Living for Eternity

This week, I ran across this fascinating story and I just wanted to share it to see if you have heard of this before, okay? This was a project back in 1998 with NASA, and they wanted to do some exploration on Mars. So they had a robotic, robotic probe that they sent. It was to study the climate, the surface, and the changes in the environment. It was called the Mars Climate Orbiter. Okay? So they, they launched it in December of 98. It took about 190 million miles to get to Mars. Nine months, everything was exactly on target, right? And so here it goes. The idea was we're gonna put it in orbit there, uh, and then gather all the information. Well, when they were putting it in orbit, all of a sudden they lost communications and found out that the s- probe had burnt up on entering into the atmosphere of Mars incinerated.

And so it's gone. Major disaster for NASA. I don't know. Did you hear about it? I didn't really hear about it. I'm sure it wasn't politicized very much. But get this. The investigation turned up the reason why it burnt up and it was because the engineers that put the spacecraft together used the English measurement system and the engineers with NASA that was bringing it into orbit used the metric system of measurement. Oops. It was just enough to where the angle of entry in the atmosphere and then the elevation went too far too quickly and just like that. It went from being an incredible mission to a disaster, all because of a difference in change of measurements. Just enough, just enough. But, you know, I got to thinking that's how so many people's lives are. We live this entire life and, uh, according to the world's standard of measurements for success.

And so, you know, we have the certain achievements, certain possessions. Um, you know, our kids have to do the right things and be in the right schools and the right extracurriculars. And so we go through all this checklist only to find out at the very end that the ladder that we have successfully climbed has been leaning against the wrong wall. And then at that point, it's a bit too late, right? Well, here's what happened. Turn in your scriptures to two Corinthians, the book of 2nd Corinthians. And let me tell you, there was a book, 2nd Corinthians, written with this in mind. Let me give you a little bit of background on it. So of course, Paul wrote this letter to the church at Corinth. Now, it was a Greek city. The Greeks, Romans, looked at, at it very uniquely. They had the same system of achievement.

It's how you presented yourself, your oratory skills, your ability to think through things, how good you looked, your achievements, all of these things. So Paul finds out that there have been these false teachers that come into Corinth and they start talking to the believers there, questioning his authority as an apostle. And even back, they said, "Look, look at Paul. His oratory skills really bad. And the guy is kind of ugly. He's not at all, you know, what we envision as a great looking guy. And look how he's received. He's actually persecuted when he goes out taking his message, even imprisoned and beaten." And they're like, "You don't think that he is an authentic apostle, do you? With that kind of resume and the way he, he proceeds, uh, with his message." And so Paul gets word that that is, is happening. The, the Christians there at the church at Corinth themselves were being persecuted and going without.

And so instead of writing a letter to defend himself, he shows maturity, spiritual maturity that we need. What he did was he took it as an opportunity to disciple the believers at Corath. And so what he does in this letter, he writes and God preserves for us today as well as the church at that time, one of the greatest theologies on how believers are to live with an eternal perspective, okay? So we're gonna look and there are three key things that we're gonna look at so that we might live this life with wisdom using the right measuring system that comes from God's word. Let me begin with a word of prayer and we'll jump in. Father, we pray that you'll use this time to just center us. Help us if we have things weighing on us this morning, if we have other concerns, help us to be able to set those aside, help us to allow your Holy Spirit to pierce our hearts so that we might receive from you what you want us to hear, understand.

And Lord, if there is some decision, something we need to surrender in our life today, Father, may it be so. And may we be faithful to you and to your word now. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Well, God, well, Paul wants to start out and tell them that you gotta have an eternal perspective. Look with me at chapter four, verses 16 through 18.

And he starts out and he says, "Hey, don't lose heart. Though outwardly we're wasting away, yet inwardly, we're being renewed day by day." Let's stop right there. So what, it's like we're, we're catching him in the middle of a conversation right here. He's basically saying all of these things that are going on in your current life, all of the ailments we have, all of the bad situations, the circumstances that are going on, I want to, to show you what it's like to have an eternal perspective. So let's just start with, with our bodies and how outwardly in this world seems to be fading, but while it's fading, we're being renewed day by day. He says in verse 17, "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. " So, he concludes, "We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is what?

Temporary, but what is unseen is what? " Eternal. So he begins setting up this comparison between what is temporal and what is eternal. So let's take a look and kind of unpack what's going on here. He basically says that when you have things going on in your life, and first of all, he acknowledges that we will. We are not immune as believers to bad circumstances in life. I remember back in 03, 04, and, um, we had a number of things happen, uh, to people that, that we're very close to, that we love, family members, whether it's health issues, situations, all kind of things. Things just appeared to be kind of falling apart. And I remember going before God and I was, it was the first time in my life that I was experiencing anxiety where you wake up during the night in a sweat and your mind's racing, you can't go back to sleep, you know it's not rational.

And, uh, I remember quoting verses, singing praise songs. Uh, I tried everything in the Christian handbook and, uh, nothing changed. I remember battling with some depression and I go before God and I'm like, "God, I don't really understand what's going on. " You know that not only am I trying to live for you, you know, I hung up business career, went into full-time ministry, moved our family, and you're allowing this to happen? Like, "Father, I'm trying my best to, to be faithful to you and to be used by you. Why would you, why would you allow this? Where are you? " And it's like he's kind of missing from the scene. And really, that was a test and it was the greatest growth I've had in my theology, which is basically I had an incorrect theology. As believers, we're not immune just because you love the Lord and are living out his word doesn't mean that you, that you're just gonna live a charmed life.

And, you know, it's the, the biggest question in the book, right? Which is, why do bad things happen to good people? The short answer is because sin entered the world. And so now when sin entered the world, we live in a broken world with a bunch of broken people, which we are one of. And so if you live in a broken world impacted by sin, with broken people, and you yourself were born in sin, then you can expect things will happen. This is where Paul tries to center him. He says, "Listen, you may see these things going on, but be assured that God is at work." He said, "You may be falling apart on the outside, but on the inside, you are being renewed day by day." It's the Romans 8:28: 29 that he wrote, uh, in his letter to the Romans. It's like, God can use everything, good, bad, whatever the situation for those who love him, God can take those you things and he can do amazing things with them.

He'll never let those circumstances go to waste. He will never leave you. He'll never turn his back on you. In fact, he promises to use these for good. Now he does say, as you get into verse 17, he said, "For our light and momentary troubles," and I don't know about you, some of y'all are going through some things right now, and you're in the middle of them, and when you're in the middle of them, they don't feel light and momentary, right? They feel big and momentous, and you don't know when you're gonna get on the other side of them. What Paul's trying to, to get us to understand at this point is as believers, you can't operate with just your perspective of what happens when you're here on earth, because when we accepted Christ in our lives, placed our faith in him, we now live for eternity in God's presence.

So now you have all of eternity that will be alive. This time on earth is better whisper. I mean, it's not even this big our time on earth. And so he says, "Guys, listen, the things that you're dealing with here on earth from an eternal perspective, you'll look back and you'll consider that those were light and momentary. They were for the moment, even though they accomplished much." Now, how do you, how do you see that? Well, uh, I've been told that's kind of what happens like if you've given birth to a child before, okay? Which is you sit there, you hold a baby, and then all of a sudden the discomfort that you lived through moms and the pain that you experienced and stuff, just thank God that the man didn't do that because population would have ceased. We couldn't handle it. But you look at that baby and then all of a sudden, those things which were momentous not to downplay them in the least, they are all in perspective.

And he's saying, "Listen, you've got to keep your perspective. It's an eternal perspective. They are light and momentary." And he says further in the, in verse 17, "They're achieving for us an eternal glory." So, you know, like, how do they, how, how does that happen? Well, it's because they are shaping us for eternity, they're refining our faith, they're deepening our dependence upon God, they're growing Christ-like character in us, and also they're producing eternal rewards. We're going to talk about it in just a second. So they're actually accomplishing great things in our lives. And so he comes back in verse 18 and he says, "It's difficult, but you got to keep your eyes fixed on the unseen, not what is seen." Now he goes on in chapter five, look with me there. He says, "Well, we know that if this earthly tent we live in is destroyed." Now, quick question, Paul, what profession was he in?

He was not a professional evangelist. He didn't drive into town in his Cadillac and then try to take a big love offering from the people and then go to the next town and try to re- earn a big living like that, okay? He came into town, he was a tent maker in the Greek cities. There was the agora, which was a marketplace. Paul would go to the agora, like everybody else who had trades. He would go there, he would make tents, conduct business. While he did that, he was living for the kingdom. He was sharing about Jesus. He was sharing the gospel with folks. He was seeing people come to know Christ. And by the way, he was starting a church with those people. He was so successful in living out his faith for Christ in the marketplace that was in Ephesus. The silversmith, uh, got ticked off at him because the idols they were making, the cells were dropping like a rock.

And so they were ready to do off with his head because he was too busy sharing the gospel hurting the idol business. You know, may it be said of us using our marketplace for his glory like that. So what happens is he says, and he knows these tents, he was making their temporary. So he says, right now we're in these earthly tents and they're gonna be destroyed one day, they go away, but we're gonna have a building, not a tent, but we're gonna have a building and it's made from God, not from human hands. It's an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands, says in verse one, and what he's referring to here is that we are gonna spend eternity in heaven. Now, some of y'all been to some of my Bible studies around heaven and so forth. And you know, one of my pet peeves is Christians who have been sold the bill of goods with all the, uh, cartoons that I grew up watching and stuff that shows that when we die, we go up, there's Peter with the keys, he lets us in, they give us our harp, we get our halo, we hop up on a cloud and start playing it, and then we have to keep going back and singing in this eternal choir that, uh, and then we're gonna do that for all eternity.

And then we invite people to go with us and the people, really, a lot of people would, would kind of cringe at that opportunity. In fact, I've had a person tell me that they would rather go to hell where the party is. And I had to break the news to him that there is no party in hell. That's not the party. The party will be in heaven. But listen, Revelation 21, if you read to the end of the, end of, end of the story, heaven is going to be here on earth. God recreates the heaven and the earth. He restores earth to its original design. When he first made earth, it was amazing, no sin at all. It is going to be restored again, and we are going to live on it. And Revelation 21 says that Jesus will come and, and live with us.

He will make his home here on earth. And it says, "Together, we will reign with him." And so we know and we will be in resurrected bodies. So we won't have these tents, and this is what he's talking about, is that he's trying to give us a view of what is to come, and it's not just where we'll be, not on this earth, it's going to be for all eternity, and we're going to have restored bodies. And so all of these things that we do right now in verse four, in fact, it says, while we're in this tent, we groan and are burdened. Now, um, Be- uh, Becky's in this service, so I, I have to choose my words carefully. We kind of laugh at this because we find that we kind of have an inside joke. It's like one of us will hear the other one groan, and it's like, "What are you groaning about?

" And it's like, "Well, was I groaning? I thought I was just getting up out of the chair." <laugh> You know? It's like used to, I saw this as kind of, uh, figurative. Today I see this as literal, that we begin groaning and are burdened, but what he's saying is that there is a longing in us, actually. There is a longing and, uh, that when we were created, there are, we, we have needs for love, acceptance, companionship, all of these things. And you know what? We spend our whole life looking for how to get those met. Now, we have Christ in our lives. Christ, Jesus is the one that meets those needs. Those without Christ are trying everything that the world offers to be able to meet those needs. And you know what? Even as a Christian, those will not completely be met and fulfilled until we're in the presence of Jesus on the new earth.

And so he gives us a longing, but the longing is actually good. It reminds us that this is not all that there is. So we know that there is a longing in our hearts. In fact, Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has created eternity in our hearts. We know that there's more. People understand that there's more because of eternity being placed in our hearts. C.S. Lewis has that famous quote that says, "If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world, right?" So the other thing in verse five, we're told, it says, now the one who fashioned us this, for this very purpose, the one, the way God made us with this longing, he has also given us the Holy Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come. So listen, he has not left us alone in this life.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

And, you know, for some reason, I guess growing up as a Christian, many of us were led to believe that you accepted Christ, you were baptized, uh, oftentimes as a kid, and then you learn about the Bible, you go to church, and you live this moral life, and you try your best until you die and go to heaven one day or unless Jesus comes earlier. And so it's like this survivor mode that we're in. We're just gonna make it to the end and do the best we can. And so, and, and you know what, that's really not biblical. Like, God has not only told us that he will work while we're here on earth for eternal purposes, but he's also told us there'll be a longing to where we know there's more and he is gonna give us his presence in our lives, the Holy Spirit, the very spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.

So we're not just surviving. He wants us to allow the Holy Spirit to live this resurrected power through us. Man, we are not surviving at all. God wants us to experience the abundant life, John 10:10, that Jesus said that he came that we might have. Now, he says in one Corinthians, uh, 2nd Corinthians five: seven, he says, "Well, listen, if you take all this that I'm explaining to you, your time here on earth, you're focusing on these things you can't see, there's all this coming with the new earth, you're gonna spend time with me, you're gonna have resurrected body." He said, "To sum that up, you're gonna have to live this life by faith. It's not gonna be by sight." So like, you know, if you want, like, show me, you know, basically the pressure you feel today, you're gonna watch media, you're gonna watch TV, you're gonna see social media, all those things, all of those things are gonna be influenced in you to accept the world's system of, of measurements.

John 10:10

We're told, and I've, I've s- taught this before with you guys, Satan is not in hell right now. It's not where God is in heaven, and Satan's in hell, and the two of them are waging more. First of all, they're not on the same plane. Satan is a creative being, but he is free to roam right now, and he is alive in the world. He's prince of the power of the air, and so he is influencing culture. He is a strategist. He doesn't have all the attributes of God. He can't be everywhere. He's not a mission. He's not omnipowerful. He's not any of the, any of those type things, so he has to have good strategy to deceive and to lie, and then he's well structured with his set of minions, uh, in the spiritual realm. But he's doing that to try to influence us to live for today, to live with our feelings, to what feels good, and to live up to the expectations that society is putting on us.

So society tells us, and you know, my, my, uh, degrees are in, uh, business, and, you know, marketing is a great thing. It teaches you to appeal to this thing where people want more, and then you're trying to tell them they deserve this lifestyle, even though they can't afford but this lifestyle. And so what we do is we then put debt in front of them. We start sending them credit card applications when they're in high school or at la- at the least in college. And then we teach people that you need to go into debt so you're able to live closer to what you deserve than what you can afford. And so we as Christians get caught in that trap. And then our margin is gone. We don't have the margin to be generous. We feel like we're not living up to, to our potential or what our friends are doing.

We feel like a failure and the, our gratitude just empties when God has been incredibly gracious to us, we are rich compared to everybody else in the world, um, the, the least of us is richer than the countries that we go to in mission endeavors, mission trips. We are so blessed, but because the lie of the enemy in this culture, we feel like that we're poor. Well, we need to rearrange our perspective to look through eternal perspective. Second thing that Paul talks to him about doing is it's not enough to just understand, it's got to apply in your life. So look to see where your focus in is li- in, in life and rearrange your priorities to be able to live with eternal priorities. We've got to focus in on the things that will last, not the things that are temporal, okay? So, which the next question is, well, what are the things that last?

What are the things that are eternal that I should be focusing in on? Well, the answer's twofold to that. One is we're told that the word of God will never pass away. It will endure forever. And so the word of God and the souls of people, the souls of people will continue either in the presence of God or away from the presence of God. So if you're trying to focus in on the word of God and the souls of people, and you're looking at your checkbook, you're looking at your calendar, you're looking at, at all the different things that you prioritize in your schedule, what does that look like? Well, let me throw something out to you, some principles, three key principles. First, a life well spent is not measured by what I achieve. Now that's hard for me to say because I love goal setting, I love achievements, I am very competitive.

Um, that was one ... In fact, so I take a sidebar here, two very special people that aren't usually in here or in here with me. 45 years ago, I graduated from the University of Georgia and I was a naive hillbilly boy and started with this corporation with 130,000 people in their management training. And God put me in this office, um, with Valencia Adams, who was my first boss 45 years ago. She and, and her boss's boss at the time, my big boss, drove over from Stone Mountain just to hear me preach today. Isn't that cool? So Valencia and Frank Lewton, I gotta, gotta give y'all a, a shout out. But, uh, yeah, when you're talking about goal setting, I mean, I'm still scarred from where Volusia taught, she taught me everything that I knew about managing people and everything over the, over the years.

But I love you guys and y'all have made a big difference in my life. But, you know, a well spent life is not measured by what I achieve here on earth, but who I influence toward Christ, okay? It's who I influence toward Christ. The value of my life here is tied to how it impacts the eternal destiny of others. Are you impacting the internal destiny of others? That means that everything I do is either moving people toward Jesus or it's not.

So what do I do to rearrange my life to make an eternal difference? Does that mean that you, like I, you have to quit your job and go be a missionary or a pastor? No, it doesn't. You don't have to quit what you do. You need to question why you do it. That's the thing. I have lunch, breakfast with so many people and they think that they're being called full-time ministry, and they know I've made that shift, and so they wanna know if that's happening in their life. We get together, and I find out that they're just trying to figure out how to live with an eternal perspective. And for some reason, we've been sold this Bill of Goods that we have a spiritual part of our lives and the secular part of our lives. Like right now, you're in the spiritual part of your lives, you're at church.

Tomorrow morning, you step into traffic or get, go to school and you feel like you're in the secular part of your life. And it's like, well, gosh, if it's gonna count for eternity, then I've gotta do something with a secular part of my life. Well, yeah, what you gotta do is realize you don't have a secular part of your life. It's all spiritual. Your work, the term vocation, comes from the Greek, uh, word vocare, which means to call, which means your vocation is a calling. So one of the things that we were very particular about, like with our kids as they were growing up, we wanted them to understand that the job that they would get needed to match their gifts because it was gonna be a ministry. It was gonna be where God would use them in other people's lives. You should not have any duplicity in your life.

The person I see and talk to this morning at church should be the same person that I would go into your workplace tomorrow and talk to. The person I see in life group this morning should be the same person if I come in your family and see how you interact with each other and what you prioritize and how you live and how you talk. You know, that's why I give thanks for folks like Valencia and Frank. I didn't see duplicity. They were my first bosses in the real world. They were real people. I loved them. Valencia has always been like my big sister and, uh, so I have a couple of big sisters <laugh> and, um, but I thank God for them because they were the same person everywhere they were.

Is that true of us? Do you understand that every part of your life is the Lord's and it's for his kingdom? Uh, you know, if I could ... You know, I had a great, great time this morning before getting here. You know, you preached the three, three hours, you get an early start, but I treated myself, and Becky's in here to hear this, so, um, to breakfast, the drive through, um, at the world famous Martins, Martin's v- and it's only ... Okay, I know this is Christian, it's a church, Chick-fil-A wasn't open, okay? <laugh> Just a disclaimer there, okay? I got it. But if you hadn't had the Tinderloin biscuit at Martin's, it's pretty good for a country boy anyway, yeah. So I went through there and, you know, I got to visit with Sherry in the drive-through and, uh, find out how I could be praying for Sherry.

And, uh, so I know what's going on in her life. So listen, you may say, "Well, I don't know how to use my job or my life because of what I am. I, I'm a, I'm a full-time mom, I am an accountant, I am a student, whatever." No, listen, guys, you do it as unto the Lord, and you walk out your faith in every encounter, every person that you're with. One of my big questions is, and I've often wondered this, uh, Valencia, when, like, when I went in that day and just after 16 years said, "Hey, uh, Pat, Judy, Um, I'm quitting <laugh> and it's like, uh, yeah, I feel God calling me into full-time ministry. If you did that, would they take you seriously or not based on how you're living it out in your job? Would they say, "You gotta be kidding." Would they say, "Oh, yeah, I guess so.

" Or would they take you serious because of how they know that you do live while you work in the marketplace? Does your life line up? God wants us to line up with our life. Um, in fact, C.S. Lewis, forgive me for giving you a couple others. In mere Christianity, he hits this area quite a bit. He says, "If you read history, you'll find that the Christians who do the most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next world." So he summarized in Mayor Christianity. He said, "If you live for the next world, guess what? You get this one thrown into boot." Well, that's what I said. He said, "You get this one in the deal, but if you live only for this world, you lose them both." Ooh, man.

Well, Paul's last point, man, it was probably the most powerful. It's in two Corinthians chapter five, verse 10. He says, "Not only an eternal perspective, not only rearranging your priorities for eternity, but pursue an eternal approval, which means trade the applause of the people on the earth for the audience of one, the one who made you, Jesus Christ." So in two Christians 5:10, 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 while in the body, whether good or bad." Now, a lot of times that kind of scares the bejeebies out of us, right? It's like standing before God, and we get this view that there's gonna be this, that, that he's taken a film of our lives, and it's gonna show every embarrassing moment of every stupid thing that we did, so much so that the angels are gonna be over here <laugh> laughing at us, you know?

And then we're, it's just so embarrassing. It's like, I don't even wanna stand before Jesus. It's like, in fact, I got more things I'd like to experience here on earth. I'm not really ready for him to come back yet. Well, if that's your theology, it's flawed, okay? This is a great time. In fact, let me tell you, unpack it just a little bit, not to be a Greek geek, but let me tell you, there's a couple of words in here we need to understand. We're gonna, uh, this talks to believers. We're gonna appear before the judgment seat of Christ. The Greek word for that is spelled B-E-M-A. Most pronounced it Bema instead of Bema. It's like a South Georgian pronunciation. Bema. Yeah. So, but the Corinthians knew exactly what it was because they housed the Isthmian games every two years. These were the Greek games, every two years.

We came in there to Corinth. And so at the end of all the games, multiple, multiple games, then the victors were invited to where? To the Bema. They were invited. That was awesome because they knew that the games official was gonna stand there. They would stand here as victors and he's gonna put laurel wreaths on them. So listen, it was not embarrassing at all for them to be invited there. It was an honor. It was a thrill to be able to be honored in that way. Now, but it says you're gonna get what's due, whether good or bad. Well, here's the deal. The Greek word that's used for bad there, English translations have a tough time with that because that word doesn't mean evil. It doesn't mean evil bad. It means it's bad in relationship to good. <laugh> The contrast is great. In the mountains, we would say, you know, you've got things that are eternal and then you got those that ain't worth nothing, right?

Y'all know what those are? Y'all didn't say that in the city, huh? <laugh> So it means that you've got the eternal things which are good, but you've got those things that are unprofitable. They're kind of worthless. And so in fact, when he wrote, uh, the earlier letter to the church at Corinth, one Corinthians three, he talks about that it will be like a fire that, um, burns what we have done. And he says, "The wood has stubble, they'll be burned up. That's the ones that are, that are not worth anything. And that'll leave the gold silver and the precious stones." Those are the things of eternal nature that you have put your, your thing, your, your, your energies into. And so, so listen, that's what we are gonna be, uh, rewarded on are those things that are eternal. Now, if you did the right things, but with the, the wrong, uh, reason, Jesus said, "Well, you already got your reward here on earth." He's looking for people with pure hearts who have focused in on his kingdom while they were here on earth.

And then the reality of eternity is that like when, in the beatitudes in Matthew five and in the ma- the, uh, parable of the talents and the minas, those are actually, Jesus was talking about the kingdom of God. So when he said the meek shell and hurt, hair at the earth, when he talks about the master coming back and saying, "Well, hey, you were given this much. Um, I will, you've been faithful. I'm gonna give you this much more." Those are used as, uh, a- analogies for what will happen with us at the Bema because at the end on the new earth, not only will Jesus come and live with us, but will, we will be invited to reign with him, scriptures say, which means that there would have been cultures, cities, nations, businesses, um, I mean, those were not a result of sin. That would have happened anyway had sin not entered in.

It will happen again on the new earth with no sin, but we'll be given positions of responsibility, um, based on how faithful we've been during this time on earth. Wow, that means today really counts a lot for all eternity. He's looking for those who've really been, uh, serious about focusing in on his kingdom and those things that are eternal. So we're not just preparing to go to heaven, we're preparing for how that will live in heaven. But hey, listen, the greatest reward, it's not the crowns, it is, uh, it's not the place, it's the person. The fact that we will be standing before the one who saved us, the one who has carried us when we didn't have the strength to walk, the one who has never turned his back on us, and there will be nothing sweeter than the words that was mentioned in the parable of the talents.

When the master said, "Well done, good and faithful servant, you've been faithful with a few things. I'll put you in charge of many things for eternity. Come and share your master's happiness." Well, guys, listen, this morning, where do you stand? In, in, in the, the theological test of eternity, living for eternity. How about you? Do you have an eternal perspective? Have you rearranged your priorities to really count for eternity? Are you living for that day when we will stand before Jesus and be rewarded? Are you beginning with the end in mind? I know we have two groups here today. First group are those of you who know Christ. You're believers. You're gonna stand at the, at the Bema one day, be rewarded.

You know, the decision today is to look at your life and see where you are. You don't have to start all over again. Start where you are now. God redeems everything up to this point in time. For those of you who don't know the Lord, and today is the day of salvation. We would never, ever won't it be said that we know you and you had to stand before the great white throne judgment. That's the other throne, the Greek word thronos, that's where judgment. Believers will not stand there. You've already been judged at the point of salvation, but those of you who have never accepted Christ in your life will stand there, and you've never made a decision to place your faith, and yet you have this as an opportunity.