Sermon Detail

Hope The Glorious Inheritance and the Glorious Reward

April 21, 2024 | Buster Brown

“that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are THE RICHES OF HIS GLORIOUS INHERITANCE IN THE SAINTS..."  Ephesians 1:17-18

"According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?"  1 Corinthians 3:10-16

The judgment seat of Christ is a time in the future when believers will give an account of themselves to their Savior.

"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."  2 Corinthians 5:10

This judgment is different than the final judgment (Revelation 20:11-15). This judgment is subsequent to that. This does not determine our salvation. The issue of our salvation is forever and permanently settled by faith in the finished work of Christ upon the cross. So even though we are secure in Christ, we still have the privilege and responsibility of appearing before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10). This is a response to our Savior regarding how we have responsibly used our time, energy, and resources to the glory of His name and the advancement of His kingdom. This reckoning involves the bestowal of rewards with the anticipated hope of hearing, "Well done my good and faithful servants.”

In the present life, we live with anticipation of our glorious reward and our responsibility to give an account to our Lord (James 2:12).


APPLICATIONS:

1. We know we fight for a biblical and gospel awareness.

“Even to one without religious commitment and theological convictions, it should be an unsettling thought that this world is attempting to chart its way through some of the most perilous waters in history, having now decided to ignore what was for nearly two millennia its fixed point of reference–its North Star. The certainty of judgment, the longing for heaven, the dread of hell: these are not prominent considerations in our modern discourse about the important matters of life. But they once were.”   A.J. Conyers, Eclipse of Heaven, (1992), p. 21


2. We live with resolve.

“It becomes us to spend this life only as a journey toward heaven… to which we should subordinate all other concerns of life. Why should we labor for or set our hearts on anything else, but that, which is our proper end and true happiness?”  Jonathan Edwards

And as a young man, he wrote, “Resolved that I live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die… Resolve to endeavor to my utmost to act as I can think I should do, if, I had already seen the happiness of heaven, and hell's torments.”  Jonathan Edwards


3. Live with anticipation.

“And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us, this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read; which goes on forever; in which every chapter is better than the one before.”  C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle