Care What God Thinks | Sermon 11/10/2024

Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.

In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy. But to me, it is a very small thing that I may be examined by you, or by any human court.

In fact, I do not even examine myself. For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not acquitted by this.

But the one who examines me is the Lord. Therefore, do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the

Lord comes, who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness, and disclose the motives of men's hearts.

And then, each man's praise will come to him from God.

Thus ends the reading of God's holy and magnificent Word. Let's pray once more as a church as we approach the

Scriptures today. God, I ask that You would open these

Scriptures to Your people. Lord, You would make us to know the meanings of these words.

God, that we would not only have knowledge of them, but that we would apply them throughout our lives.

God, that there would be something here tangible we can grasp onto and take with us,

Lord, and use it in our sanctification. God, that we would see things about You here that would make us marvel.

God, if You need us to repent of certain things, help us to repent. Convict us.

God, if some of us need to be encouraged, edify us, build us up today. Lord, help us to know what this means about the judgments and human courts and all these things, dear

God. God, please, open Your Word to us today by Your Spirit. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.

Well, I am going to introduce basically what we've been going over thus far this whole time since we started in August.

We've seen a lot of different topics in the first letter to the Corinthians, but they've all had one major thread going through all of them.

The biggest thing, of course, we've seen is the faction making, right? The groups.

The segregating. I follow this person. I follow that person. And then Paul used himself and he used

Apollos and he used Peter as demonstrations or examples of the fact that people have been making separate groups.

We also have been talking about the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God that we have access now to the wisdom of God.

The Corinthians have been still lingering over and longing over the wisdom of the world.

They've been surrounded by Greek philosophers. People who argue in the marketplace or at the

Areopagus. They are interested in those sort of things and they've seen the wisdom of the world and they haven't let it go.

Eventually, Paul said that we are God's fellow workers, fellow farmers, fellow servants.

He said we are God's field. We're the wheat on the field. Then he said we are God's building.

God's building. In fact, all those things, factions and divisions and unity and wisdom of God, all those things have to do with either building up or tearing down the kingdom of God.

And so, in that division and wisdom and building admonishment, this church planter, the

Apostle Paul, then brought in to this picture the Day of Judgment. We went over that last week.

If you're new here, this has been building on top of these past Scriptures, and so if you're missing some context today,

I encourage you, go back to our YouTube channel and watch the sermon from last week called The Day of Fire.

The Day of Fire. We spoke about the fact that there will be a Day of Judgment and everyone, believer and unbeliever, declared righteous and those unrighteous will be there that day.

Jesus will cause the dead to rise. The living will be caught up in the air with the power of His voice.

And on that day, He will judge the living and the dead. Now believers, we went over that last week, that our works, the things that we do for Jesus, they don't merit salvation.

There's not one thing that you could do and present to God that would give you salvation from Him.

But, now that you are a believer, now that you've been changed, now that you've been saved, it says in Ephesians 2 .10

that we are His workmanship, creating Christ Jesus unto good works, that He prepared beforehand that we would walk in them.

And so there's all these things that you're going to do, that I'm going to do as a believer. There are going to be deeds.

There are going to be works. There are going to be things that we offer to God. And in the text last week, we saw that on that day, those things have been built with gold, they've been built with silver, they've been built with precious metals, stones, but they've even been built with straw and hay, wood, things that are flammable, things that can burn up.

And Paul said on that day, everything will be revealed. We talked about how we don't even know how it will look or how it will work, but somehow, my works, your works, will be presented before God, and they will be revealed for what they really are.

And there were things that you and I have done that we've done for ourselves. Things that we've done in sin, but they looked holy.

They looked righteous, right? But then there are things that we've really done for Jesus. Things that really honored

Him. Things that He prepared beforehand that we walk in them. And he says that all that fire, that holy fire, will come upon those works.

And boom, what we did in sin will burn up and what we did in righteousness will remain.

And we talked about the fact that there will be some sort of reward. And he's gonna mention that again today.

What are these rewards on the day of judgment for believers? But the biggest thing that I hope you took away from last week was that the context was two believers.

Two types of believers. A believer who has some works that burn up. A believer who has some works that don't burn up.

But he says the one who has his works burned up will be saved.

Will be saved. So we weren't in a context of unbeliever, believer. It was believers.

He said, and that one will be saved, yet so as through fire. We talked about what does that mean that a believer will have his works burn up and he'll be saved yet so as through fire.

He's saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. But it's kind of like the image of Lot and Abraham running away from the city of Sodom.

They're running, they're running and they were told not to look back. We know who looks back, right? But they were running from the city and burning sulfur was coming down from heaven and demolishing and burning up the city of Sodom.

And you can better believe that Lot, although not as righteous as Abraham, he still was saved.

God allowed Lot and his family to be saved. His wife looked back. She turned into a pillar of salt.

But in that moment, Lot, you can better believe it. He smelled like sulfur.

He smelled like smoke. And so that's the image we have. I wanted to remind you, what did we cover last week?

The day of judgment for believers because we've had this idea that okay,

God's going to raise the living and the dead. Jesus is going to say rise. And all those who are in the graves will rise and reconstitute.

Those who have died in space will reconstitute and come down. Those who have drowned at sea will rise up out of the water.

And those who are still living on the earth, when Jesus says rise, His voice will be so powerful, rise.

The dead will rise, but even the living will float in the air for a moment and meet the Lord and come down.

And so all of a sudden, everyone will be resurrected and will have this moment of judgment.

But we've always thought as believers, okay, believers get over there.

You guys got to pass. You're just fine. Get over there. It's time to now judge the unbelievers.

Now, the day of judgment will be a horrific day for those who are not saved.

But then, we talked about that day of fire when our works as believers will be exposed.

So, check that out in our text from last week if you want more context. But basically now, what we're getting into are continued reiterations of those very same topics.

Wisdom, division, and even judgment. This is kind of a mixed bag today for the

Apostle Paul. And you might be asking, when is this going to change? We've been talking about division, faction, wisdom, and judgment.

When is this going to change? Well, at the end of this chapter, at the end of chapter four, beginning into chapter five, we will finally move on to something new.

You see, Paul's not done. Paul in his letter, this poor Corinthian church, there's a list of things he needs to address.

The very next thing in chapter five we'll be going over is the man who had sexual relations with his father's wife.

So we're going to be going over sexual immorality very soon here. And so that's when this will change.

But before then, before we get into that, let's keep marching through the text. Look at verses 18 -21 in your

Bible or in your printout. Once again, it says, let no man deceive himself.

If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish so that he may become wise.

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God, for it is written, he is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness.

And again, the Lord knows the reasonings of the wise that they are useless. So then, let no one boast in men.

So, the consequences of tainted works and self -seeking leadership in the factions were shown in the previous section.

What will happen to these things? They will be revealed and burned up. So for that reason, let no one deceive himself.

You may fool yourself and even others around you for a time, but you will never fool God. We will not fool

God. Some truly believe that they're building with gold, but they're actually building with stubble.

It's just falling. And worse than that, we saw in verse 17 that God would destroy anyone who tried to destroy

His temple. He said, you are the temple of God. And for that reason, you're holy. And He says that if anyone tries to destroy the temple of God, I will destroy him.

That's what the Lord said in verse 17 through the Apostle Paul. And so, what was

His temple? His people. You and I. We're His temple.

And this is what's frightening. There are literally some people out there who believe they're constructing

God's building on the foundation of Christ, but they are actually deceived. They are trying to tear it down, but they don't even know it.

They don't even know it. Paul was a premier example of that, was he not?

When you think of the Apostle Paul, he said that in Acts 26, he was hostile to the name of Christ.

He said he locked up saints. He pursued them from city to city. He even gave his judgment on some of them in trial that they would be put to death.

Yeah, he deserves to be executed. He gave his vote that some should die.

He pursued Christians with rage. He thought he was defending the building of God.

He thought he was defending the temple of God, but he actually found himself laying siege against it.

He was trying to destroy it. And this can happen in far more subtle ways than this.

The self -deceived person who thinks they have true wisdom will often find themselves at odds with the wisdom of God.

There are whole groups that have said that they are Christian, but they deny the crucifixion and the resurrection.

That's true. There are actual people who say, I follow Christ. But no,

I don't believe that Jesus was crucified in such a way where the wrath of the

Father was placed on Him for me. I think Jesus was a great example. He was a great rabbi.

He was a great teacher. And we should follow His example. But there was no atonement. There was no propitiation.

That all just comes from superstitions back in Leviticus and Exodus when they sacrificed animals.

No, the wrath of God for you and me wasn't poured out on His only Son. It was just a murder.

Jesus was murdered by His contemporaries. He was too revolutionary for the time.

There are some people who believe that. But according to this word, that is straight foolishness.

That is complete foolishness. What did Paul say? Paul said, we have the mystery of God.

What did he define the mystery of God as? He said the mystery of God is Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Not because a man died on a cross, but because the Son of God took on our sin on that cross.

He bore our sins. He made propitiation for them. He did what the blood of bulls and goats could never do.

He actually, once for all, in His sacrifice, paid for the sins of a people innumerable.

That's the wisdom of God. But if any man thinks he is wise in this age, with the wisdom of this age, he must become foolish to become wise.

You know, you see that a lot, right? You often have to pursue the opposite of what the world does to become what

God wants. You know, if the world says this is how you can be sacred, and you go after that, you'll find yourself desacralized.

If the world says this is how you become holy, you'll often find yourself, if you pursue what the world says is holy, you'll find yourself profane.

The world says this is how you become pure. Do this. You'll purify yourself this way.

You'll find yourself impure. It's the opposite. That's why you and I have to find society's wisdom as foolishness to truly become wise.

And what you and I have thought before we were saved, or even now, if some things seem foolish in Scripture, you must see them as wise.

You must see them as wise. Now before the all -knowing and all -powerful and all -good

God, the wisdom of the world is foolishness. It's, as I told you in the

Greek, moros. That's where we get the word moronic. The wisdom of the world is moronic,

Paul says. And to emphasize the superiority of God's wisdom over man's,

Paul will quote from Job 5 .13 to prove his point. That's what he does right here.

If you look in your printout or in your Bible, you see the all caps there? That's a quote from the Old Testament.

That's from Job 5 .13. And so in the context of Job 5, you have not

Job speaking, you don't have God speaking. You know who's speaking in Job 5 .13? It's Eliphaz.

The Temanite. One of the so -called friends of Job. Do you guys remember?

Have you read the book of Job in a while? If you remember the book of Job, he had these several friends who thought they knew what

God's counsel was, but they didn't actually know the hidden counsel of God. And so what

Job's friends kept saying was, you're not righteous before God, Job.

The only reason that your family is dead, the only reason that you've lost everything and all your house and your servants is because you've sinned.

They said that's how God works, Job. And Job kept going, but I haven't sinned against God.

I know I haven't. I've examined myself. And Job kept arguing, I haven't done anything.

But his friends are like, no, no, no, no. There's no way. You've done something.

You've sinned. And so, that's why you've had all this come upon you. But if you remember behind the scenes, the heavenly vision, the heavenly court.

Do you remember? Satan was going about to and fro all over the earth. This is

Job 1 -2. Read it later if you'd like. And what's interesting is, Satan doesn't look at Job and go, well, look at him.

He's righteous. I bet you if you let me do things to him,

Job will curse your name, God. But actually, it was God. God said, hey, Satan, look at my faithful follower.

He loves me. He serves me. He's blameless in the land. I love my servant,

Job. And Satan goes, yeah, well, I bet you that if you do this and this and this,

Job will curse your name. Job will curse you. And that's what's behind the scenes in Job 5.

And so, quoting this is irony in the highest degree.

Why? Because the Lord is the One who catches the wise in their so -called craftiness.

That's what Eliphaz says. Eliphaz, who doesn't know the truth, says,

Job, God will catch the one who's acting wise in their so -called craftiness.

Well, that's you! That's you, Eliphaz. Eliphaz was acting wise, but he was actually foolish.

His very statement condemns him. Therefore, Paul quotes Eliphaz in Job 5 to show that no matter what seems wise, no matter what seems logical, no matter what,

God is the only One who is truly wise. He is all wisdom. The Lord's always right.

Always right. Paul then moves from there and shows the supremacy of God's wisdom again by quoting

Psalm 94. And this is a psalm that is about the people of God imploring the

Lord that He would have vengeance for His people.

That He would help those who are being afflicted by the unbelieving world. Psalm 94 starts out,

God, help us. The people of the world, the sinners, they're coming against Your people.

And then the psalmist quotes, he does like a false quote of the people of the world.

And the people of the world in this psalm say, the

Lord doesn't see what we do. The Lord has no knowledge. The Lord pays no heed to what we do to You.

They say we can do whatever we want. God is none the wiser. But the psalmist corrects the people of the world who thinks they can do anything to God's people and get away with it.

The psalmist continues in verses 8 -11 in Psalm 94, Pay heed, you senseless among the people, and when will you understand, stupid ones?

He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see?

He who chastens the nations, will he not rebuke? Even he who teaches man knowledge, the

Lord knows the thoughts of man that they are a mere breath. And that last line is the quote that Paul just gave reference to.

The Lord knows the thoughts of man they are a mere breath. That is to say, they are useless.

No one can catch God by surprise. Not a soul can say gotcha to God.

Nothing we do is hidden from His sight. No words go unheard by the

One who made ears. Nothing goes away from His eyesight from the

One who made eyes. The Lord knows the grand thoughts of wise men.

They are useless. So case in point, Paul's saying don't trust in men's wisdom.

It is folly. Don't even trust yourself. Trust in God. And that's why he ends this thought in the first part of verse 21.

So then, let no one boast in men. Boasting in men has been the sin of the

Corinthian church. They've been boasting in men, and that's led to elevating men. And elevating men has been leading to dividing men and women and making factions.

And then dividing men and women has led to corrupt men. And that can lead to works being burned up by men on the final day by God.

And worse, Paul's warning, it hasn't gotten to this yet, but Paul warns, boasting in men can then lead to not just those things, but it can lead to certain men seeking to tear down what

God is building. There are men who have thought they've been doing a work for God in God's wisdom, in God's blessing, but they've been trying to tear down what

He has built. Paul then says something remarkable here. Look at the end of verse 21 to verse 23.

Look at this. For all things belong to you, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come.

All things belong to you and you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God. According to one theologian, this phrase, all things belong to you, was something that the

Corinthians learned from the philosophers of their day. They heard it from the

Stoics. And so Greeks appealed to this phrase to affirm human self -sufficiency and mastery over all circumstances.

All things belong to us, they would say. We are masters of our own design.

We know all things. All things are to us. All things belong to us.

But Paul uses this phrase in a way that they would have never thought. Paul uses this phrase to affirm a total dependence on God.

Not independence from God. A dependence on God. He says, you have what you need.

Your portion is in Christ. It's in God. You don't need the things of men.

Nor can you acquire all things by men. Quit seeking things from the world of men.

Quit wanting what the world has to offer. You have all things. All things belong to you.

You know, it's like being the wealthiest man in the world and still going to the landfill to go through trash to see if you can find anything of worth, right?

Why are you, you have treasure. You're rich. You have the wisdom of God. Why are you going back to things that don't matter, right?

It reminds me of one of those shows where, what is it? Cheapskates or something like that.

People who are actually doing very well with money but their frugality has gotten to the point of an idol and they literally make their children eat from trash cans, some of them, not all of them.

Or they don't wanna run the dishes but they don't even wanna use the water. So they collect the bath water after they take a shower and they use the bath water to wash their dishes.

It's absurd. It's insane. It's disgusting. I see your faces. But that's what they do in this show.

Some of these people go that far and that's what that would be doing as Christians. We have access to the wisdom of God.

And he says, Corinthians, you're going back to the bath water, right? You're going back to the landfill.

Stop. Don't go there. Don't go there. All things belong to you.

And did you notice he mentions himself? He says himself,

Apollos and Cephas again, he said, Paul says, we belong to you. We belong to you.

You see, the church is not the property of the apostles but the apostles belong to the church.

In fact, he says, they're servants of the church. They're servants of the church. He says, we're yours.

So you don't need to say, oh, I belong to Paul. And then this group says,

I belong to Apollos. This group says, I belong to Cephas. I belong to Peter. He says, you don't need to say that.

We all belong to you. We all belong to you. Everything belongs to you.

We aren't even belonging to life in such a way that this life is all we get.

He says, in life and death. We don't belong to death as though death could keep us from eternal life.

We aren't enslaved to the present. We aren't enslaved to even the future. We don't belong to all things.

All things belong to us, he says, but not because we're unique or special or powerful or wise.

All things belong to you, church, because we belong to Christ and Christ to God.

And Christ's name here is in the genitive form. I always tell you the genitive form means possession.

We belong to Christ. We are his possession. And so you can imagine that if all authority in heaven and on earth was given to Jesus in Matthew 28, and if you can imagine that in Psalm chapter two, the nations were given to Jesus as the son of God, as his inheritance.

And if you can imagine in Daniel chapter seven, when the son of man goes up to the ancient of days and to him was given a kingdom, an everlasting dominion, if those things belong to Jesus and all things belong to us, and we belong to Christ, then he will share those things with us.

We have access to those things because of him. He freely gives to us. And when you think about why

Jesus received these things, you remember it's because his whole life was an image of obedience and glory to his father.

In fact, this verb belongs to also means to live to. Christ lives to the father.

Christ lives to God. It means he lives to bring him glory. And so for us to live to Christ, who lives to the father, means we are to be marked by similar obedience and glory to our

Lord just as he was. And we see that especially in the servant and steward language of verses one and two in chapter four.

Go there, go to chapter four in first Corinthians. The apostles started out appealing to the

Corinthians, let no man deceive himself, let no man boast in men, let no man do this, let no man do that.

Now, in verse one of chapter four, he says what a man should let happen.

What should a man let happen? Right here, verse one and two. Let a man regard us in this manner as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy.

So this is how we ought to think and consider men and women of God. And when he says regard us in this manner, he's not actually talking about just himself and Apollos and Peter, but everyone who belongs to Christ.

Let us regard ourselves in this way as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

Let's not regard ourselves in the way the Corinthians have been elevating certain leaders and creating factions.

We are servants. Now the word servant here in the Greek is literally under rower.

Under rower. And these were the type of men who rode the oars in the war galley of a

Roman ship. They were on the bottom and they were rowing. It's time to charge.

It's time to go pursue. And they would beat the drum and the men would row to the rhythm of the drums.

Servant here is an under rower. And this makes sense. This makes sense because we live to serve

Christ. We live to do what the Master tells us to do. But also, what's important here is this isn't the word doulos.

The word doulos in the Greek, although we are slaves to Christ, we are doulos for Christ.

This word servant brings a different connotation. This word servant or under rower can sometimes mean that this person didn't do this by compulsion.

Some men chose to be in this position. They chose to be a servant.

They freely went into this position in the warship. And so that's the idea we have.

Is that Jesus is Lord. He can order us around. He can tell us what to do. But it's not just that we're forced.

We have a desire. We want to do these things. He can tell us what to do.

We will do things for Christ even if it means being a lowly assistant or an under rower or a common servant.

We will render service for our Master. We will do works for Him in His name and not ourselves.

We are servants, He starts out. Servants of Christ. Then He says we are the stewards of the mysteries of God.

Stewards. You know stewards were not the master of the house, but the manager of the house for the

Master. They have delegated authority and responsibility. We work for the

King while on earth. And I've told you before this word steward and the concept of stewardship.

You guys know I like J .R .R. Tolkien. I like his books. I think of the fact that you had the steward of Gondor, Denethor.

He was a weak man. He was a poor steward. But if you get the image in the book,

The Lord of the Rings and Return of the King, you get the image of the steward. Well, there were two thrones.

There was a throne with steps where the main throne of the king was high up.

But then the steward's throne was at the bottom. Common at the same level of regular people.

And so in that book, in that series, Denethor, the steward of Gondor, he's not the real king.

He doesn't have the line of the king, but he's down at the bottom throne. No one, no one is allowed to take the throne of the king.

And you get that image of stewardship. Paul says we're servants. We're lowly.

We do all things for Christ, our master. Then we get the image that, OK, we might be stewards though, but we're not at all like the master.

We're not at all like the king. We're at ground level. We're with you. We're all one with this.

We're not like him. He he's otherly. He is different. He is the king. And so as stewards,

God has allowed us to manage, deliver and administrate over the mysteries of God.

I told you again, the chief mystery of God was what? Jesus Christ and him crucified.

And that seems to be one of the stewards directives we are to distribute as stewards the mystery of God to others.

That means send out the gospel treasure. As stewards, we send out the gospel.

Now, the stewards are not the treasure. They're not the owner of the treasure. But stewards get to see and handle the treasure.

And in our case, as stewards of the mysteries of God, when we distribute this treasure, we get to benefit from this treasure.

We benefit from the gospel, but we also give it out. We give it out freely.

OK. And so we have multiple terms here. Servants, stewards.

Before, two weeks ago, it was farmhands, the water boy, the plow boy, common servants and co -workers.

These are terms that depict submission roles, submission roles of the leaders or architects of God's building.

And so what's Paul trying to do with saying this? These words, this language flies in the face of the

Corinthians who held men in such high regard. It's almost like they worshiped men.

They kept holding men in fleshly esteem. He said, we belong to you.

You don't belong to us. I'm not over you. Paul says, I'm not over you. Peter's not over you. We're not popes over the church.

We're not kings. There's one king. There's one vicar of Christ.

It's Christ Himself. He's the leader of the church. He says, we're all the same.

We're all the same in that sense. Excuse me. And so that's what's going on here.

We belong to you. We're here for you. And Christians are there for each other. We belong to each other. Unity contains with it mutual submission to one another and to Christ.

This is radically different from the world the Corinthians lived in and the world we live in now.

To be in submission to one another. No, I'm an American. I do what I want.

I do whatever. Government can't tell me what to do. Parents can't tell me what to do. I'm a rebel, right?

There's probably a Tom Petty song out there about rebellion as being an American. You know, we're rebels.

But he says you must be trustworthy. This word is pistos in the

Greek means faithful. You must be faithful to be a steward. You must be faithful to be a servant.

You must be faithful to obey the master, to seek out his wishes. And so the point is.

If this is how Paul sees himself, if this is how he sees the other apostles and leaders in the church who delivered the mysteries of God as servants, as stewards, to just be faithful.

Then these believers, these Corinthian believers need to stop treating their leaders, their faction leaders in a different way.

They need to see their leaders in the same way that Paul is demonstrating himself now.

And so the first step would be to remove the factions. And for the men who are elevating themselves to have humility and to come down off that throne, they need to walk down that throne and take the steward seat because they aren't the king, but they were acting like it.

Paul then finishes his thoughts in our text just as he started stressing the ineptitude of men.

And this time Paul goes after human judges, human judges, just like Job's friends, just like Job's friends.

You and I are not all seeing. We're not all knowing. You and I don't always see the full picture.

That happened to me even this week. I had to repent to someone. I'm sorry. I assumed.

I thought I knew the full picture, but I don't. I need to make sure

I'm in check with that. But go to verses three through five, our final verses of the morning.

But to me, it is a very small thing that I may be examined by you or by any human court.

In fact, I do not even examine myself, for I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted.

But the one who examines me is the Lord. Therefore, do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the

Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts.

And then each man's praise will come to him from God. So we talked about it.

There is the God who will examine our work and he will examine the wisdom we've been seeking.

It is an insignificant thing for Paul to be examined by the

Corinthians or even examined by any type of human court. And trust me, Paul and his future holds a lot of examination from humans and courts, right?

But none of it matters, he says. Not even his own questioning of himself.

And he's not boasting or making a defense of himself against them. That's not what's happening. Nor is he saying that he never examines himself to see if he's in sin.

Because he'll actually tell them to do that later in the letter. What he's saying is he is indifferent to the opinion of humans.

He is indifferent to the opinion of humans. He cares only of what

God says of him. And that goes back to the day of fire, the day of judgment. It won't matter how many people patted us on the back during this life.

It won't matter how many people told me great sermon, Pastor Wade. It won't matter.

It won't matter when people tell us, that was a great work that you did. You did so well with that charity.

It won't matter. It won't matter what we've done. It won't matter.

What will burn up? What will remain? What will God say of us?

The true praise or the true reward comes from God. And I've got to make this abundantly clear.

You could read these verses and think the wrong thing. This isn't a passive aggressive statement of Paul.

This isn't some sort of lawless statement like some have said, right? Some will say, you know,

I just don't care what anyone thinks of me. And that statement, I don't care what anyone thinks, is often accompanied with personal sin or failure or anger or pride.

Oh, I don't care what anyone thinks. But when have you heard a man or a woman say, you know,

I just don't care who examines me or even praises me unless that one is

God. And imagine that person says that in the midst of someone trying to praise them.

Try to not just say it, but try to be like Paul. Try to be indifferent, indifferent to people's praise of you.

I'm telling you, it is so very difficult. You and I have been conditioned from our youth up to be motivated by praise.

Personal praise. You know, it would be so easy. You might be thinking in your seat, oh,

I could say that. I could say I'm indifferent to the opinion of others. Yeah, you and I could probably say that pretty easy when people are critiquing us.

When people have failed us. When people have negative things to say about us.

I don't care. I care what God says. But I challenge you.

Try to think that way. Oh, I don't care what man thinks. I care what God thinks. Try to think that in a genuine, pure way when people are praising you.

When people are saying you're amazing. Because that's what they were doing for Paul and Apollos and Peter.

Oh, you guys are amazing. That's what they were doing for certain Corinthian men, leaders of factions.

You're the best leader. You're the best pastor. You're the best evangelist. You're the best

Apollos at arguing in the marketplace. You're the best. You're the best. And the temptation is to go, yeah,

I am. Yeah, I am. So try. Try to be indifferent.

Try not to care when someone kisses your hand.

When someone tells you you're the best, I dare you to try not to praise yourself.

You praise God. And we don't just say it in a pious way. Oh, brother, praise the

Lord. Glory to God, right? There's a false, pious way. Hey, that was great.

And I'm not saying that we can't give each other positive feedback. You know, that would be the wrong thing to take away from this.

But again, the important thing is, is what are you thinking when you receive it? It's easy to say

I'm indifferent to the opinions of others. I only care what God says about me when you're being critiqued, when negative feedback is coming to you.

But when you have positive stuff coming to you, will you say, OK, then I appreciate that.

But I care what God has to say about this. Oh, I pray that this is a work that will remain.

I pray this is a work that won't burn up. I pray, Lord, that I actually gave you glory. Let me take none from you,

God. Let me take none away from you, Lord. I'm glad that I have that feedback, because then

I know that it's working in your people. But I'm not affirmed by that. I won't be moved by that,

Lord. I care what you think. I care what you say about me.

I care about that final day when the day of fire comes, and everything will be tested, and everything will be revealed.

And God, I care that you'll say, well done, good and faithful servant, come into the joy of your master.

That's what I care about, Lord. Is that our heart? Is that our mindset?

It's hard. It's hard, you guys. Very hard. As for Paul, the apostle says, good or bad, good or bad, human court, church court, angelic court, whatever they say,

I care about what my God says. You and I ought to be willing to be examined by any court or any person, but as the stewards of the mysteries of God, we are accountable to God, who will examine our building.

It will be tested by fire, and rewards will be dealt. No human institution can improve upon that.

God knows. God knows. Then the apostle says, that I share in the knowledge of no charges that could be brought against me.

No charges. Just as Job was declared blameless, so could

Paul. But he says, this is not the reason that I'm dikayo.

This is not the reason why I'm declared righteous. That's the word, declared righteous. It's not because no one could accuse him.

He's not sinless, nor is it because he could not accuse himself.

He says, I'm aware of no charges brought against me, and I'm not worried about judgment from men or human courts.

It's that the Lord will pass judgment on me. He says, the Lord will pass judgment.

The Lord will pass judgment on us. God questions me. God questions you.

He will examine us. And look, there is a wrong way to take this. I'm telling you,

I have met people who've said they're followers of Christ, and they've said, I'm above your criticism.

I'm sorry. Yeah, I don't need to listen to you, because God judges me.

God judges me, so I don't need to listen to what you say. That would be the wrong way to take this. This is in an ultimate sense.

God will examine us. And so Paul has this spirit -informed confidence that he's doing the right thing as a servant of Christ and steward of the mysteries of God.

He doesn't need to make a statement, why are you judging me? In fact, it's likely if the

Corinthians examined him, they would have found no fault in him. But he says, that doesn't even matter.

That doesn't even matter if you can't find fault in me. God, here it is.

God will not take into consideration the verdict of human institutions.

God will not take into consideration the verdict of humans, even if it's right.

He knows all. He sees all. He knows the motives of the heart. He knows it.

The Lord is above all human judgments. It doesn't hold water with the

Almighty. This is the attitude the Apostle Paul wants us all to have.

And less of what we do would burn up if we did it knowing

God will examine it and not just men and women. Because when we think too hard about our peers examining our works, then they're our motivation.

Then the rewards come from them. Oh, I can't wait for people to praise me for this. You might not be saying that out loud or in your inner monologue, but it's in your subconscious sometimes.

If you do it for men and you receive the praise of men, then you care about men's judgments.

But if you do it for God, and you think about the day of fire when it's presented to God, and when

He hands out rewards, and when He gives a word of love and affirmation, if that's your motivation, you'll do it for God.

And whether people, humans, say good or bad, informally, formally in a court, you did all things knowing

God will see it. God sees it. God examines it. That's the key.

And what God offers is so much better than the rewards of men, okay? So the

Apostle finishes by saying, therefore, don't go passing judgment on one another before the day of judgment.

The human courts are put to shame by the heavenly court. Don't be caught acting wise, like one of Job's friends, who passed judgment on him, but instead were wrong, and they were judged by God for it, and the

Lord knew. The Lord knew. And by that reality, since we don't know the full and hidden counsel of God, all human judgments are imperfect.

That's true. Infallibility belongs to God alone. Inerrancy or without error are in the declarations of the

Almighty, not Wade, not you. I make faulty declarations sometimes.

When we're helping people in the church and I make a decision, I can be wrong, right?

You can be wrong. But God's judgments are always perfect. God has access to what we do not, because the only way that you and me could make a sound, perfect, unfailing, no error judgment is if we knew the hidden counsel.

For that reason, the Lord will do two things on the day of fire. He will bring to light the things hidden in the darkness, things we never knew, and He will disclose, or the word is make visible the motives of the heart.

You and I don't have that. And so the things hidden in the darkness are our fleshly impulses.

It's that program that runs in the background of your mind that is hard to put paws on.

That program that wants to do fleshly things. It's subconscious. It's that program lying in wait to fight against the things of the

Spirit, because there are things that no one, not even your friends, not even your spouse, knows that you and I have done.

But God does. God does. Paul gives the faction leaders in Corinth no escape.

Not even a cloak of false piety or faux righteousness can hide those things.

On that day, when it's shown, you won't be able to say, yeah, but I really thought

I was doing it because I cared about that person. And God will go, here's what you actually cared.

That's unbelievable. Or you did a really good thing in the church or whatever, and He'll say, oh, you thought that wasn't going to burn up?

Here was the motives of your heart when you did that. Here's what you were really hoping for or thinking when you did that so -called righteous thing.

He'll use it. He'll use it sovereignly. But as we talked about last week, they won't remain.

All things will come to light and God will reveal the boulos toncardian. These are the plans, the intentions, the purposes, specifically the desires of the heart, the cardion, the heart.

That is to say, God knows the real you in a way that you don't even know.

God knows the real you in a way that you don't even know yourself.

I think about it this way. If you could get all these bottles of water, you could get water mixed with things, you could get river water, you could get mountain water, you could get all these things, but God knows what they're made up of, right?

Water at its basic element is H2O. That is the precise ratio of two hydrogen atoms with one oxygen.

And when you think about it in that way, God knows your existence formula. He knows exactly what you're made up of.

He knows you better than you know yourself. You don't even know yourself like he does.

Because when you think about it, you know, it's like my vanity.

I don't know if you've ever had this before. Believe it or not, a 38 -year -old man can have some vanity every once in a while.

And I can look in a mirror and twist my neck a certain way and make sure

I get to my good side. I don't know what my good side is. But I can look in the mirror and I can see myself better than I am.

Right? I'm seeing what I want to see. I manipulate. I twist my body the way I want in a mirror.

But when a friend captures a candid picture of you in your moment, in your natural state, you're like, do

I really look like that? Yes, that's how you look to everyone else. But we don't even think about it.

We don't think you're ugly. We don't think you're fat. We don't think anything about you. We think that's you.

But you go, that's not me. No, the mirror you is not you. That's you.

But that's what we do, don't we? We think ourselves different. Photos never look the same for that reason, right?

We also give ourselves more grace and more benefit of the doubt than anyone else.

Do you know that? You give yourself more mercy and more benefit of the doubt than anyone else.

If we gave others as much grace as we gave ourselves, we would be the most loving and forgiving people out there.

We hope people just pour grace on us when we make a mistake. We pray that God would have mercy on us, that people around us would understand.

I didn't mean that, but we don't do that to others. We think the best of ourselves.

We overlook our faults to a fault. And so one day, one day, all these coverings will be ripped off.

Who we are, our existence formula, and our basic elements, who we are and what we've done and what we've thought and why we did it.

We'll be laid bare for God to see. He knows. He knows.

And if that's fearful for you, I understand. But I also want you to know what is completely unfathomable.

What is completely marvelous. What blows my mind in this very moment is

God knowing all that, still decided to save you and me. Unbelievable.

Incredible. Even the things we've done after He saved us.

The things that we have no excuse for. We have access to the wisdom of God now. We have the Spirit of God dwelling in us.

We have no excuse. But He still loves you. He still saved you.

Because even though we're talking about what men and women do, God is not reactive. God never reacts.

God is proactive. He will not redeem us according to our existence formula.

He will not redeem us according to our works. God isn't waiting to see if you'll mess up and go, yeah,

I guess I'm not saving them anymore. No. God decided to save you.

It says God demonstrates His own love for us in that while we were still sinners,

Christ died for us. The Apostle John says in his first letter, we love because He first loved us.

You couldn't do a thing. You couldn't make a single work that could possibly remain until He saved you.

And He was delighted to save you. He was glorified to save you.

And that should change things for you. That should change how we labor for God. Absolutely should.

Well, Paul finally articulates the rewards. We talked about what are the rewards, and I kind of hinted at it.

What are the rewards on the final day? Here it is. For those whose works remain, the ones who sought the honor of man, received praise from men already, their works burn up.

But the one who sought the honor of God, the one who worked for God, will receive, do you see this?

It says a word of praise. Praise comes from God. And not in the kind of doxa is the word.

It's where we get the word doxology. God won't worship us. No, don't take this the wrong way.

This is a loving affirmation. No human, no human court or human judgment can change that truth.

That's on God. Rewards or not, salvation is on God. And so in the end, it's

God's wisdom, it's God's building, it's God's servants, God's mysteries, God's judgments, God's court,

God's reward, God's praise, God's examination, and God's revealing. And if we really held to that every day, that it's all

God, then the bitterness, the division, the selfishness, the jealousy, the strife, the vanity, and this sin wouldn't plague us, okay?

Well, that's the text for today. And I want to admit to you that I kind of struggled with this this week in my preparation.

It wasn't that the Greek was necessarily difficult or the exegesis was hard or the sentence structures were complex, but I struggled with this text this week.

And I struggled because everything seemed to feel so disconnected, like he was moving from one thing to the other to the other, right?

There was no sequence, proper sequence to these things. I struggled, as they say, to see the forest through the trees.

I said, God, what do you want us to learn from this, all these separate things? And I was humbled by the fact, after more prayer and contemplation, that I don't have to know exactly how the

Apostle Paul sequenced this. I don't have to logically wrap my mind around it.

If I've learned anything from this, is that in seeking God's wisdom is that He's just so much higher than me.

And I just need to take the principles as they are for how they've come.

And so that's how I'll finish this. Just four reminders from the text. What should you and I glean from these verses today?

I will just remind us, and that will be sufficient. Number one, don't deceive yourself.

We sin and we struggle and we make idols because we still sometimes seek the wisdom of the world.

Become a fool to the world by seeking the wisdom of God. Put His Word in front of you as much as possible.

Ask the Spirit to teach you. And if you try to be worldly wise, you'll be found out.

Tell Him, God, make my heart such a way that I will seek after You.

And so that is how we care about what God thinks of us.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we love You. We give

You praise. Lord, we don't want to have a fear of that day and that year.

This big judge who will condemn us. We know that Jesus has taken our punishment, that we have been declared righteous by the blood of Jesus Christ.

His perfection has been applied to us as if we're wearing a cloak of righteousness that belongs to Jesus.

It's on us. But Lord, we also don't want to move away from these texts, unmoved, just because there's grace.

So Lord, give us the right balance to think of that day when all things will be laid bare.

God, that we would not want one more thing. We would not want one more thing that would show the cross was necessary.

Not one more sin, not one more motive that was wrong. Some of our proudest moments for the kingdom.

Maybe some of it be the things that burned up and some of the smallest things that we thought were insignificant will be the things that made the biggest difference that will remain.

And so God, humble your people today. Humble myself and help us to consider these words in how we live our lives for Jesus Christ.

I pray this in your name. Amen. All right. Well, we are going to come to the

Lord's table. This is something we do every Sunday here at Apology of Church.

If you are a baptized believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, this table is open to you. You don't necessarily have to be a member here to partake, but you do have to be a follower of Jesus.

And so if you are from a gospel preaching, like -minded church, you have faith in Christ for the forgiveness of sins, please come to the table.