Welcome to Eternal Rewards, this is session #9, and we're looking at: The Judgement Seat of Christ, Part 2. The more I've studied it, the more I realise there is for us to learn about it. In the last series, we've been looking at the different Eternal Rewards that God has made available, which can be summarised under: Eternal Glory, Eternal Intimacy, and Eternal Authority/Responsibility.
I want to recap again what the Judgement Seat of Christ is, and then I want to look then at what is God looking for. It's one thing to know there's rewards, and that He's going to evaluate us, but what is He looking for? In the last session, when we did the first session on the Judgement Seat of Christ, we saw that God looks very much at the motivation - not just our works, but why we did them. We saw the necessity of having an intimate pure heart, that there's a purity in our motives, and that's an ongoing journey course.
Let’s just review again: what is the Judgement Seat of Christ?
Romans 14:10-12 – “For we shall all stand before the Judgement Seat of Christ, then every one of us (or each of us) shall give account of himself to God”.
2 Corinthians 5:10 – “For we must all appear before the Judgement Seat of Christ, that each one may receive things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or whether bad.:
Every believer then has an appointment at the Judgement Seat of Christ - to meet with Him; and what's in view for us, is not whether we have a life with Him forever. What's in view is, at what level and in what way, do we qualify for rewards that would go on for eternity. The key issue then, is qualifying for eternal rewards. What's at stake is our service as a believer, how we've lived, and how we've walked with the Lord. There are no exceptions; everyone will be there - we'll all be there!
We saw that the Judgement Seat of Christ refers to a judicial platform, in the Bible days, that was either used for: a judge, to sit on and make decisions about something; or for sports, for judges to rule whether the competitor had competed according to the rules, and therefore qualified for reward.
We saw that Jesus will judge us, or evaluate our service, based on what we have done; and that word ‘done’ was what we have practiced continually, so He's looking at the lifestyle, and the arc or direction of our life… and the outcome is rewards.
Matthew 16:27 – “For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and He will reward each one according to his works”.
No matter where we are, or who we are - if we're a believer, then we have this appointment with Jesus. We will be called to give account of the works that we have done. I want to then look at some things that I think that God will use, or consider, when He's judging our works.
1 Corinthians 4:5 – “Don't judge anything before the time until the Lord comes, who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsel or motivations of the heart”.
We'll either receive praise, or lack of praise, from the Lord. I want to then look then, on the basis that all of us are called to a lifestyle of serving - of honouring God by serving Him. We saw that it was part of our sonship - that as sons, we're called to be intimate with our Father. We're called to serve Him, and expand His kingdom as His representative, and we're called to grow and be transformed.
What will God consider?
Number 1 - our alignment with His will and purpose.
Matthew 7:21 – “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven”.
All through His ministry, Jesus made it very clear He was aligned with His Father, and He did what He saw the Father doing. He must have then spent time in intimacy - to hear, and have revelation about, what the Father called Him to do. So, the first one is: our alignment with His will and purpose - and alignment with God comes out of intimacy. There's got to be time in worship and prayer, and time in His word, talking with Him, listening to Him, out of surrender to Him. We need revelation from Him, if we're going to be aligned with what He wants us to do.
Success doesn't come from just doing, achieving many things. Success comes from discovering what God called us to do; and that we know, at the end of our life, have pursued and faithfully done that. Alignment with the will and purpose of God means we need revelation about how God wants to build. Otherwise, we can in all sincerity build, but how we're building, and what we're building is not actually aligned with Him in any way.