FIRE Session 3: The Beauty of Christ In Judgment

It's a privilege for me to introduce to you our next speaker, Pastor Andrew Beebe.

Andrew's been ministering here alongside me now for a little over a year. And it has been an experience for both him and me.

In terms of vocational ministry, I've kind of been alone, and it's different now to have someone in the office right next door and someone

I can talk to. I'm a whole lot more nervous when I preach because there's another pastor sitting in the audience.

But Pastor Andrew's had a tremendous ministry here in our church. I think he has given us new perspectives and has helped us a great deal.

And so, Andrew, come and preach the Word of God to God's people. Thank you, brother.

How many of us have fasted? Lift up holy hands.

How many of us have fasted? A few of us. Well, we're all going to fast now, all right? It's getting past dinner.

You're getting hungry. I know we're Baptists here, and we like our potlucks, so it's difficult. But hang with me.

It has been a pleasure to hear the different ministries, though. It is wonderful to see that we're not an island, that God works throughout all the world.

It's always good to be reminded that. Let us go to the Lord in prayer. God in heaven, I'm thankful that Jesus truly is beautiful in all his ways.

I'm thankful, Lord, that we can never exhaust the beauty that's found in Jesus. So, Lord, help us,

Lord, in this moment. Help our hearts to be open to the Word.

And let us be exposed, again, to the further beauty of Jesus. I'm so thankful that you have saved us and you have showed us

Jesus, Lord. And just let our worship amount to his beautiful, beautiful face.

We were once dead in our sins, and we had no taste for the grace that Jesus provides by his work.

But you and your kindness have made us alive together with Christ. And so, because of that, he is beautiful to us.

Lord, how many times I wake up and I don't find him beautiful. I repent of that.

I repent that my heart cannot take in the full capacity of his beauty.

And so, God, I pray that you would meet us in our need and open our eyes further to the glory that's found in Jesus, our risen

Lord. May he be honored here and now. In Jesus' name, amen. I love to get up early in the morning.

I am convicted, I'm convinced that as you get up in the morning and you hear the birds chirping, you're hearing creation start to worship and wake up and worship

God. And I'm convinced as you see the sun coming over the horizon, you're seeing the beginnings of the sun worshiping our

Lord as well. And it's deep -rooted within my heart. As creation wakes up and worships

God, I shall do it too. And so, I love to walk out in my yard and watch the sun come up.

I can't get too close. There's a pig farm back there that we got a pig farmer. So, if I get too close, I might pass out from that.

So, I got to keep my distance from that. But I love to watch that sun coming up. I love to see just the beauties of the sun kissing the horizon as you just see it.

And then it just bursts forth in all its glory. And it's wonderful to me as well.

As I then turn from the essence of the sunrise itself, I turn around and I see the golden hue across the landscape.

So, not only is the essence of the sunrise beautiful, but everything that it touches becomes beautiful as well as it lights up in golden glory.

And I just found that to be so awesome. That not only is the sunrise beautiful of itself, but everything it touches, it makes beautiful.

And beloved, that is what we're doing with Jesus, is it not? Jesus of himself is beautiful in all of his essential glory.

All that he has done to come, to die for us, to raise up into new life, and to be at the right hand of the

Father. This is the essential glory of our Lord. And we also get to see the golden hues of his glory as it manifests in the lives of his people.

The beauties of a changed life, from death to life, is a glorious thing that we get to behold.

So, not only is Jesus himself beautiful that we get to celebrate, but then we get to see the golden hues that come forth from him as it grows across the landscape of the church.

Beloved, it is our duty, it is our privilege, to see the beauty of Jesus in all his ways and all that he influences.

Do you understand how wonderful it is to be known and found in Jesus and behold his beauty?

Don't live a complicated Christian life, but live a very simple life. And your life is meant to find the beauties in Jesus in all that it entails.

And it is boundless as we behold the golden hues of his work.

And part of that beauty is found in his judgment. We think of the beauty of Jesus, we can think of it in all sorts of different ways, but we might not think of his judgment as being one of them.

But, beloved, it truly is part of what we get to appreciate of Jesus is that he is a judge and he has came to judge.

Now, that might be a very Puritan title, the beauty of Christ in judgment, but nevertheless it is true.

His judgment is beautiful and I want to look at that in the next few minutes that we have.

See, this is a difficult concept for our minds to grasp because the judgment of God has fallen on dark times, has it not?

If we tolerate the judgment of Christ at all, it is enough to just blush at it and not really dwell on it too much.

But when we fall into that error, beloved, we fall and we don't get to take advantage of the beauty that is found in the judgment of Jesus.

The judgment of Christ has fallen on hard times. People don't like to mention it too much anymore because we live in a very inclusive culture.

And so when we talk about the judgment of Jesus, it can be very offensive. But whenever that is the case, we lose out on seeing that particular beauty of Jesus on display.

And we can see in scriptures how it can be twisted to see that perhaps we should not dwell on the judgment of God, on the judgment of Jesus.

Look at the story of Jonah and how he wanted so bad for God to judge

Nineveh. He wanted so bad to see that city judged and God had to correct him and say,

I am not judging Nineveh at this time. We can see the story of Jesus coming in John 3.

He came not to condemn, but to save. And we could see how the disciples, as Jesus is heading towards Jerusalem, and that is his focus, and the

Samaritans don't even allow him in their city because he's heading to Jerusalem. And his disciples want to rain down judgment of fire upon the city, and Jesus has to rebuke them.

You see, we can twist these scriptures to see that perhaps we shouldn't focus on judgment.

Perhaps it shouldn't be something that we look to define the beauties of Christ. But again, this would be a mistake.

If our aim is to find the beauty of Christ in all of his works, in all that it touches, the tragedy behind falling on this side of the ditch is that we will not be enjoying this aspect of his beauty.

But there's another side of the ditch, isn't there? Of past generations.

There's another side of the ditch of fire and brimstone preaching of another generation.

As in the 50s and 60s and 70s, as we saw American moralism go down the tank, we saw the rise of fire and brimstone preaching of an obsession of God's judgment.

And even on this side of the ditch, there is great error. I remember early in my ministry, an older gentleman wanted to talk with me in my office about my preaching.

And he wanted to know where I learned to preach and what I'm trying to do in my preaching.

And he made it very clear to me he really misses the old time fire and brimstone, he called it, preaching of declaring

God's judgment and hammering the pulpit and even perhaps getting angry as you do it. And it was interesting,

I took it, I wanted to be respectful. But I quickly got to what his condition, his spiritual condition was.

And it became very clear that this man was living in sin, unrepentant sin. And he was okay with it.

And I remember saying in a very, I tried to say it kindly, but I said more or less to him, perhaps the fire and brimstone preaching should begin in your own heart.

And the problem with that is that oftentimes when we fall on that side of the ditch, we love righteousness, but it's not

God's righteousness we love, but it's rather our own standard of righteousness. And so there are ditches to fall on, but there is a middle way in which the beauties of Christ is found truly in his judgment.

Because to be honest with you, if we look at scripture, we see it being beautiful.

Have you ever noticed in Revelation the songs of worship in that book?

You notice there's songs of worship throughout the whole book of the Revelation to John. And what do they talk about often?

They worship God in light of his judgment that is happening. And so we see that in scripture there is an aspect in which the judgment of God is something that we fear and something that we see that we are working towards getting people out of, but there's also an aspect of scripture where it is very beautiful and celebrated and he is worshiped in light of it.

There is a middle road that we must walk in this topic.

So the question I'm asking here is how do we see the beauty of Christ and his judgment and avoid the ditches?

We need to answer this question. We need to know the point of judgment in itself. Why is there judgment?

And by knowing the point, we'll see why it's beautiful. Why does God judge? What is the point of it?

God's judgment is God's way to get rid of the ugly of the sin and place beauty in its stead, and that is righteousness.

God's judgment, the whole point of it, is to make creation perfectly beautiful once again by ridding the earth of sin.

That is the point of judgment, is to make things beautiful totally again.

See, something is beautiful when it's a manifestation of what

God is. You understand that? Something is objectively beautiful when it manifests who

God is. And what do we call that? Righteousness. When it is void of sin and it has righteousness, when it manifests who

God is, that makes something beautiful. Something is ugly when it corrupts the manifestation of who

God is, and that, beloved, is called sin. So the work of Jesus in a world that has gone ugly through sin is to make it beautiful through righteousness.

And he does it through judgment. You cannot talk about the beauties of Christ and his work without talking intimately about judgment.

We must know judgment in order to know Jesus. So the person who avoids

God's judgment or mentions it with a blush does not love Christ's righteousness enough, and he does not hate the twisting of it.

Again, the one who is afraid to mention the judgment of Jesus, judgment of God, or blushes or tries to avoid it, is because they do not love the purity, the holiness of Christ.

The person who loves fire and brimstone preaching and is obsessed with a version of God's judgment really just loves his own version of righteousness, and he does not love the version of true righteousness.

We, as God's people, will avoid the ditches by seeing

Christ's judgment as a blessed means to establish the beauty of righteousness forever.

Again, we, as God's people, as we enjoy the middle road, we'll avoid the ditches by seeing

Christ's judgment as a blessed means to establish the beauty of righteousness forever.

So let's see this. Let's see the beauty of Christ's judgment in the believer and in the unbeliever, both in this life and the next.

So let's start with the beauty of judgment in this life and the believer. Turn with me to Isaiah 53.

Turn with me to Isaiah 53. Let's see the beauty of Christ's judgment on display,

God's judgment on display, in the believer in Isaiah 53.

The Gospel of Isaiah, verse 4.

Surely Christ has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteem him stricken, smitten by God.

He was smitten, he was stricken by God and afflicted.

He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon Christ was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

See, all we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every way to his own way, and Yahweh has laid on Christ the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.

Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shears is silent, so Christ opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?

And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man and his death.

Although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth, yet it was the will of Yahweh to crush him.

He was put to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring.

He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied.

By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoiled with the strong.

Because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.

What's going on there, beloved? There's our Lord Jesus Christ taking on your sin to make you righteous.

He's doing away with your sin to make you righteous. He is taking the judgment of God for you to make you righteous so that beauty may reign in you.

You see, judgment works here, doesn't it? The beauty of Christ is found in judgment and the fact that he takes judgment for you if you believe upon Jesus.

Judgment is interlaced with grace, with Christ, because he has taken sins for you.

We don't have time, but we could go to Romans 3, 21 through 26, and see how he is the propitiation.

He is the one who has taken the anger of God against sin and the ugliness, and he's taken it upon himself so when he sees you, he sees righteous beauty.

We have a wonderful Savior who justifies his people and makes them righteous before God.

The believer in his justification is judged, and the penalty falls on Jesus.

Then, this is seen practically in his progressive sanctification as he grows after the image of the one who bore their sin.

Turn with me to Philippians 3. Turn with me to Philippians 3. See, not only do we see judgment in the believer's life, in this life here, through justification as we believe upon Jesus, and your sins are placed upon Christ in judgment.

As Christ bears your judgment, but also your sins through progressive sanctification is brought to Jesus, and you start and you begin to look more and more like him.

Look at what Paul says in Philippians 3, 7 through 11. He says, That I may know

Christ and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.

Do you understand that? When you're justified and you're found in Christ, now your goal is to become like him in his death.

His death is the judgment he received for your sins. And we want to now, in our progressive sanctification, to become like him in his death.

That by any means possible, I may attain to the resurrection of the dead. And so we participate in the judgment that Jesus received on the cross by dying to our sins and living unto

Christ. And so in our progressive sanctification, the judgment of Christ is on display as we grow in holiness.

The beauty of Christ is on display in you as you turn away from your sin and you show his righteousness.

In your progressive sanctification. Behold the beauty of Christ's judgment in the believer to take away the ugly of your sin to make you beautiful.

You see, it was this sort of progressive sanctification, this sort of constantly bringing your sins to Jesus so it can be judged and he can pay that penalty so you can begin and you progressively look like him.

It was that sort of beauty of judgment that the fire and brimstone guy wanted nothing to do with it.

He wanted his own standard of righteousness that he abided by perfectly and he just wanted to lay it out on other people.

But whenever he considered his own life, he did not want to conform to the image of Jesus at all.

But you see, our delight is that we would constantly go to the one who bore our reproach and we would gain his righteousness and justification and also we would look like it through progressive sanctification.

Now, how does the judgment of Christ look like for the unbeliever in this life?

You see, if you haven't caught on because I'm not always the best speaker, is that our sin as believers are dealt with in this life.

Now, what does that look like for the unbeliever though? Look at Romans 1, 18 through 32. Very interesting to see the contrast being played out before us.

Romans 1. For the believer, his sin is dealt with.

Justification altogether and then progressively through progressive sanctification. Sin is being rooted out both objectively and practically in our life.

But what does it look like for the unbeliever? Well, look at Romans 1, 18.

In order to do such a thing, you must be insane or dead in your sins. But what does

God do with those people? It's interesting. Verse 24,

God gave them up in their lusts of their hearts. What does that mean? His wrath is revealed to them by saying, you want to live in filth and not honor me as God?

I'm going to give you up in it. See, part of God's wrath is to give people up in their sin to show just how insane it is to substitute glorifying

God and his righteousness for goofy, silly things. He gives them up to it.

It says in verse 24, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. They could honor

God with their bodies. Instead, they're going to dishonor him. Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

Amen. And once more, for this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.

You know how beautiful it is to show Christ and his relationship with the bride by a healthy marriage?

We would give it up for lesbianism or a gay relationship? What kind of ugliness is that?

But God, in his wrath, gives them up to their passions. And the men, likewise, gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with a passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error.

I could make a political statement there about some current events, but I won't. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge

God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.

They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Though they know God's righteous decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but approve those who practice them.

What's the point there? It's that God allows them, gives them up to the impurity of it to show just how ugly it is to deny his righteousness.

He doesn't rid the sin right away. You see, in the believer, what is he doing?

He's ridding the sin out of you. Through justification, through progressive sanctification, he's bringing it out with the unbeliever.

In his wrath, he gives them up to it. The ugly is showcased, and the beauty is showcased in the church.

See that contrast work in there? Why does he do that? See, with the beauties of Christ's judgment in this life, in the believer is seen in him ending our sin, both objectively and practically.

To the unbeliever, it is seen in him giving them up to it in his wrath.

Why? Why does he do that? Why does he do it that way?

Why not end it all totally now? Because God loves to express himself by contrast.

Have you ever noticed that? God loves to show who he is by contrast.

He loves it. And what are we? We are the contrast of the ugliness of unrighteousness, aren't we?

That's what we should be. God displays the nastiness, gives it up, so that he can say, and look at the beauties of those

I make righteous in Jesus. I, same judgment, work in both ways.

John 1 -5, Dale quoted it earlier, the light shines in the darkness.

Can I say this? The light shines best in the darkness. Matthew 5, 14 -16,

Jesus says that we're the light of the world to shine and glorify our Father. God loves to display his beauty in the contrast.

So as the world in their wickedness is given up to unrighteousness, he is creating a beautiful righteous bride to be that wonderful contrast.

Behold, the beautiful contrast of unrighteousness on display in the world through judgment with the righteousness on display in the church through judgment.

The beauty of judgment, that is it in this world. But look at the beauty of judgment in the next life, in the unbeliever first.

And I'm going to try to go through these quickly because I can hear your stomach starting to grumble. But look at Revelation 20.

Look how judgment is then portrayed in its beauty and what's coming in the future.

Look at Revelation 20, verse 11. John tells us what he sees in the

Revelation. First, the unbeliever and the beauty of judgment in the next life.

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence, earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them.

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life.

And the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done.

And the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done.

Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.

And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

So what do we see happen to unrighteousness and sin there? We see it banished.

We see God give him up to it in this life, but we see that there is coming a day in his beautiful judgment that he will banish it forever in eternal hell.

But what about the believer? What do we experience? Well, look, going on in Revelation 21, then

I saw a new heaven and a new earth. You see, that new heaven and new earth is only possible whenever God judges the sin.

And so with sin finally judged and done away with, banished forever in judgment and wrath, then he says,

I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, and this might be the most beautiful sentence in all of Scripture, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their

God. God does not dwell with ugliness. And here we see a new heavens and a new earth, and the bride of Christ is welcomed to be with God forever.

God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

And he who was seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. Also he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.

And he said to me, It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, to the thirsty I will give from the spring of the waters of life without payment.

The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God, and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, the murderous, sexual and immoral, the sorcerers and adulterers, and all the liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

Behold, the beauty of Christ's judgment by banishing the ugly of sin forever and providing a place where only righteousness dwells in all its beauty, and beloved, if you believe upon Jesus, you are there too.

This is our hope, that we would behold the beauties of Christ in all his glory in the eternal state, as unrighteousness is judged forever.

So in conclusion, we need to behold the rising sun, the beauty of Christ receiving

God's judgment in his death and resurrection. Behold the golden hue, color of the rising sun, the beauty of you looking progressively more like Jesus by this judgment.

As the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexual and immoral, the murderers, the adulterers, and those who love and practice falsehood are used by God to display the beauty of Christ in contrast.

Behold the rising sun of Christ's final judgment, where the golden hue of righteousness marinates the landscape into eternity as unrighteousness is banished forever and we dwell with Christ in righteousness because of him receiving our judgment.

Let us enjoy the beauty of Christ's judgment as it is seen in both his wrath and his grace.

Beloved, he is wonderful and wonderfully to be praised. Praised be to our great

God and King. God in heaven, I'm thankful for your judgment.

Lord, we know that you cannot blink, or you cannot wink at sin. You cannot smile at it or giggle at it like sinners, even us, like to do sometimes.

Lord, you hate sin. You hate sin so much that you crushed your son because of it.

And I'm so thankful that as I look upon the judgment that he received, I see my judgment in him.

Lord, that I don't have to face my sin and the full weight of it in which I would be damned to hell forever, but instead the people of God can see that their judgment was placed on him.

He was crushed for our iniquities so that righteousness may shine in us. Lord, we know that we live in this age where there is much unrighteousness.

But we see that you use that to show just how beautiful righteousness is. But Lord, we know that we can go to the unbeliever and say you need to believe upon Jesus so you can be made righteous too.

And so may we have a desire to proclaim your judgment and your grace nestled up with it so that people may be saved.

But Lord, I pray that we would also, as we see in the book of Revelation, yearn for the time when there is no more sin, both in ourselves and also around us, so that all we have is the beauty of Christ and his righteousness.

Lord, I pray that you would give us a heart that longs for that day. But let us show our longing for that day in the way that we proclaim

Christ today, both to ourselves, to our family, to our neighbors, to everyone who needs to hear that they can be found righteous in Christ today if they would only believe.

May we have such a heart for the gospel and his beautiful judgment. May we have such a heart for Jesus and may we see him as the one who is worthy of so much praise.

may we give it to him more and more each day. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.