Seeing Jesus: Grace and Judgement

Coffee today. Y'all, I don't know. Maybe you guys woke up early and already

had your coffee. That's okay.

Good to see you guys. Hey, so a couple of things going on. Our piles.

We're almost done getting rid of our piles, which is going to be really nice.

The piles of dirt, which was an interesting aesthetic choice.

We're leaving those around for months, but we've been waiting for the septic

inspector to come and he comes on Thursday. I'm told.

I've been lied to before, but I'm pretty sure he's coming on Thursday,

Which means that we should get the Approval to

get that all filled in And have the septic systems

Replaced and things backed I know yeah yeah yeah

that's how I feel It's just like been such a

long project So that's going well and you guys Can keep praying for the building

Stuff please you know there's a lot going on We've got some bids from contractors

And stuff like that and we'll hopefully be moving along With that soon there's

a lot to be done You know but it's okay we've still got some time And the Lord's

gonna make way So I'm excited about that But I just wanted to start,

actually, I want to pray for us.

And then I want to pray for everybody, like everybody who's sick. I have sick kids at home.

I think a lot of people are sick at home. So hello, all you poor people sitting

on the couch with fevers.

Let's just pray for healing and for protection for all of us as we jump into the word here.

So Lord Jesus, yeah, I thank you. I thank you for my family and for the many

families represented here and for those who are not well.

Somebody said, oh, yeah, this is what happens every time school gets back. And that's right.

We all get together and then we share. But Lord, we ask you to to heal to to

make us well to get us back on our feet And to yeah, just just to protect protect

those that aren't sick lord Keep us keep this from spreading we pray in jesus name.

Amen All right. Well I've been making my way through a little book.

It's up here It's like kind of weird that it was up there while I was talking,

I can't explain it but called the science of revenge. It's not like an instruction manual.

That was funny. That was funny. It's an interesting book, a guy named James

Kimmel, unrelated apparently to Jimmy Kimmel.

And Kimmel argues, I think quite convincingly, that revenge is a pervasive and

an extremely deadly addiction, that we are culturally addicted to revenge.

By the same means, like the same kind of like neurochemical ways that people

become addicted to drugs.

And he goes through the science and he looks at it through different angles.

He explains at one point in the book that ruminating on the hurts and traumas

lurking in our memories is what activates our revenge desires,

and that transforms victims into perpetrators.

And I mean, he's, again, from a scientific angle, exploring this reality that

when we fixate on our hurts and we allow our brains to dwell on negative things and our pain,

that desire for revenge grows, grows deeper.

And we want to, it's a very natural part of the human condition that we want

to hurt people who have hurt us.

And I don't think actually, like if you were to read this book,

I don't think anyone would be that surprised because it's not a surprise that people are this way.

It's not really, I think, a surprise to realize how widespread this fixation

on revenge is, this addiction to revenge.

I think we can see that on display. If you've ever been on social media,

right, you know, like half of the posts are complaining and decrying and talking

about how these people are bad and how somebody should do something about it.

Or if you go on Yelp, you ever read the reviews on Yelp and you're just like,

that's just a revenge post right there.

Somebody said or did something and then you're going to go out there and do

the one star review thing.

There is this sense that people really just want to do something when they're

hurt and we see it all the time.

So I think nobody is surprised by this, that we as a culture are fixated on revenge.

I also don't think anyone would be surprised by his finding,

which I thought was really good.

If you're familiar with Jesus' teaching, you wouldn't be surprised by his finding

that there is scientific evidence that forgiveness is the antidote to this revenge addiction.

He makes that very clear. He says, just imagining yourself forgiving someone

stops all the neurological stuff that drives revenge addiction.

And so he's giving really clear evidence that what Jesus said was right,

that it's not only true that we can and ought to forgive, but that it's healthy for us.

But maybe we would be surprised when we come to Jesus's words,

how often Jesus talks about judgment, which obviously is different than revenge.

And we'll talk about that in a second. But how often he talks about judgment, right?

Because he talks about forgiveness a lot, and we understand that.

But he also talks about judgment. We've been making our way through the Gospel

of Matthew, just like going chapter by chapter, verse by verse,

reading different parables.

And we are now, I think, seven weeks in chapter 13. I didn't expect it to be

this slow. My apologies.

But the parables, we're reading about parables. And Jesus has this way of teaching

that's kind of strange to us.

And so it makes us slow down and have to use our imagination.

And a lot of the parables, if we were to look at them all in one big sweep,

we would notice that there's two really big themes that are emphasized.

Two big themes that are emphasized. One is, you know, grace.

And we've talked about that a lot lately.

Last week, we talked about, I mean, really how the kingdom of God,

as Jesus presents it, what he says is the reality that he reveals is that God is gracious,

that he's kind, that he's like self-sacrificing for the sake of something else.

Like Jesus points to and emphasizes the grace.

He points to the ways in which the kingdom is for everyone.

I mean, that was his message. His message wasn't like, if you're good,

you can come into my kingdom. His message is, I'm here, and so the kingdom is here.

And so all of you are now in this reality-altered place where I'm Lord and I'm

showing up as a gracious person.

On the other hand, and this feels like a contradiction to us,

On the other hand, while there's so much focus on grace, many of the parables

also emphasize judgment.

And we looked at that in the parable of the sower a couple of weeks back.

You know, it ends with this note of judgment.

And then the parable that we're looking at this morning, again,

pairs these two themes, both grace, but also judgment.

So we're going to read the parable of the dragnet. It picks up in verse 47.

So Matthew 13, 47, if you have your Bibles, and this is what it says.

The kingdom of heaven is like a large net thrown into the sea.

It collects every kind of fish And

when it is full They drag it ashore They sat

down And they gathered the good fish into containers But

they threw out the worthless ones And in explaining

it He goes on He says So it will be at the end of the age The angels will go

out Separate the evil people from the righteous And throw them into the blazing

furnace Where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth So Jesus doesn't let

us just focus on one side of his ministry, right?

He presents grace very clearly, very beautifully.

And yet also in these parables, he pairs this with this imagery of judgment.

See, this dragnet imagery, I think, is the picture of grace,

right? So I feel like we sort of.

I'm not a fisherman of any sort, right?

But I think I know what a dragnet is because I've watched Discovery Channel

every now and then. And you probably have, true.

We have dragnets still today. It's like those big nets that get pulled behind a boat.

And ideally, the fishermen are trying to drag them through schools of fish and

catch up all the fish in them.

Actually, you know where I know a dragnet from? Finding Nemo.

That's where I knew it from.

That's where I knew it from. That's my scientific evidence. So think of Finding Nemo, how that happens.

They get caught up in the dragnet, gets pulled behind a boat,

and as the net moves through the water, it just fills up with fish and seaweed

and whatever, whatever's in the water.

It picks it up, and it all just gets collected in there, and then they pull

the net normally onto the boat or onto the shore in the case of Jesus' day.

And again, this is a picture of grace. It's emphasizing how wildly inclusive

and radically inclusive the kingdom of God is.

We talked about this kind of inclusivity and how it was scandalous in Jesus's day.

People didn't like the idea that Jesus would go out and just say,

everybody gets to come into my kingdom.

You know, I'm just dragging the sea and whatever comes up, that's part of my kingdom.

And the fact that Jesus was saying that the kingdom of heaven has come now.

And that, again, we talked about this a couple weeks ago, and that it doesn't

include immediate revenge on the bad sorts of people. That was scandalous.

Because that was what people in Israel's day, particularly these like super

political and partisan people, they were like, no, like the kingdom has to come

and we have to judge Rome because Rome has been oppressing us and they're going

to get what they deserve.

And so when the Messiah comes, when Jesus comes, like he's got to do something

about this or else what kind of kingdom is it really?

It was hard for people to hear Jesus talk about how this was going to be a broad

and wide kind of kingdom where everybody was allowed in and that there wasn't

going to be immediate judgment.

But that aspect of the kingdom that was a problem for revenge addicts,

because they were just as addicted to revenge back then as we are,

it was an opportunity. It is an opportunity for the gospel to take effect.

I mean, this is like, I think, very clear that we have to understand that God's

plan, though it includes judgment, like it is so focused right here and right now on grace.

And the gospel is a message for people who have an opportunity in this moment.

Paul was saved because he understood the opportunity that was present in the gospel.

He talks about his journey in 1 Timothy 1.14. He says, oh, how generous and gracious our Lord was.

He filled me with faith and love that comes from Jesus Christ.

And he says, this is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I'm the worst of them all.

But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example

of his great patience with even the worst of sinners.

Then others will realize that they too can believe in him and receive eternal life.

See, Paul understood how Jesus does both things. And he understands,

particularly in this moment, that God doesn't condone sin, but actually he's

creating a space for grace, right? He's deferring judgment.

He's holding it off so that people could come, believe in Jesus,

repent of their sins, have eternal life.

Jesus did not come to take revenge on his enemies.

Jesus, that was not his primary purpose. This is not what's in view.

Paul, but Paul, I mean, if anyone deserved revenge, it would have been Paul.

And Paul knew this so well because he knows himself to be the chief of sinners

because he knows his own story.

Like if you go back and you read the book of Acts, you kind of read Paul's backstory.

And I mean, you piece it together also in his letters.

Paul persecuted the church. He literally would go out to different places where

he heard that the church was meeting and he would show up with soldiers and

he would drag the leaders of those meetings back before the Jewish council and he would stone them.

Like his goal in life was to persecute the church.

And while he's one day out heading to Damascus because he hears there's some

Christians there in Syria, he goes and God just shows up.

God shows up and he saves him. God is that type of person. He's not on a revenge kick.

He's actually on a forgiveness kick.

He's on an intervening in people's lives kind of kick so that they could wake

up and realize that they don't need to be enemies with God, but they can be friends with God.

Like they can receive his mercy and forgiveness and be adopted into his family.

The kingdom is a place, the kingdom where we are in this moment right now is

a place where those who hate Jesus or are far from him or just fully indifferent to him,

have no interest in Jesus, can actually come and hear really good news that

he forgives and he gives life and he brings meaning and hope even to sinners,

even to people on their worst day.

Jesus shows up to people like that.

And that is such an important part of the kingdom of God. If we stop talking

about grace, we're losing the gospel.

We're not clearly speaking to people about what the invitation is.

The invitation is that all people would come and see and know the mercy of God in Jesus Christ.

But Jesus understands that this is paired with something else.

And in these parables, Jesus pairs the grace of God with the reality of judgment. Jesus makes it clear.

I mean, clear as day, especially in this parable, very punchy,

that at the end of the age, like judgment is coming.

And he literally explains, he says, angels are going to go into the world.

They're going to sort through everything that's been caught up in this net of

the kingdom, everything that's a part of the kingdom.

And he's going to throw some evil stuff away and some wicked stuff away. and preserve the good.

And the evil and the wicked is going to be literally, it says,

thrown into a blazing furnace where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth,

which is like, oh, that's a nice fish story.

It's like really heavy, right? And it's obviously a picture of judgment. It's a picture of hell.

So how do we think about this? What do we do with this?

If this were 10 years ago, if this were 10 years ago, I would say something

like, we are all super uncomfortable with the idea of judgment.

Because 10 years ago, everybody was.

Everybody hated the idea that there would be judgment, that there would be revenge,

that there would be any kind of like that God would intervene in any kind of

serious way and sort out good from bad.

And I think because about 10 years ago, we kind of like came to the end of a

period of time of about 30 years where the whole mantra in the Western world

is we'll just live and let live. Like, right.

Like everybody, you can do what you want. People are free. Like,

like, just just don't worry about it.

That was our cultural mantra. But I think, honestly, the combination over the

last decade of social media driven revenge addiction and hyper politicization

of everything, everything is political now. Right.

And everything is either you're on the right side or you're the wrong side of an issue. Right.

So those those two things have come in. And it's actually gotten a lot of people, not everybody.

Some people are still very uncomfortable, but it's gotten a lot of people really

comfortable with judgment because they think, yeah, someone should judge those people.

Right and that's that's I think

really true over the last 10 years there's been a shift in our culture.

A lot of people are more comfortable with judgment, or at least they're more

comfortable with their idea of what judgment should be.

But I think it's worth noting that Jesus's idea still makes us uncomfortable,

even if we haven't gotten more into the idea.

And I think there's just two reasons. There's two reasons why judgment makes

almost everyone uncomfortable.

They're different reasons. The first is that it's really with what's happened,

I think, in the last 10 years when people who are getting more comfortable with judgment.

Some people are uncomfortable with God's judgment.

They like the idea of judgment, but not the way that God wants to do it.

Because it's not happening right away and they're not seeing it.

I think a lot of people really want to see justice. And by justice,

they mean revenge for my people and my side of things.

But you know what? A lot of people are looking at the world and they're saying,

well, if God is judging and if he's just, then where is that?

And that's not a new problem.

You guys ever read Psalm 73? Psalm 73, psalmist Asaph, he's giving this little

picture of some thoughts that he had.

And he begins this way. He's thinking about the wicked.

And he's thinking about how unfair it is that the wicked are prosperous and

that they're doing well and that there doesn't seem to be justice.

So he says this, Psalm 73, verse 12, look at them, the wicked.

Psalms 73:12

They're always at ease and they increase their wealth.

Did I purify my heart and wash my hands in innocence for nothing?

For I am afflicted all day long and punished every morning.

He goes on skipping a little bit ahead to verse 16. When I tried to understand

all of this, it seemed hopeless until I entered God's sanctuary.

And then I understood their destiny.

So I honestly, if you've not read Psalm 73, take some time because it's like

really just deep and thoughtful.

But Asaph is wondering, like, why is it that I'm trying to honor God and I'm

trying to obey him and it doesn't seem to be for my good, like I'm still suffering,

I'm still in difficulty.

And I look at all these people who don't care anything about God.

They don't care anything about his justice. They don't care anything about his

law. They don't care anything about people.

And they're doing so well. And how could such a thing be? And he's wondering

like, well, so where is God?

Like, isn't he supposed to judge? Isn't he supposed to come and set things right?

And so he's not comfortable with the reality that the judgment seems to be deferred.

And I think the psalmist, his experience is what many of us feel.

Those who are maybe even a little bit more political and a little bit more concerned

about things that you're feeling like, man,

leaving judgment to God feels like ignoring injustice and feels like God is

ignoring injustice and like he doesn't care.

And like, what about the direction of the world? And shouldn't we care about all that?

And not doing anything like to intervene and to take revenge and to judge things feels wrong.

And it feels like a punishment for those who want to be righteous,

which of course, you know, if we start to think that way, it only amplifies

our addiction and appetite for revenge. Cause we're thinking,

well, if God isn't going to do something, then I'm going to do something about it.

But to wait on God and to just say, you know, he is just, and he is judge.

And he at the end of the age is going to set all things right.

I mean, that's not very immediately satisfying. So we can be uncomfortable.

Some of us can be uncomfortable because saying that God will do justice and

he will judge actually feels like doing nothing.

And shouldn't we be more interventionist?

But others, okay, are on the other side of the spectrum, right?

Like you probably aren't the hyper into politics and maybe, I don't know about

your social media, whatever.

But I think a lot of people are still uncomfortable with just judgment because

they think it seems unfair for God to judge.

Like, why would he do that? Why is God mean like that? You know,

seems like a, like a rude thing to do because judgment involves like saying

to people that one thing is right.

Another thing is wrong. And it's like condemning people for the things they believe.

And how can you hold people to that

kind of account? That seems kind of arbitrary. It feels sort of wrong.

And I think that's because we've set up, and I think this is a product of our

culture over the last 30 years, we've set up this idea where maturity is neutrality,

where everybody just wants to be Switzerland, right?

We all just want to be just like, hey, live and let live.

I can have my beliefs. You have your beliefs. And you can't judge. That judging is wrong.

Not everybody feels that way, but some people feel that way.

And I think honestly, like this kind of skepticism around judgment is sort of

unique to our time and into our culture and into our place.

It's probably, and I'm a nerd.

I think you know that about me. I'm just going to say this. It's very nerdy.

And I'm just going to say it.

And then I'm going to move on, even though I want to keep talking about it.

I think a lot of that is just a byproduct of postmodern thinking,

which I think the result of postmodernism is it has made it difficult to impossible

for people to have assured convictions about ultimate reality that's true for everybody.

So, right. So like in a postmodern world, the world we lived in 10 years ago

and some of us still live in now. Right. But I feel like it's on the decline.

We try to be neutral. And so we believe in truth, but it's private truth.

Like you can believe anything privately, no matter what it is.

And in a postmodern world, like nobody can tell you otherwise.

Right. But of course, that puts a lot of limits about what we can believe,

because if I believe something that's ultimate and true about everything,

like in a postmodern world, like that's really an unpopular view to have.

And we convinced, I think, a lot of people that we can believe like whatever

we want about ourselves, but we can't believe anything about other people.

Which excludes a whole set of beliefs about what's ultimately true.

Because those things seem to be like an imposition on people.

Richard Bauckham, I've used this quote before. Richard Bauckham is a Cambridge

professor. So he's like not, he's not some guy, you know, with a blog in Oklahoma.

He's a very thoughtful person, a Christian who teaches. No offense to anyone from Oklahoma.

My brother's from Oklahoma. That's why I thought about that.

And you could have a blog anywhere you want.

He says this, he says, For postmodernism, any claim to universal truth is oppressive

because it delegitimizes difference.

I believe that in the end, Christians must contest this preference for diversity over truth.

It's not the case that diversity as such, that is any kind of diversity whatsoever, is a good in itself.

It is not better for there to be people whose lives are blighted by destructive

illusions than for their illusions to be dispelled.

So what he's saying is if we believe as Christians that there is such a thing

as ultimate reality and that it's revealed in Jesus Christ and that Jesus is

Lord, well then we can't lean so far into this idea that everything is okay.

What he's saying is actually to have an ultimate claim, a claim to truth,

requires us to just say, well, some things aren't true if it's true that Jesus is Lord.

And so if we're going to confess that Jesus is Lord, if we really believe in

what he says, and we believe that what he says is true for all people,

that all people can come to his mercy and to his grace and they're invited in,

then we come up against these postmodern preferences that want us to say,

well, we can't judge anything. We don't like to judge.

But the gospel is, it is judgment. It's also radical inclusivity and acceptance

for anybody who wants to come in.

And he adopts people in, not on the basis of who they are or what they've done

or what kind of their family background is or their race or their culture or

their intelligence, but simply on the basis of them responding in faith to his

promise and to his forgiveness.

It is radically inclusive and it's radical acceptance, but it also,

I mean, like the gospel also includes the reality that at the end of the age,

things will come under judgment.

And what's all said and done Illusions and lies and false things that we believe

Will be exposed for what they are.

And like, we kind of feel uncomfortable or we really like the idea, one or the other.

But here's the thing is, and I just, again, we're topically thinking about judgment

because I told you guys last time this came up, I would focus on it again.

And here we go to focus on it.

I'm just going to give you, as we wrap up here, ish, four reasons why I actually

think that judgment is actually really good news. It's a part of the good news.

The first one is that judgment is good news because we all have a God-given longing for justice.

Nobody is comfortable looking at the world where people are oppressed and where

justice doesn't happen.

And nobody's comfortable just saying, oh, well, that's okay.

Like everyone, people who know

Jesus and people who don't know Jesus have been given an innate sense.

That oppression and repression and all these things that the Bible is really

loud and condemning is a problem.

So we all have a sense that justice is a problem.

But the reality is, and what the Bible makes super clear, is that God's justice,

His determination, His enacting of justice is all that can actually truly satisfy justice.

We come up in our anxieties and in our social media-driven addiction to revenge,

we come up with solutions and ways to enact justice.

And God looks at them over and over and again and says, this is not how you do it.

You guys don't know how to bring about justice.

Post-modernity is failing. I think it's failing.

I think it's become less popular, and I think it will become decreasingly popular,

this idea that, well, we'll just live and let live, because it's not able to

bring about justice. It's not able to bring about justice.

And we were made to love justice because God loves justice. He cares about the

oppressed. You can't read the Bible and miss that.

And we are assured that he's going to judge all things. And so that's such good

news. It's such good news.

Because sometimes when Christians go around and they talk about grace,

what they sort of think or what they sort of communicate, what you will get

pushback from if you talk about the grace of God, is that people will say, well,

what about bad things and bad people and people who are legitimately wicked?

It's honestly good news that grace is for anyone who would accept it,

But in the end, justice will be done. Grace doesn't eclipse justice.

It completes it. Like, it makes it so that people, like, because if we all got

justice, none of us would be coming into the kingdom.

I don't deserve to be there. I am not a good person. I promise you I'm not. Some of you know that.

Like, I am not perfect in my love. Like, I feel it all the time.

Just like, I can't express the things I want to express. I don't have the time.

I don't have the attention.

I don't have the focus. Like, I am stuck in weakness. And so are you.

Like, that's the good news of the Bible is that everybody, nobody deserves to be a part of this.

Like, nobody deserves the grace of God. You could never earn it.

It's not possible for you to earn it. Even if you try your whole life to earn

it. You don't have the ability to follow through on earning God's love and his favor.

And so grace comes in in all of that deficiency and all of that inability.

And it says, yeah, of course you can't.

And so I'm going to win it on your behalf.

And I'm going to cover over your weakness. And I'm going to forgive.

And if you simply just accept that, then you'll be washed clean.

And if not, then we face justice.

So I think it's good news. It's good news because I think it completes the reality of the gospel.

Because some people will say, well, where's the promise that God's going to

do something? Doesn't he care?

Doesn't he care? God absolutely does care. And he will set everything right at the end.

The second reason why justice is good news, it's because it's for me personally,

like the assurance of God's judgment, the assurance that he's going to do things.

I think I've got a slide there.

I want to see how I worded it because I think I changed it. Thank you.

Judgment is good news because it relieves us of the need to enact revenge.

It relieves us of the need to be the person who guarantees justice.

You don't have to.

Do that. I mean, over and over again, like starting in Deuteronomy,

Jesus commands the people, he says, vengeance is mine. That's the King James translations.

Justice is mine, says the Lord. In other words, you don't have to be the one who takes revenge.

You don't have to look out for yourself because I care for you and I care about justice.

And so like to know that God is going to finally put everything right and right

every wrong and he sees things rightly and he can weigh the scales in a way

that I simply cannot because I am not able,

I am not competent to see the reality and the truth of things.

I don't see the hearts of men.

I don't see the hearts of women. I don't see my own heart well.

And so how could I possibly set things right?

And instead, I'm assured that God is able to see everything.

And so I can entrust myself to him when it feels like the world is broken and

it feels like somebody should punish somebody because there are problems is going on.

I can relieve myself of the need to enact justice because God has got it in hand.

2 Peter 2, 9-10 says this.

The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteousness

under punishment for the day of judgment, especially those who follow the polluting

desires of the flesh and despise authority, bold and arrogant people.

If you look around and you're just like, Who is going to deal with all these

bold and arrogant and awful people who are ruining our culture and our society

and our family and they're in my workplace, all these people wronging me?

Look it. Here's the thing.

Best case scenario is that the gospel goes out and those people repent and that

sin is washed away, price paid.

And what a beautiful thing because that happened to me and I have that message to go out.

And the worst case scenario, and it truly is the worst case scenario,

this is not just plan B. it's plan Z.

The worst case scenario is that, well, you know, in the end,

God does know how to punish and judge, you know?

And like, it's like, he doesn't love this. This is not God's plan. This is not his desire.

He desires that everyone should come to repentance, right?

God desires that. But in the end, God will take care of everything.

And so I don't have to bear the burden of setting the world right.

Because he's already done the work and is doing the work and will finally take care of everything.

I can relieve myself and just assure myself that God can do this more competently

and better than I am. And that is really hard to do.

It is hard to do because we walk around in trauma and in hurt all day long.

So many of us, right? we are naturally inclined and then environmentally encouraged

to ruminate and to focus on negative things and to focus on all the ways that

we've been hurt and all the ways that things aren't fair and all the way that

life has disappointed us and people have disappointed us.

And so in that thinking, like we go deeper and deeper and we feel more hurt

and we open up this space where we feel like somebody has to do something.

And yet in the midst of all of that, we are told over and over again that God knows us.

He knows every hair on our heads. He cares for us and that he'll set everything right.

And that's the work of faith, honestly, in the midst of the world that we live

in. I think the world's going to get crazier.

That's where my money is.

I mean, sorry, that sounds really like maybe I hope it doesn't,

but I think it is going to get crazier.

And so who are we going to be? Like, how are you going to show up?

Are you going to get more angry and more desperate,

and you're going to be more skeptical, and you're going to be more withholding,

and you're going to do like Paul warns against, oh, I don't remember where this is.

It talks about how at the end of the world, the love of many will grow cold.

You're going to get cold in your love because you're going to doubt people and

feel like they're going to backstab you.

Things are going to get worse. If they are, who are you going to be?

It's a good question, and actually it leads me into my third point here.

It's good news to know that God's judged because knowing the judgment is coming,

it focuses my attention.

Peter actually asked this question a little bit later. Who are you going to

be? Who are you going to be in the midst of a difficult world?

2 Peter 3.10, he says, the day of our Lord will come like a thief.

Let's say this judgment that's coming, it's going to come out of nowhere.

And on that day, the heavens will pass away with a loud noise and the elements

will burn and be dissolved and the earth and its works and everything on it will be disclosed.

That is say every wrong that's ever happened, every terrible thing, every sin, everything.

It's all just going to be plain to see.

And since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, it is clear what

sort of people you should be in holy conduct and godliness as you wait for the

day of God and hasten its coming.

Waiting is hard. Waiting is hard.

And a lot of times our impatience and our, you know, domain and our passions

get the better of us, but we're told to wait for God, who ultimately will set all things right,

to just conduct ourselves in a way that honors him in the interim,

to be those sorts of people, to be those sorts of people, not to be people who are,

prepping. Try not to look at anyone.

I mean, I've got a little prepping going on. I've got a little,

you know, you got to be prepared.

Not to be people who are getting ready for war, not to be people who are like

just angry and bitter and closing people off, but to be the sorts of people

who are saying, okay, I see the world as it is.

I see it's broken. I see it's really not going well, but I'm also somebody who

has a great hope and expectation that Jesus is going to come back.

And that all of this stupidity is going to be exposed for what it is.

And all of this sin is going to be exposed for what it is. And so I can just

say, all right, I'm not God.

You are God. And now I can just focus on being somebody who is so thankful to

have received God's grace and his mercy.

And I can be somebody who's like Paul said, and if God did that for me,

how much is he going to do it for all these other people who are just like so

messed up and who so need to know that they're loved and they can just relieve

themselves of the burden to be God and they can trust God instead to be their savior.

Like we can be those kinds of people who are setting ourselves out to just know and to walk with God.

It is the urgent call for Christians in crazy times. And we live in crazy times.

Going to be all the more urgent if things get crazier, that we ought to be the

sorts of people who are holy in our conduct and godly in the way that we go about our day.

And we just like wait patiently and faithfully and determinedly wait for the day of the Lord.

And my final point, worship team can come up as I'm making this one,

is that justice is good news because knowing that judgment is coming is going

to make us gracious, humble, and hopeful right now. It ought to.

It ought to make us gracious, humble, and hopeful right now because we know

that while it's still today, there's still an opportunity for repentance.

Until the end of this age, there is still a plan that God has for people.

And it's amazing because people who are so assured that God is going to judge

the world are actually, in a

paradoxical kind of way, they are the most gracious and kind kind of way.

Tim Keller talks about this. He just points to the early church,

and he points to this, what he calls a paradox.

I'm just going to read this, a couple paragraphs for you. He says,

one of the great paradoxes of history is the fact that when Christianity began

to grow in the earliest days, the Greeks and the Romans had what looked like inclusive theology.

They said, Everybody has a God. You've got your God. I've got my God. They've got their God.

There's no God for everybody. Everybody has their own God, right?

This is the Roman pantheon. And you worship whatever.

We'll worship it along with you. It's great. Bring in whatever.

Like, you know, nobody can say one God is better than the other.

We're all going to worship them all.

That was a Greco-Roman paganism. And it seems so inclusive.

Then along came the Christians. And they say, Jesus is Lord of all.

That seems so exclusive.

And yet the simple fact of history

is that Christianity created the most inclusive community in history.

Nobody had ever seen anything like it. The Greeks and the Romans didn't mix

rich and poor. The Christians did.

The Jews didn't mix races. The Christians did.

Why would the exclusive belief that Jesus is God lead to the most inclusive,

peace-loving, humble behavior?

And the answer is, if Jesus isn't just a great guy, but God,

then in Jesus Christ, ultimate reality has become visible.

And when ultimate reality has become visible, you know what he is.

You see a man on a cross loving people who don't love him, forgiving people

who are abusing him, sacrificially serving people who oppose him.

Christians, like we hold two things up. We hold the fact that God is going to

judge the world, that he's going to set things right, that he is on a mission

to bring about his kingdom and he will bring it about in all of its fullness in time.

But we also understand that people are being invited in.

You and I are being invited in. We're being invited in through seeing and recognizing

what God is saying is true for all people. And that's that God himself has come

down into a broken world.

And he says, my plan to put it back together is that I will come.

Sacrificially dying in people's place on a cross for the very people who would

put me there, the very people who would hate me, the very people who think that

I'm not good enough, who think that I'm a disappointment.

He says, I'm going to come in and I'm going to stand and I'm going to die for those people.

I'm going to forgive the very people who are abusing me.

I'm going to forgive the very people who are oppressing me and my people.

He says, and that's God's plan to remake the world.

And so how can I, as someone who's seen that, who's seen and received this kind

of grace and mercy and seeing what it looks like for God to come and into the

world and to be in the world and to enact his kingdom.

He does it by giving himself away.

And so who am I to insist on my justice and my revenge and getting my way right now?

Actually, because the Christians, like, they went in and they realized,

no, you guys, like, you guys, there's something so much better in the world.

And that's this grace that God offers.

He can handle the world. He's setting the world right as he dies for it.

And that's really, really good news. It's really good news that I don't have

to, I don't know, I do face judgment, but I do so hidden in Christ.

And you can too. We can have our sins washed away and we can become the sorts

of people who are now like with him, rebuilding things, inviting people into forgiveness and mercy.

Let's go into worship, and then we'll take a moment between songs to pray, okay? All right. Cool.