In Ethan Wollbrink's sermon titled 'Christian Life, Absent from the Lord - Part 2,' the preacher explores the themes of motivation, judgment, and the Christian life. He emphasizes the importance of having pure motivations for doing good, not driven by a desire for others to receive their due but rather out of a genuine aim to please God. The sermon references biblical passages, particularly from 1 Peter, 2 Corinthians, and the Gospels, to highlight the inevitability and nature of the judgment that all believers and non-believers will face before Christ. Wollbrink explains that this judgment isn't for God to discover unknown deeds but to reveal to individuals the true nature of their hearts and actions. He also discusses the varying degrees of reward and punishment that will be meted out, emphasizing that God's judgments are fair and just. The sermon further explores the role of remembering one's sins as a means to appreciate the grace and redemption offered through Christ, stressing that believers will be judged in a way that vindicates rather than humiliates them. Ultimately, Wollbrink encourages believers to live with the ambition of pleasing Christ, understanding that their eternal rewards will reflect their faithfulness and motivations on earth.

I'm going to read from just real quick as we dive in here. I had to take a picture because I didn't have any. While we were in Sunday school, we were reading 1 Peter 3. In 1 Peter 3, verse 16, it says, I'm going to start back at 15. But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to any person who is In a way that people would come to you and say, what is this hope that's different than you, that's not everywhere else I look?

And when they do, you should be prepared to make a defense for this faith. And don't we know that that's necessary? That in this world that we must make a defense if they don't like a defense that we're, that oh well, hasn't science disproved and yadadadada. And so we must prepare for that, right? To anyone who asks us for a reason and the hope that's in us.

Yet do it with gentleness and respect. Now here's the focus here. Having a good conscience, knowing that their offense wasn't about you. So that when you're slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame." Now let me put that in today's binocular. If you do the right thing, then those who are reviling you for doing the right thing may be put to shame.

They will get their justice. Right? When? Here? Maybe?

Next week? Is... Let me ask you this and you can just shake the heads, yes or no. If my motivation for doing the right thing was so that those that slandered me would get theirs? Is that pure or unpure?

Or I should say is it pure? Yes or no? No, no. So that's not the right motivation. So when we read there from 1 Peter, Peter's not saying, you stick in there and you'll get them, right?

They'll get what's coming. That's not. Have you ever sensed that in yourself? As being a motivation, maybe to stick to it? Okay, now hold that thought.

If you've had that sensation, if you've had that motivation, creep up in within you when you have the choice of doing right or wrong. If you do what's right, maybe you do it just in front of somebody. And then those that said you were doing wrong, boy, they got what was coming. If that was your motivation, It would be impure. Who would know that motivation other than yourself?

No one. But God. Right? The one who searches the hearts of men. So the when, when this will certainly happen, it may, some injustice can happen here.

But when this will happen is specifically the time that we're talking about here in this text. When the secrets of men's hearts. If I did something with that impure motive, you could look and go, he is doing well. He's done right. He's a good man, he's a good, she's a good woman.

But you don't know my heart. And I don't know your heart. And there's a way to abuse that. Right? But let's just consider that scenario and that there's truths residing where we can't see, that can determine...

There's truths that cloak The real motives. There's many things that cloak that. So let's read this over again and let's get after it. So verse 10, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Now when he says for, that means we refer back.

So we remember in verse nine last week, we were in 2 Corinthians 5, and Paul says, because we could go in verse one, he says, because this tent That is our dwelling place, that's our body, that's temporal, this is the place that we reside because it will be folding up because we're perishing. We know we're perishing, we know that death's inevitable. Paul says that's okay because we have a building from God that is not made with hands and it's eternal. And so we want to be either in this one or in that one because we don't want to be unclothed, right? Rather clothed.

And we don't want to be clothed with mortality, but we want to be swallowed up by life. And that's what Paul was saying to the Corinthians. He was saying, I've endured all these hardships and I've come face to face with death and with trial and with disease and I've done all these things and I still persevere and let me tell you my motivation. And he says in verse 9, therefore, in light of those things, that God is the one that's prepared us to be swallowed up in life, and that our mortal would be cast off. And it's God that's prepared us for that.

He says that's what motivates me, and that is why we make it our aim, verse 9, that we want to be pleasing to Him. We make it our ambition that we want to be pleasing to Him. Verse 10, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. So he says, my motivation is the confidence that God is going to swallow up my mortality with life and chiefly. My motivation, my pure motivation.

He says he has a pure motivation, a pure ambition. It is because there will be a judgment. It's because Christ will ascend His throne and He will see to the innermost being of Paul and of me and of you, and He will know the motives for which Paul acted. And he will deliver out, as our text says here, we've got to appear there, that everyone may receive compensation for his deeds, wages for his deeds done through the body in accordance with what He has done, whether good or bad. All right, so let's try to be a little punctual here.

Our first thought is the existence, its existence of this judgment, that it's real. Our second thought is its inevitability. We must all appear. Our third thought is its judge. Who is the judge that will be at this judgment?

And we're told here in the text that it's the judgment seat of Christ. And fourth, it's persuasion. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. Our text could hardly be more clear. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.

In the Greek, the word judgment seat is the same word used to describe the Roman Tribunal. The Roman Governor would sit on a throne to hear accusations and the defense of the accused standing before Him. And what Paul says is this, Jesus Christ will have His tribunal. He'll have His court day. And He'll ascend to His throne, and we must all stand before Him.

And what's interesting is Jesus opens this up very early in the beginning of His ministry. We know that one of the first things Jesus did was give the Sermon on the Mount. And during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says in Matthew 7, 21-23, and I'll just read it to you, unless you want to turn. He says, Not every one that saith to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?

And in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name have done many wonderful works. Then I will profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity." So right at the beginning of the New Testament, right at the beginning of his ministry, we're confronted with Jesus' description of this very thing. All mankind, He says, at the beginning of His ministry, are going to appear before Me. And I will determine their eternal destiny, says Christ. Three years later, at the end of His earthly ministry, Jesus becomes more descriptive, doesn't He?

Matthew 25, verse 31. The Son of Man shall come in His glory and all of the holy angels with Him. Then He shall sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall he gather all nations, and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left. We know that there are certain times of the year that shepherds need to divide the goats and the sheep.

And they need to run them through different gates and into different fields, and keep them completely isolated. You must keep them apart. And so Jesus says the great judge, he knows perfectly who are his own sheep, who are the goats. And on that great day, he will separate all mankind into these huge groups. They'll be massive groups.

On the right, one, and on the left, the other. But not just Jesus teaching the whole of the, but not just Jesus teaching that The whole of the New Testament speaks of this judgment and eternity. Let me just read for you Revelation 20, 11 through 15. John says, And I saw a great white throne, and Him, Jesus Christ, who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away, and there was found no more place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which was the book of life.

And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and the death and hell gave up the dead, which were in them. And they were judged, every man, according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Now this is the witness of the entire Bible, is it not? That our God is a God of judgment? That He is a God of justice, of right, and of fair, and straight judgment? Didn't God judge our first parents when they defied Him?

Didn't He judge the world at the time of Noah? But at the time of Noah, didn't he disperse the people of the Tower of Babel? You remember what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah? Didn't he let the people of Israel's bones bleach in the wilderness when they defied him? And didn't the people of Israel die just short of the land of promise when they refused to walk by faith?

What about all the judgment on Egypt and Assyria and Babylon? God is a God of judgment. He will judge the entire world, including you and me. And so the popular thing today is to take hell right out of the church. And it's a horrible thing.

Because we sing about the blood of Christ and we sing about the cross of Christ. And without the justice and the hell, what's the cross? Without the justice, Why is blood? So we can't. We have to preach both.

We have to consider both. We have to hold both these truths that were there at very present. Not only the Bible speaks of this justice, but our own conscience knows that we'll be accountable for our deeds. Our own consciences long for justice in our own lives. Right?

When we are wrong, when we see someone else wrong, when there's injustice in politics. Have you ever had feelings about that? When there's injustice with children, or with women, or disabled, or whatever it is that's provoked a response in you, that was something that your conscience has that God's written on it. Because He's just and we're made in His image, we seek there to be justice. Fair?

This is something God's written on us. And we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Key word. And it's our second thought. This means that it's inevitable.

This means that it is rooted... I'm sorry, not what it means. It is inevitable. Must means that this is going to happen. This must take place.

We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. And one of the reasons for this must, I would submit to you, is rooted in His glory. Some may think that this judgment might be God finding out what you've been up to. This is when He hasn't been seeing these books, and these books are being opened, and then God's going to look in there and go, Oh, David, looking in your file here. What do you have to say for yourself?

No, God doesn't have to find out about these things. He knows them now. So this coming, what I really want to focus on here is I want to think about precisely what's happening and the reasons why when we appear before this judgment seat, and I think this must, we must go there is so rooted in his glory because this isn't about him finding out what you've been up to. This isn't about the angels finding out what you've been up to. This isn't about other people who are in the same courtroom finding out what you've been up to.

I think it's keenly about you finding out the real basis in your heart. The heart is deceitfully wicked and who can know it? Not even you. But God will make that clear here. God doesn't have to find things out the way a human judge would during court.

We know that that's not so because he knows everything fully now. He knows what your mind and my mind is thinking about right now. He knows the inner parts of our hearts. David says, Thou knowest me altogether. God isn't like Solomon sitting on a throne, hearing a claim and a counterclaim, and then making up his mind about the judgment.

But the judgment seat of Christ is where King Solomon himself has to appear. And it's where every member of our Supreme Court has to appear before this omniscient God who knows the end from the beginning and knows our every thought from afar off. But the judgment seat of God is to vindicate the triune God of all His character. It will reveal the justice of God and the fair and equitable way that He does justice with all His creation. There'll be no one on that day that can claim it wasn't fair, or that the results were too severe.

That day will reveal the truth that God is light, and that in Him there is no darkness at all. God's universe is a fair universe. God's judgments are fair judgments. He will make no mistake. Hell is no mistake.

Hell is the right wages that have been earned for those who earn them. Colossians 3.25 says that those who do wrong will be paid back for the wrong that they have done without partiality. You see in all of heaven and all of earth on this day, God's righteous integrity will be made whole before everyone and before everything. We've heard people ascend themselves up to the seat of judgment and begin to pass judgment on the things that God has done. Or not done.

Where is He? He's Terry. How could God be loving if there's so much suffering? And so much pain? Here.

You've heard those things, right? And people question and they challenge. They challenge His ability to righteously be handling and this is when it will be made completely clear and completely apparent before us, all of creation, all the angels. And his integrity will be intact before. It's not broken now, but it will be intact in the minds and hearts and it will be agreement.

Secondly, this must, I kind of touched on it already, is rooted in the inequalities of this earth. Sometimes innocent people are sent to prison. Bad guys with too much money pay lawyers for not guilty verdicts. God's people have been persecuted, they've suffered righteously, they've been burned at the stake, They've been hung and boiled and cut up in pieces while crowds watched and cheered. And Christ has called them blessed.

He said, you're blessed now, but you're also blessed hereafter, because one day my blessing will be seen to be yours. And this is that day. This is the day that we are considering. This is this judgment seat. This day that's coming.

This day that's inevitable. At the judgment seat of Christ, all inequalities will be straightened out, all injustice will be made right, and He will not allow any of that to slip through the cracks. Does that not speak of His glory? Does that not speak of His thorough judgment, His thorough righteousness that He wouldn't let... We use this kind of in street ministry a bit, and when people say, I don't know if that makes God a good guy or not, and you go, would He be a good judge?

Would you consider a good judge when your mother had been beaten and robbed, and you're standing in court, and the person you saw do it that was caught with the evidence and the judge said, yeah, but I like that guy. We play chess. I'm going to let him go. Would he be a good judge? No.

No. And you'd be infuriated because you have enough. You temporal, sin-tainted, and I'm not calling you names, but you're so imperfect, and I'm so imperfect. And even the justice in us would cry out and say do something right if it was your family it was something that was near to your heart and our desires are are impure are impure. All the things that have been thought to be gotten away with will become plain and clear, and there will be a righteous distribution of punishments and rewards.

All of history longs for this. All the martyrs cry out for this. The whole creation groans for it. And true believers pray for Christ to come back. And Christ says Himself, I am coming and my reward is with me.

I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am coming to repay every man's work. And so our text says, this judgment seat is necessary to deal out proper degrees of judgment and proper degrees of reward. And we usually don't think about different degrees of judgment. And we don't think about different degrees of reward.

Because hell is hell and heaven is heaven, right? The sorrow in hell is full. Just like the joy in heaven is full. But both hell and heaven have their degrees, and one star outshines another in glory. The martyrs will have a larger capacity to receive the glory in Christ than will the non-martyrs, as a general rule.

That's what Paul says. It doesn't mean that one cup is less full than the other, but this was helpful to me. It means that one cup may be larger than the other. They're both still full. But one has a greater capacity to receive the glory and then point it back towards Christ.

In verse 9, let me see if I can pull this together quick. In verse 9 of 2 Corinthians 5, He says that we make it our ambition to be pleasing to Him, whether here or absent. And we know from his former conversation that that means here with the Lord or absent from the Lord. So let's make it really super simple. He says that if he's with the Lord, his ambition is to be pleasing with him.

Did you know you'll have ambition in heaven, believer? We're not going to be just consumed into this oneness and then have no drive or passion. Paul's saying, we'll have passion and we'll have motivation and if you have any passion in you for God now, it will explode there. It'll explode and it will be full. And how fulfilling your passions today is fulfilling to you, it will be that times a thousand.

But that you'll be passionate about that. And so we might think, well, I don't really care about how I get there. You know, if I just kind of get through the gate and my coat tail's on fire, just, whew, okay, I'm here. That's fine. That guy gets a bigger house, I'll take a pub-tet in the corner that's not how it works and that's not how you'll feel about it because if your passions are unleashed to be pleasing to him and you get a smaller cup that's a lesser reward don't get me wrong that doesn't that doesn't make heaven any less full.

Right? It's still full. But hey, those martyrs, Paul says, will have a greater capacity. Paul says, my motivation to continue to do what's pleasing to him, no matter what happens to me or no matter what happens to my body, my goal is that reward. It's that reward to be pleasing to him.

He wasn't even just being possessive about this thing, this reward. That wasn't even a selfish, impure motivation. You see how that can happen to you? Our flesh has got us on every corner. Let me get back to the point here.

No one in hell will ever have a moment of happiness. But there will be different capacities in hell. You think of someone 500 years ago who eeked out their life in poverty and never heard of the Messiah. You Compare that with a doctor, abortionist, who's killed thousands of babies in his lifetime and scorned the gospel when it was shared with him. We were in California, Kenny, and I Just think about that sweet man that was out witnessing.

And he would go to an abortion clinic and he would stand every day because he knew what time that doctor would get to his parking garage. And he would stand in that parking garage and he would say, Tom, don't do it! And he would read Scripture to him. He would say, flee from the wrath, Tom! That guy either loved that doctor, I'll tell you one thing, he loved his Christ, loved his master.

Master. If he continues and doesn't repent, there has to be a differing degree of help for different severity of rebellion. It says in our text, according to the deeds that they've done, whether good or bad, it will be in accordance with their Compensation. If you work harder, you should get paid more. That's right, regardless of your politics.

That's God's economy. Your compensation will be for your good works, and it will be for your bad works, and there will be varying degrees. Surely there will be an inequality of suffering in hell. And that agonizing worm of memory that does not die will focus on all the murdering and rejecting the gospel he's ever done. And so our text says it plainly, everyone may receive compensation for his deeds done through the body in accordance with what He's done, whether good or bad.

So God doesn't just have the judgment seat for His glory, but He also has the judgment seat so He can measure out for every individual the extent of either their future sorrow in hell, or their future joy in heaven. It's what I read to you from Revelation 20. It said twice in that passage that every man will be judged according to his works. And maybe you thought we'd be judged according to grace. We will be judged according to works.

And every true believer, Before you get your hackles up, we're going to get there and tease this out. We will be judged according to works. So our text says, so all the text we've read says, and every true believer will produce good works. And those bad works of the true believer, it will be covered by the blood of Christ. Sin was dealt with where?

And we don't deny, we hold these truths in balance. We don't deny that our sins of the believer, the repented believer, the one who has been given a new heart, that his bad works on this day of judgment are covered by the blood of Christ. So the believer will be judged by those works in Christ, and He'll be received into glory in Christ. The unbeliever will be judged by His works as well. And no one who even names the name of Jesus, but hasn't been made new creation, that hasn't been born of the Spirit, as Jesus said, will enter heaven.

Just as we heard in Matthew 7, even if they've done many great things in the name of Jesus, and if they call Him Lord, Jesus will say to them, depart from Me. This was a little window that Jesus opened up in the beginning of His ministry in the Sermon on the Mount. He opened up that window and He was showing them on that day. Many will say, no, that can't be. Lord, Lord, I'm calling you, Lord.

I've done so many. I've cast out demons in your name. I've done many great works in your name." And he'll say, depart from me, you worker of iniquity. So these works have a place. These works have a These works have a home in this judgment.

It will be judged according to them. But this text says, And what many texts say in the New Testament is that God will evaluate every individual by what they've done. Luke 12 tells us, Luke 12 tells us, The servant that knew his master's will, but did not make ready or act according to it, shall receive a severe beating. And the servant that didn't know his master's will deserves a beating, but will be a lighter one. We need to ask then, what about us?

What privileges have we had? How have we responded to those privileges? How are we responding now? How are we using the means of grace that are available to us? The things that are available to us, and have not been available to any other age in history.

You know how many Bible apps you have on your phone? Carry with you? You don't have to hide to read them. You won't fear death. You won't fear jail.

You can go right out on the street. You can share the gospel. You have resources. You have video. You have streaming.

You have podcasts. You've got teachers. We have so many resources. And plus, No persecution. Yet, but we don't.

You might get somebody angry with you, but that's not persecution. You don't have fear to do what's right, to be holy. We ought to be the most holy people walking the face of the earth right now. We have more means of grace at our disposal than any other generation. But you see what Christ is saying, when you appear before Me, You will be judged by Me.

Jesus is the one who will determine our future. Every man, woman, boy, girl must deal with the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is Our destiny. I don't know how many times in just the last couple of weeks I've heard somebody say, this world's coming to, it's going to hell, and you know what? I'll tell you what it's coming to This day.

It's coming to Christ. The whole world. Jesus is our destiny. We have a date with deity. Everyone must be intimately related to Him.

And what I mean by this is you can't be neutral about Him once you've heard Him preached. You're either rejecting Him or you're receiving Him. You're either bending the knee to Him or you're pushing Him away. You can't stay in the middle. There's no safe zone in the middle.

You can't remain neutral. When Jesus walked this earth during His ministry, there were those who heard Him and saw Him, and those who decided He was evil, and they mocked Him, and they will have an encounter with Him on this great day. There are some who had their encounter with Him in this life. The publican who was in the back of the temple, and his soul was justified when he said, God, be merciful to me, a guilty sinner. So his encounter with Christ was here, and for some their encounter with Christ will be there.

Our text says, we all must appear. This is all of creation. Angels will be judged, believers are going to be judged, unbelievers are going to be judged, angels who have never fallen will be judged and found to be faithful. Angels who have fallen, even the devil himself will be judged and condemned to the place where they will never die, yet always be dying. Unbelievers who are great and small will be judged, says Romans 2.

Romans 2 says, where God will render to every man according to his works, but to those who are self-serving and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, he will give wrath and indignation. Are you obeying the truth? Are you seeking that encounter and that confrontation with Christ here while it is day, while you can, the day of salvation is at hand, because you will have an encounter with Him. No matter who you are, no matter how great a person is, it will not exempt them. Billionaires, the president, leaders of China and Russia and Hollywood stars, and everyone from every nationality and every socioeconomic group.

You can't be poor, you can't be rich, you can't be beat, you can't be groomed. To get you out of this, you will have to appear yourself and not by proxy. You will not get to send your attorney or your father or your mother or anyone else to appear on your behalf. Drug manufacturers and porn peddlers and human trafficking, deviants and thieves and terrorists and warlords and dictators and the list goes on and on, they'll all be exposed. And there'll be no bushes for any unconverted person to hide behind to get away from the all-seeing Christ.

Church-going people who've attended faithfully for all their life, but have never bent the knee to Christ and have been given a new heart and been fully exposed. They will be fully exposed. Believers will be there. Paul tells the Corinthian church that we all... And he doesn't say you and he doesn't say just me.

He says all of them. It doesn't just mean the unsaved either. Paul says, I too will appear. In Romans 14, we must all stand before Christ. Each of us shall stand and give an account to God.

Not only the goats on the left, but the sheep on the right. And this is where it starts to get challenging here. How will God do this? How will His people who were blood-bought be judged? A lot of people have wrestled with this, and I'm going to just speak to what I'm certain can be supported, and the rest we'll save for a later time.

For a later time. I believe that God's people will be judged on that day and it will be vindication not humiliation. Let me repeat that. The believer will be evaluated by Christ on that great day, and it will be a vindication, not a humiliation. Let me explain this.

Because they will be judged as God truly regards them now. In Christ. It's an absolute reality. If you're a believer that you're in Christ. And you'll be judged as if it were Him.

Now God's people have stood before human courts many times, and often they were said to be evil people. The scum of the earth, let's crucify them, let's saw them in half, let's boil them. Jesus says to them, you blessed ones, all your sins are wiped away in My blood. Enter now into the joy of your Lord." And that means that no matter what happens to them, He says your current state, your absolute reality is that you're with Me. And that your blessing will be made, will be known, my blessing will be known to be yours.

How will Christ enter into evaluation with His people's iniquity. Paul says we must all appear and receive the recompense or the payment or the wages for what we've done in the body, whether good or bad. This seems to say that even though Christ has thoroughly and completely removed the condemnation for His people's sins, and we know that's true, that there still will be a revealing of it at this time of judgment. Our church Forefathers say that there is no inconsistency between denying all merit to believers. It's not by works of righteousness that you are saved.

There's no inconsistency by denying all the merit. It was not your work, believer, and teaching that they shall be rewarded for their works. There's no inconsistency there. Yes, every sin will be wiped away, and they will all be saved by grace, and they shall also be rewarded according to their work. Both are true.

Moses looked for the recompense of the reward, and therefore he despised the treasures of Egypt. Paul said in his last days that laying up the reward in heaven. We're all familiar with Matthew 6, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." This treasure, this reward, still needs to be washed by Christ, because even though, Even our best acts are filthy. And that's why I describe, you can look at this long enough and it can start to get confusing. You can look at this long enough and say it wasn't by any of my works, but I'm going to be rewarded for my works, but aren't my works filthy rags?

Aren't even my best works? And the answer is yes and amen. But it's Christ that when He even washes your works and that God had foreknown you, believer, before the foundations unto good works, says Ephesians. And those good works that you can only produce when you're connected to the vine, that you could produce fruit of the Spirit because Christ is the vine, and that He sends the life through you, and then you bear fruit, and for you to be rewarded of that. There's no conflict there.

I think this is a helpful scenario, so bear with me. Luke 19, 11-27, if you want to make a note, I'm going to read this quickly. Now while they were listening To these things, Jesus went on to tell a parable. Because He was near Jerusalem, and they, so the they that were listening were the apostles. And they thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately.

So Jesus said, and He told them a parable, and He says, A nobleman went to a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself and then to return. And he called ten of his own slaves and gave them ten minas and said to them, Do business with this money until I come back. But the citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him saying, We do not want this man to reign over us. When he returned after receiving the kingdom, he ordered that these slaves, to whom had been given the money, be summoned to him, so that he could learn how much they had made by the business they'd done. The first slave appeared, saying, Master, your mina has made ten minas more.

And he said to him, well done, good slave, since you've been faithful in very little thing, you will have authority over ten cities. The second one came saying, Your mina, Master, has made five minas. And he said to him also, you are going to be over five cities. And then another came saying, Master, here is your mina, which I kept tucked away in a handkerchief. For I was afraid of you, because you are a demanding man, and you take up what you did not lay down, and you reap what you did not sow.

And he said to him, from your own lips I will judge you, you worthless slave. Did you not know that I'm a demanding man, taking up what I did not lay down and reaping what I did not sow? And so why did you not put my money in the bank? And then at least when I came back, I would have collected interest. And he said to the other slaves who were present, he said, take the mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.

And they said to him, Master, he already has ten. He says, I tell you. So Jesus snaps out of the parable and he says, I tell you that everyone who has more shall be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. And as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them. Bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.

You're sensible people. I don't need to explain this. So here's what we understand. The Bible teaches us that there will be differing degrees of reward at the final judgment. Even though every single believer will be complete and have complete joy for eternity, and every decision Christ will make on these matters will be straight and fair and just, no one in heaven will look at someone else who has a greater reward and say, I deserve that.

Okay, this is clear. One last thing that I want to answer. It's the bottom line. How will God expose the sins of His people on that day? I found this from John Newton.

And this is, I think, really helpful here. Newton says this, when someone asked him this question, and I'm gonna ask you all to pay really close attention. This is our conclusion. When someone asked Newton this question, will the sins of believers be publicly declared on that great day? He says, The fact that we're going to be judged cannot be designed to weaken what we're taught on almost every page of Scripture of the free, absolute, unalterable nature of justification.

The benefit of which as to the forgiveness of sin is signified by the phrases of blotting out, not remembering, casting behind the back and into the depths of the sea. The sins of the believer are so effectually removed that even if or when they are sought out, they cannot be found. For Jesus bore them away. Believers are complete in Him and clothed in His righteousness. Who can bring a charge to God's elect?

But then Newton goes on to say, that doesn't mean that God wipes away from His memory bank the sins of His people. Or, Does He say that His people will forget those sins in their totality? Let's think of it this way. When have we had the sweetest spiritual times in our lives? If you can consider a time when your nearness to Christ has been the sweetest?

Hasn't it been when your awareness of sin and your awareness of redemption and forgiveness were both at their maximum? Luther said his deepest joy was that he could say he remained a sinner while at the same time he was accepted in Christ. Although in heaven we will not remain sinners, but we'll be able to look back and see the magnitude of God's grace against the backdrop of our sinfulness. And so so Newton goes on to say this when we When we arrive in glory, unbelief and fear will cease to exist forever. Nearness and communion with God will be beyond what we can now think or believe.

And therefore, The remembrance of our sin will not be quenching of our bliss. It may feel heavy, it may feel hard now remembering our sin, but there when fear and unbelief is gone and nearness and communion with God is so big, we will be glad to be a trophy of grace. We will say, Like Brother Vody says, you can't have my sins, because they remind me intimately of what my Christ has done about the price He paid to buy me. Right? So forgetting all of that would be forgetting a major piece of how we glorify and how we worship God.

And so think about this positively. How could we appreciate the glory of salvation without the remembrance of our sins and what He's done to save us. God will expose our sins on that day, but this exposure will be only to magnify His grace. We're not going to remotely get as far as I thought. Let me just talk to you directly for a second.

If you're worshiping, if you're fond of Christ, if your affection for Christ, if your love for Christ has something to do with your knowledge of your sinfulness, Something of this judgment seat that will be for His glory and for your capacity to worship Him in eternity will be you understanding the truth about the depths of your own heart. That's what will be revealed. It will be revealed to you. You will understand every activity that today might seem noble, but had a sinful motivation. That's the negative side of this ledger.

You'll learn greater than you've ever learned the depravity that's in your heart, and Christ will be there and he'll say, I bought that one. And so you'll actually see what he paid. And you'll glorify him all the more. And I think another thing is true. I think you'll be surprised and not by how many of the wrong things you've done, or maybe the empty activities that you've done, but I think you'll really be surprised at how many of the right things that are done.

Paul says a lot of things that we would be challenged to say. In Scripture, he says that he's after this reward. And because we don't want to seem proud, we don't talk like that. We don't want to sound selfish. Paul says something I would be very...

You'd hardly find me saying this, but try to follow with me for a second. Paul says, be imitators of me. That's a bold statement, right? You ever felt like saying that to someone? In light of spiritual things?

In light of spiritual obedience? But think about this, believer. You're making little of the new creation that God's made. Don't make little for the sake of shunning pride, for the sake of not appearing to have a proud look about caring more about others and what they think of you and how you'll say it. You can say, I have affections that I didn't have before God changed me.

You can say, I don't desire some of the things that I did. And so young man, young woman, imitate me as I imitate Christ. And imitate me when I don't do it well and I confess to Christ. So make much of what He's done. What we're going to see in this judgment day is that we're going to see that all of our actions, even when we thought they were little, and that's the beautiful thing about Christ washing our activity, is that when we serve Him and when our aim is to please Him, we don't have to go do big great things.

We will be rewarded on that day. Think about that. Me. Sinful little me. That gets all the priorities out of whack.

Not just, not just Newton, not just Not just Sproul. Not just the big guys. Me! Because of Christ. When you bathe your babies, and you do it because you love Him and you want Him to know Christ, you're doing Christ's work.

If your motivation to do whatever you're doing is to be pleasing to Him, That's the activity that yields rewards. That's the activity. On that day, you'll be able to stand as the hymn that we sang. And this will come. This will come because God will finish the work He began.

Amen? Alright, thanks for your patience. Let's bow our heads. Father, oh, if all that made sense to anyone here, you are still proving that you can speak through rocks and donkeys. Lord, we confess to you that the truths about this great day are, they're high, they're challenging, and they're tough.

And It's hard for us to span the difference between the reality that we see and feel here. And Lord, it's only by Your grace, and we acknowledge that it's only by Your grace, Your Spirit, and by Your mercy that You would lay upon us a view of eternity, or that You preserve this Word that we can go to, to learn about the reality of this world around us, about ourselves, this reality about our Judge, and how for the unbeliever it is a terror, but for the believer we will be judged by the one who loves us. We will be judged by the one who came to find us. Father, we thank you for this work. We Thank you for your glory and your righteousness and your consistency.

And that we don't need to seek revenge because justice is yours. Help us to believe that, Father. Help us to bow our knee to your truth. Be obedient to you. So that we can stand.

Whatever glory, whatever reward and crown, Lord, that we would see rightly why we don't deserve it, but He does, and we would throw them at His feet. Help us to do it, or for your son's sake, we pray. Amen.