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RUN TO WIN
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Let me start with something direct: you're going to die. Every single person within the hearing of my voice—you are going to die. In 100 years, there will be all new people. And most people live their entire lives never thinking about this inevitable moment when they will stand face to face with their maker.
The reason we avoid this thought is rooted in Satan's second lie, recorded in Genesis: "You shall not surely die." That lie has lodged itself into the human heart, and we careen through life toward a moment where we will die and stand before our maker. But here's the hard truth: only a fool goes through life unprepared for what's inevitable.
I recently prayed with a 24-year-old in our church who was placed on hospice care. I prayed for a 5-year-old in our lobby battling life-threatening cancer. Some of you feel invincible because of your physical health, your success, your financial prosperity. But listen: all it takes is one rogue cell, and you are months away from meeting your maker.
Yes, I can be more positive: I am positive you are going to die.
Here's the good news. You can be prepared for that moment in such a way that when you die, that moment becomes the doorway to the greatest glory you will ever experience. You can meet your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and spend your eternity with him. You can be prepared.
My primary job is not to make you happy. My primary job is not to help you succeed in life or even just to fix your family. My primary job is to prepare you for eternity. Because only a fool goes through life unprepared for what's inevitable.
Here's what I want to show you today: exactly what's going to happen to you 60 seconds after you die when you stand before God. The Bible reveals you're going to face what I call a two-question test. I want you to know what that test is, and then I want you to know how to pass it.
Listen to what Paul writes in Romans:
You then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. Because it is written: "As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me and every tongue will acknowledge God." So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.
Every knee—everybody everywhere. Every tongue—every language, every tribe, every nation. Every person from every worldview, every religion, every philosophy will someday bow before Jesus. In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, the last trumpet will sound. Like lightning visible from east to west, the Lord Jesus Christ will descend. Everyone everywhere will see him. In that moment, every person will acknowledge: "It was Jesus the whole time. He was God. He was the one."
You want to be on the right side of that equation when it happens.
Here's an illustration from my own life. In college, I had an academic scholarship that required me to maintain a 3.0 GPA. My philosophy was simple: "Who's got time for classes when intramural sports are going on?" I spent a lot of time playing sports instead of studying.
My junior year, I took Biblical Hebrew—the hardest class I've ever taken. Hebrew has no vowels. The Old Testament is written in it. It reads from right to left. I got a C on my first test, then another C, then a D. I was going to lose my scholarship.
Somebody told me that former Hebrew students had sold their old test blue books to the campus bookstore, and sometimes the actual test questions were recorded in them. So I donated plasma, got enough money, and bought every single blue book I could find. Now I wasn't just studying the subject—I was studying the actual questions I was going to be asked.
My grades went from C, C, D to A, A, A.
Here's my point: My fear is that many of you don't know the questions that are going to be on the test when you have to give an account to God. You think you're preparing, but you're preparing the wrong way. And because of it, you're going to fail. Today, I'm going to tell you exactly what the Bible says the test is. What judgments you're going to face—and there are two of them.
In the Bible, there are actually not one judgment but two judgments you're going to face. The first is called the Great White Throne Judgment—this is the everybody judgment. Every person everywhere, Christian or not, will face this judgment.
Listen to Revelation 20:
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small. And books, plural, were opened and another book, singular—the Book of Life. The dead were judged according to what they had done, recorded in the books.
Notice that: great and small. It doesn't matter how powerful, wealthy, or influential someone was on earth. That influences nothing. Everybody faces the same judgment standing before the throne.
What's striking is "books, plural, were opened and a book, singular." There are multiple books and one Book of Life. Here's what's going to happen:
On one side, you'll see books—I think more books than you can possibly count. These are books of sins, where everything you've ever done is recorded. On the other side is one book with no sins recorded in it—only names. That is the Lamb's Book of Life.
Whether you're judged based on what's in the books or whether your name is in the Book depends on something very important.
Here's the critical question: Why are there books in a book? What's in the books is everything you've ever done—good or bad—being recorded right now. All of it. A lot of material. Some of you are thinking, "I'm going to have several volumes for my senior year alone."
Imagine seeing your own life play out from the vantage point of eternity. You see yourself do something wrong, and you know everything—good and bad—is being recorded in the books. You see sin get recorded. From the perspective of eternity, you realize: "Bro, that's a big deal. I'm never going to get into heaven if I'm judged according to what's in the books. If there's any sin."
Here's what you'll understand from eternity's vantage point: Everybody who sees God in the Bible thinks they're going to die. The reason is this: if you see the holiness of God, you instinctively understand that sin can never be in the presence of God. Sometimes people say it backwards—"God can't be in the presence of sin." That's not the problem. The problem is that sin can't be in the presence of holy God, the same way tissue paper can't be in the presence of the sun.
As soon as you see your sin recorded, you realize your only hope is to get that thing out of the book. Maybe you think, "Is there any way to erase it?" But watch this—it's written with a permanent marker. According to the Bible, all our sins are being etched into those books permanently.
So you ask yourself: "How do I get it out?" You may try to work it off. You may try to rationalize it away. That doesn't work. Then you think, "Maybe if I do good things, I can make up for it. If I do a good thing, maybe it'll erase the bad thing and they'll offset." So you start trying to do good things to make up for the bad ones.
You may try to work off your sins or rationalize them away, but that doesn't work. Then you think, "Maybe if I do good things, I can make up for the bad ones." So you start trying to do good things to offset the bad ones.
But here's the reality: when you do a good thing, it gets recorded in the books. However, the bad thing doesn't get unrecorded. There's a reason for this.
The Bible says, "For the wages of sin is death." God is a judge. Think about this: if a guilty murderer came into a courtroom, he can't get off the hook by saying, "Yeah, I did kill that guy, but I was nice to these three people." A good judge will judge all sin. It doesn't matter that you did good things—there's still that crime against a holy God that deserves punishment.
You might then try to apologize and make amends with people you've sinned against. But that doesn't remove the sin from God's books either. There's a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. We should always try to reconcile with people we've sinned against, but that doesn't take away the fact that we sinned in God's sight.
Here's the really good news: there actually is a way to get your sins out of the books. Throughout the Bible—from Moses through David, Isaiah, and into Revelation—there's a phrase that appears repeatedly: God will blot out your transgressions.
The minute you place your faith in Jesus and believe that somehow, some way the cross counted for you, God begins to apply the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ to every one of your sins. He blots them out. The book of Isaiah says that God is the one who blots out our transgressions and remembers our sins no more.
David, right after committing adultery, cried out in Psalm 51: "Have mercy on me, oh God, according to your unfailing love. According to your great compassion. Blot out my transgressions."
The second that you look to Jesus and believe that the cross counted for you, He covers all of your sins with the blood of the slain lamb—the same one on the great white throne who's judging you.
But it gets even better. In the New Testament, God doesn't just blot out your transgressions. He gives Christians a new name. Do you know what He calls you? A saint—a holy one. God writes a new name over your sins. When He looks at you, He doesn't just see a sinner anymore. He looks at you and sees a saint.
The book of 1 John tells us: "If we walk in the light as he is in the light"—which means being honest with God and with ourselves, admitting we're sinners, believing that Jesus was raised from the dead, and confessing that Jesus was crucified for our sins—then something miraculous happens. The blood of Jesus His son cleanses us from all sin. His blood is the only stain remover that can remove anything from the books. Just as it does it up there in heaven, it does it in the books and takes away your sin.
Here's the moral of the story: You don't want to be judged by what's in the books. You want to be judged by the fact that your name is in the book.
There are only names in the book because these are the people whose sins have been removed. The only thing left is the names of those who have been adopted by their heavenly Father.
You don't want to be judged based on what you did. You want to be judged based on what Jesus did.
Many people get confused when they talk about hell. Listen carefully: Hell isn't a place where God just sends people He's mad at. Hell is a place where you have the option of paying for your own sins if you want to.
Imagine a long line. Eventually, you're going to stand face to face with Jesus, and He's going to ask you this question: "What did you do with Jesus?"
In other words: "Were you planning on paying for your own sins, or were you going to let Jesus pay for your sins at the cross? Which one were you planning on doing?"
Here's why I'm teaching this: Most people are going to get the answer to that question wrong. They're not going to be ready.
How do I know that? Because Jesus said this in Matthew 7: "Not everybody who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven." Some of you think, "That was literally my plan. When I was 10, somebody told me to pray a prayer and say Jesus was my Lord, and I thought that was the whole thing."
But Jesus continues: "Not everybody who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who's in heaven."
What does that mean? Jesus says many will come to Him on that day and say: "Lord, Lord, didn't we read our Bible a lot? Didn't we go to church sometimes? Did we not try really hard to be nice to people? Didn't we prophesy in your name and drive out demons and perform many miracles in your name?"
But watch what Jesus says: "I will tell them plainly, I never knew you."
He wasn't looking for religious works. He was looking for a relationship with you. I needed to know you.
I grew up in church my whole life—I'm a third generation Baptist pastor. If there's such a thing as over-saved, I'm it. We were at church all the time. We went to big church on Sunday morning, then stayed for Sunday school. I had some mean Sunday school teachers. In second grade, one in particular talked about hell all the time: "Y'all don't want to go to hell, do you?"
We'd come back Sunday night for RAs (Royal Ambassadors), then Wednesday night for youth group, then Thursday for junior Bible quiz practice. My mom's strategy was, "I want to get them so full of the word that if a mosquito bites them, it's going to fly away singing the power in the blood."
When I was 8 years old, I realized I didn't want to go to hell. So I prayed a prayer and thought that was it. I continued learning things about God, but I'm not sure there was any life on the inside of me.
When I was 16 years old, my youth pastor Jeff Carlisle started discipling me. He wanted me to read Romans. He said, "Josh, you need to have a relationship with Jesus." A friend invited me to his church across town—one of those crazy charismatic churches. I walked in, and it wasn't the preaching that got me. It was the worship. I watched these people worship, and I thought, "Man, I know a lot of things about God, but these people, they know Him."
At 16 years old, alone in my bedroom reading Romans 1 with my door closed, I realized I needed a relationship with Jesus. I gave my life to Him. I started a relationship with Him alone in my bedroom, and my life has never been the same—26 years later, it's never been the same.
My greatest fear is that some of you are where I was—looking good on the outside but with no real life on the inside. Let me give you an example.
Years ago, I went on a mission trip to Chicago. We were walking toward one of the baseball stadiums, and there's a big apartment complex with all the windows busted out and fire damage coming out of some windows. True story: a fire started on one of the bottom floors and was burning its way up. Firemen thought they got everybody out, but there was a woman who was hysterical, screaming, "My baby, my baby!" She thought someone had gotten her baby out, but he was still up there on the 23rd floor as the fire was getting closer.
The fireman put on his gear and asked her the floor, the room, and which room in the apartment the crib was in. He logged it in his head, put on his gear, and ran like a hero into this burning building. He counted the floors through the smoke, did the fireman's crawl, counted the doors, felt the little numbers on the right door, got in, found the crib, reached in, grabbed the baby, put it underneath his gear, and crawled all the way back down.
The second he stepped out of that front door, the interior of the building collapsed and went up in flames. Everybody cheered. The crowd went wild. The lady ran up to him: "My baby, my baby!" He reached inside his gear and pulled out the doll that had been laying next to the baby in the crib.
Same size, same shape, same little hair—a perfect counterfeit of life on the outside. But listen: there was no life on the inside.
My fear is that that's exactly where some of you are. You're doing some of these things on the outside, but there's no life on the inside.
Someday you're going to be asked that question: "What did you do with Jesus?" The right answer to that question is something like this: "I gave my life to Him. I had a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ that changed me." That's the right answer.
But that's not the only question you're going to be asked. There's a second question, and it has to do with a second judgment.
There are two judgments in the Bible. Here's why this matters: You might wonder why there's one set of verses about grace and forgiveness apart from works, and another set of verses about how it really matters how you live and that we should honor God with our lives. Why two sets of verses? You're going to face two judgments.
The second judgment is called the bema seat judgment. It's not about whether or not you're going to get into heaven. This is really important: it's about what heaven's going to be like for you.
In the Roman era Olympics, whenever runners would race, the winning runners would stand before what was called a bema seat—an elevated platform where judges were positioned. The judges would hand out rewards to the winning runners based on how well they ran.
God is saying: if you're a Christian, you're going to stand before this bema seat, this second judgment. It says: "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. So that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done in the body, whether good or bad."
The second question God's going to ask you is: "What did you do with what I gave you?"
Pause and think about this. Every single one of you has been given things. You've been given maybe a family. You've been given a life. Only one life, 'twill soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. You've been given a life. You've been given differing amounts of resources.
Listen to me: You were born in the year 2025. There's stuff you never think about that God gave you. You weren't born in AD 125. You were born in 2025—the era in human history where more things are at the touch of your fingers than ever before.
You're going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Here's why: "So that each of us may receive what is due us for the things well done in the body, whether good or bad."
God's second question to you will be: "What did you do with what I gave you?"
Pause and think about this carefully. Every single one of you has been given things. You've been given maybe a family. You've been given a life. As the hymn says: Only one life, 'twill soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. You've been given differing amounts of resources.
Consider what you were simply born into. You were born in the year 2025—the era in human history where more things are at the touch of your fingers than ever before. You weren't born in AD 125. Most of you live in the United States of America, and most of you didn't choose that. That was given to you. And for all its faults, this is the greatest nation that's ever existed. All of that was given to you.
Someday you will stand before the living God, and He will ask you: "What did you do with the things that I gave you?"
How can we use the things God has given us in such a way that we'll receive a reward for how we use them in eternity? The Bible answers this question:
"But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done." (1 Corinthians)
The Bible calls you a builder because you're building something. Some of you are building a family. You're building a reputation. You're building a career. You're building a financial portfolio. All of you are building something.
Here's what will happen: Everything you've ever built will pass through fire. The fire will show whether a person's work has any value. In other words, did what you built matter in a way that echoes in eternity? The fire will burn up everything that you built with your life that doesn't matter at all and doesn't change eternity at all. Only the things you used your life for that matter eternally will survive the fire.
Do you know what will last into eternity? Only one thing: the souls of people. That's it.
For the next three weeks, the Bible will teach us what the three things are that we can do that will last in eternity. And here's the big idea: You can't change the world, but you can change some.
