, your guilty of sin. Doesn't matter how much good stuff you do, you're still guilty. Isaiah 64, 6, speaking about unbelievers says, "All our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment." There's no hope to be found there. If you want to be saved, listen to Jesus in Mark 115, repent and believe the gospel, that in fact your life has just been a continuous succession of selfish, idolatrous, rebellious acts that merit God's fury. Turn aside from your old life of sin, turn in faith to Jesus who is God and man, who died on the cross for your sins, and who is risen from the dead bodily. Cast yourself on his mercy. That is the only way, friend, that you can be made right with the Father. That's the only path of salvation. And yet hearing that, you might say, "Well, okay, but then why are we being judged by works if all of this is about faith?" Because real faith produces works in our lives. Works that evidence the reality of our faith. That's why James 2 says, "I will show you my faith, by my works, faith, by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." So as one commentator has said, "Works are not the root of our salvation, but they are the fruit of our salvation." And the reality of our faith can be seen and will be judged based on whether it was born out in our lives and how we used our bodies. So now we can grasp Paul's point in verses nine and 10. A right understanding of the future compels us to consider the final judgment. So we must look at our lives and realize that how we live today really matters 'cause it shows whether we really believe or we don't. And on the last day, Jesus will look at the evidence of our lives as he renders his verdict upon us. And that realization should compel us to examine ourselves. That's what Paul says at the end of this book in Second Corinthians 13. Examine yourselves to see if you're in the faith. Friends, we should do that. What does your life say about your claim to faith? Does the old preacher used to say? If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? Does your life show that your faith is real? And if you look at your life honestly, and you say, you know, I really don't see any evidence that I follow Jesus in any meaningful way in my life. Please understand the right answer is not that you should go do a bunch of good works and try to appease God. That won't work, you can't earn your salvation. So if you look at your life and you see, I don't have any works of evidence that I really do know Jesus, what you need is to get saved. You need to run to the cross and cast yourself on the mercy of Jesus and beg for his forgiveness. Because friends, if we're really saved, our life will show it in some measure. Not perfectly, right? That's why we think God's grace, but there should be some attesting evidence. And friends, what this tells us then is if we do know Christ, we need to get more serious about how we live. Paul says here, a right understanding of the resurrection should drive us to make it our aim to please God. So the truth about final judgment and resurrection tells us faith is not just something internal, personal, and private. Faith shapes how we live outwardly. And real faith should compel us to live more and more for Christ. So think about your life right now. Where should you be doing that more today? Are there sins that you have allowed to linger in your life and you lied to yourself and said, "Oh, they're safe and God's okay with this." And final judgment is coming. Hebrews 12, 14 says, "Strive for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Kill your sin, fight your sin, get it out of your life by the power of the Spirit. Strive for holiness." Or are there things that you know God wants you to do that you've been putting off? What have you been excusing? I know I should give more to missionaries, but I really don't want to right now. I know I should evangelize my lost friends and family members, but I don't really want to right now. I know I should be more involved in a church. I know I should be helping my brothers and sisters hear more, but I really like being home watching TV. Friend, what are you waiting for? If you know that God wants you to change how you're living and do something different with your time or your money or your energy, do it. 'Cause otherwise I think we're living like this text isn't here and we're living like the final judgment isn't real. And friend, if you think like that you need a reality check, you need some fear of the Lord, we all do. 'Cause Jesus is coming soon and He's bringing His recompense with Him. Maybe today you know that you need to make some things right with someone that you've wronged or you know that you need to forgive someone that you've chosen to withhold forgiveness from. I don't know what it might be, but wherever it is, I want you to ask yourself, where have I been choosing to please myself instead of my God? And wherever that is friend, let the truth of final judgment get us off the couch and living more seriously for Christ. Let the glory of the promise of the resurrection give us some seriousness and some endurance to repent again and again and turn back to Jesus again and again. Let these truths about the future accomplish their true purpose for us. Not that we would get speculating about the future or curious about the future, but that we would get serious about the things of Christ and busy about them even right now. So to conclude, we've looked at some really heavy doctrines today about resurrection, which is glorious and about final judgment, which is serious. And I hope we see these doctrines are not just intellectual things, trivialities. You know, these are truths that compel us to live in a God-warming way. We must not allow the hardships of life to discourage us believing friends, because we must live by faith and not by sight. And we must aim to please God, because how we live really matters and it testifies about the reality of our relationship with Him. So let these truths prompt us to turn away from sin and strive for obedience and repent where we need to and be encouraged by God's good and bounteous grace. And let us examine ourselves even still further like this. Truly, what do you believe about the future? Like Mike Tyson, do you really, in some corner of your heart, just really believe this world is all there is? Or do you believe what God says? Where is your hope today? Is it in your bank account or your stock portfolio? Or is it in a new creation? What motivates you today? Pleaseing others, pleaseing yourself, or pleaseing Christ. Friends, let us have some urgency as we realize life is short, but eternity is long. And let us do what really matters. Let us dedicate ourselves to the Lord's work because a glorious home and a glorious destiny await. And so as Paul says later in this book in chapter seven verse one, since we have these promises beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of the body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.