← Lakepointe Church with Josh Howerton
Lakepointe Church with Josh Howerton
What Happens When You Die? These 2 Questions Decide Everything | Run To Win | Pastor Josh Howerton
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Hey, guys, thanks for checking out this Bible teaching. Every week we release a podcast that corresponds to the sermon. It's like a little bit of a deeper dive where we hit some things that didn't make it into the sermon, some theological concepts. We talk about things that are going on in our culture and how to think about them from a biblical perspective. We call that podcast Live Free. An episode releases every Monday that corresponds to the sermon. If you would like to check out Live Free, just go to the Lake Pointe YouTube channel and look for the podcast tab there. We'll see you at Live Free. Now enjoy this Bible teaching. What if God wants to use us right here, right now, to change the world? What if our prayers reached beyond borders? What if our generosity unlocked hope in the darkest places? What if our obedience sent the gospel to the nations? Lakepoint Family, this is who we are. Just dream of what God could do. We step into it together. We've seen churches rise, lives changed and generations transformed. One more prayer answered, one more life restored, one more generation reached. And the best is still yet to come. This is the annual missions offering. This is our chance to believe bigger, to give greater, to go further. All right, all right. That's a lot right there. All right. Hey, man. Good morning, Lake Point family. If you guys got your Bibles, head over to Revelation, chapter 20. Revelation 20. And I do just want to say, man, it's great to be back with y'. All. Got a lot. Got away with the family a little bit last couple weeks. And one thing I do just want to say, man, it was amazing. Got away, hung out with them. That was awesome. But I want to honor her because she's, I think, in this service right now. But we also, me and Jana got to celebrate our 20th anniversary while we were away. That's awesome, man. And so just really. God bless Ms. Jana. God bless Ms. Jana. Well, hey, today we're starting a series that I'm really excited about that's called I like this because I'm, like, competitive by nature. Title of the series is Run to Win, straight from Bible verse. Run to Win is where we're going. And today what I want to do is talk to you about. Here's where I'm going. I want to talk to you about what is going to happen to you the minute that you die. 60 seconds after you die, what's going to happen to you. I'm also going to talk about what's going to happen to you the minute that Jesus returns. I want you to be ready for that moment, and I Want to lead into it like this. Years ago, I heard a story about a young woman whose husband was gravely ill. And they went into the doctor for him to get examined. And as the doctor finished the examination, he was obviously like really concerned about the husband. So the husband was waiting out in the waiting room and he called the wife to come back first so he could speak to her first. And she said, well, you know, how's my husband? And the doctor said, well, his condition's very serious. There is a chance that he can make it, but here's what's gonna have to happen. Your husband needs a life with absolutely no stress whatsoever. Every morning he needs to wake up to a hot breakfast hand prepared by you. Every day, you know, don't start booing yet. Every day, you know, he needs the house to be absolutely spotless. He needs an environment totally conducive to rest. You must never ask him to help with any of the chores. Everything just needs to be spotless. Every evening he needs to come home to a home cooked meal, exactly what he wants. And he needs the house to be spick and span and put in order if he has any desires for intimacy. He needs you to help him with his every need. He needs you to be pleasant at all times. Never bother him with any of your emotions or any of your problems. He needs no stress. And then the doctor said, do this and your husband will live well. The wife went back out to the waiting room and the husband was waiting with bated breath. You know, hey, you know, what did the doctor say? She said, he said, you're going to die. Now let me begin with just a bit of a gear shift. You're going to die. Can I say that to you? You're going to die. Every single person within the hearing of my voice, I am deadly serious. You're going to die 100 years. All new people, you are going to die. And most people live their entire lives never thinking about the fact that they're going to die. And they will come face to face with their maker and asking the question, what's going to happen in that moment? The reason that you never think about that is in the Bible, in the book of Genesis, the second lie that Satan ever told was this lie. You shall not surely die. And that lie lodged itself into the human heart. And so we go throughout our lives careening toward a moment, watch this, where you will die and stand in front of your maker and listen. Only a fool goes through life unprepared for what's inevitable. You are going to Die. I prayed for a 24 year old in our church who got put on hospice care this week. I prayed for a five year old in the lobby last night battling with life threatening cancer. And some of you feel very invincible because of your physical health, your success in life, your financial prosperity. But listen to me, all it takes is one rogue sell and you are months away from meeting your maker. You are going to die. Some of you are like, bro, can't you be more positive? Yes, I'm positive. You're going to die. I'm positive. Okay, so bad news. Now let me give you some good news. Good news, you can be prepared for that moment in such a way that that moment will be the doorway to the greatest glory you ever experience. When you meet your Lord and savior, Jesus Christ and spend your eternity with him, you can be prepared for that moment. So now listen here, listen to me. Some of you guys get confused about this. Listen, my job is not to make you happy. My job is not to help you be successful at life. My job is not even just. My primary job is not even to fix your family. I want to do all those things. My primary job is to prepare you for eternity. Because only a fool goes through life unprepared for what's inevitable. So here's what I'm going to do today. You're going to see why this message sets up the rest of the entire series. What I'm going to do today is explain to you exactly what's going to happen to you 60 seconds after you die and you stand before God. I'm going to show you from the Bible exactly, exactly what's going to happen. And in that moment, you're going to face. I'm going to call it a two question test. Now I want to give attribution, I want to give honor where it's due. I've got a spiritual mentor in Alabama. His name's Pastor Chris Hodges. He was just here a couple weeks ago to pray with me and invest in me. I heard him give some of the framework of this message years ago. And so some of that framework is from him. And it's just, I couldn't say it any better, but this is where we're going. I want you to know the two question test that every single one of us is gonna face someday. And then I want you to know how to pass that test. Now let me show you what I'm talking about here. From the book of Romans. Now here's what I'm getting ready to read. I know this is really Hard to believe when Paul is speaking in this passage. Hard to believe he's speaking to groups of Christians in a church that were arguing with each other. I know y' all would never do that. But this is what he was speaking into, and he was rebuking it in a pretty hard way. And watch what he says. He says you then why do you judge your brother or sister? In other words, why are you focused on them? You ought to be focused on you. Why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat him with contempt? Why are you thinking about what you want to do to them instead of praying about what you can do for them? For we will all stand before. Now watch this. God's judgment seat. You will stand before God's judgment seat. I'm going to show you exactly what's going to happen when you do today. Because it's written. Now watch what's written. As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me and every tongue. Now watch this. Here's what that means. Every knee. Everybody, everywhere. And then every tongue, every language, every tribe, every nation. Listen. Every person from every world religion. What will happen someday? The Bible says in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, the last trumpet will sound. And just as lightning is visible from the east to the west, the Lord Jesus Christ will descend. Everyone everywhere will see him and everyone from every worldview, religion, philosophy and nation. In that moment, they'll go. They will acknowledge God. In that moment, they'll go, oh, my goodness, it was Jesus the whole time. He was God. He was the one. And can I say this to you? You want to be on the right side of that equation when it happens. So this is what it's saying. So then each of us will give an account of ourselves to God. In other words, you're gonna face a test. Now, I wanna prepare you for that test today. I wanna give you an example what I'm talking about here. When I was. I'm, you know, I'm not the smartest guy in the whole world, but, you know, I gotta. I'm not an idiot. I think I got at least a decent head on my shoulders. But when I was growing up, there was a couple subjects where, like, I would think, dude, I got this. And I would feel like I had a mastery of it. I just wouldn't test well on those specific subjects. I'm gonna talk about one of them here in a second. Was it now, by the way, you'll help me with some solidarity? Is there any honesty in the House, somebody else would go, man, I always felt like I had a pretty good grasp on it. I got a good head on myself. I just didn't test well on something. Was anybody else okay? I feel. I love you. Thank you. Thank you. These are my people, okay? Now, on the other hand, there's some people who just seem to test awesome all the time. In fact, where are all the homeschool kids at? Where you at? Where you at, man? All right, now, here's why I have you. I see you back there. Here's why I have you. Raise your hand because you never got a chance to in school. That's why I have you. Raise your hand. Okay, that's it. Now, I like giving them a chance. Now I'm allowed to make that joke. We homeschooled our kids. Get up off me. Don't send me any emails, okay? But there are people who. It's just like, dude, they just test awesome. And I'll be honest. I was always like, can y' all just stay home every now and then? You're messing up the curve for the rest of us and all these things. Well, when I was in college, the hardest. When I was in college, I had an academic scholarship that paid for most of my education. But the little stipulation was I had to keep a 3.0 GPA to keep the scholarship. Now, this is a true story. I had to keep a 3.0. I graduated from Union University with a 3.01 GPA. Listen, man, you tell me what I got to do, and I will do it. That's it. Because my philosophy in college. I'm not saying this is right. I'm just saying it was my philosophy in college was, who's got time for classes when intramural sports are going on? And so I spent a lot of time out there. But here's what happened to me my junior year, I took. It's the hardest class I've ever taken. I took Biblical Hebrew. I don't have time to explain it. Biblical Hebrew is the hardest subject I ever took. There's no vowels in the Hebrew language. The Old Testament's written in Hebrew. And it doesn't read from left to right. It reads from right to left. It's a very, very confusing language. So I got into that class, and my first grades, it was the hardest class I ever took. I got, like, on the first test, C. C. And then I got a D on one. And that had never happened before. And so I was going to lose my scholarship. Now, eventually, somebody told me and only about 20% of you will remember these. Somebody told me that way back in the late 1900s, we had these little blue books that people would take tests in. And, okay, I hear I got some friends out there. And somebody told me that former Hebrew students from my professor, that they would sell their blue books to the bookstore on campus and that sometimes the actual test questions were recorded in those old blue books. So I went and donated plasma and got enough money and went, it's all true. I had an interest in college experience and I went into the bookstore and I bought every single one of them. Every one of them. And now what happened is I wasn't just studying the subject. I was studying the actual questions that I was gonna be asked on the test. And my grades went from like CCD to aaa. And I got the grade I needed. Okay, In Jesus name. My mom was very happy. Now, here's the point. Here's my big point. My fear is that many of you, you don't know the questions that are going to be on the test when you have to give an account to God. And so you think you're preparing for that moment, but you're preparing in the wrong way. And because of it, you're going to fail. So here's what I'm going to do today. This is a very blunt sermon. I'm going to tell you exactly what the Bible says, the tests you're going to face when you get there, what judgments you're going to face. And there's two of them. Now, let me do some theology really quick. And then let's get into Revelation 20. This is very confusing for a lot of people that they never learned this in the Bible. There's actually not one judgment. There's two judgments that you're going to face. Not one, but two. The first one is called the Great White Throne Judgment. And the best way to think about this, this is the Everybody judgment. Everybody everywhere, whether they're a Christian or they're not a Christian, is going to face the Great White Throne. Throne judgment. I'm going to read. I'm going to read about it to you. And you're going to see some things in this passage you have probably never noticed before. So it says this. Then I saw a Great White Throne and him who was seated on it. Now, that's Jesus is the one seated on the Lamb who was slain. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. That's a fancy Bible way of saying, so time ended is what he saw. History Ended. Then watch what happens. And I saw the dead, great and small. And what this is saying is it doesn't matter how powerful or wealthy or influential somebody was on Earth. That influences nothing. Everybody faces the same judgment standing before the throne. Now watch this. And books, plural, were opened and another book singular. That's very interesting. Books, plural, was opened, and a book singular was open, which is the book of life. Okay, now watch what happens. The dead. And when it says dead right here, it means spiritually dead. It's talking about people who, they didn't have a relationship with Jesus. They never believed that somehow in some way the cross counted for them. They never got spiritual life inside of them from God. The dead. They were judged according to what they had done done. This is important, recorded in the books. Now here's the big question. Why? Actually, let me set the. Set the stage. What's going to happen to you when you die? At some point, when you get there and you're facing judgment, what you're going to see is on one side, you're going to see books. And I think there's going to be more books than you can possibly count on one side and then on the other side. And these books are books of sins. I'm going to talk about that here in a second. Where everybody's sins are recorded over here in the book. There's no sins, there's only names. And that book is called the Lamb's Book of Life. Now, which thing you're judged based on what's in the books or whether your name is in the book depends on something very important. I'm going to talk about that now. Here's what's in the books. Here's the big question. Why are there books in a book? What's in the books is everything that you've ever done, good or bad, is being recorded in those books right now. Now, some of you hear that and you're like, well, that's terrifying. Okay. Some of you are like. And by the way, that's why there's books, plural. Lot of material on you. Lot of material. Some of you are going, I'm gonna have several volumes from my senior year alone. That's it. And that's what's happening right now, is all those are being recorded in those books. And whether you're judged by what's in the books or whether your name's in the book, I'm going to show you the difference really quick. So let me give an illustration of this. So I want you to imagine that you are seeing Your own life play out from the vantage point of eternity. And you're seeing from this Revelation 20 perspective. And you see it, and you watch yourself. And here's what happens is you see yourself do something wrong, and you know everything you've ever done, good or bad, is being recorded in the books. So you see yourself do something wrong, and you see sin, you do something wrong, get recorded in the book. Now, from this vantage point of eternity, immediately you're like, bro, that's a big deal. I'm never gonna be able to get into heaven if I'm judged according to what's in the books, if there's any sin, because you. From the vantage point of eternity, here's what you're gonna know. Everybody that sees God in the Bible, they all think they're gonna die. Every single one of them. The reason for that is if you see the holiness of God, you instinctively understand that sin can never be in the presence of God. Sometimes people will say it backwards. They'll say, God can't be in the presence of sin. That's ridiculous. The problem is not that God can't be in the presence of sin. The problem is that sin can't be in the presence of holy God in the same way that tissue paper can't be in the presence of the Son. So you see that. Now, as soon as you see that and this thing that you did gets recorded in the books, immediately you realize your only hope is to get that thing out of the book. So you may try to do some things immediately. You're like, man, was there any way to erase it? And I want you to see this. Notice this. I'm actually trying to race. It doesn't erase because this is a permanent marker. Permanent marker. And what the Bible says is that all of our sins. Watch this. Are being etched into those books permanent. So then we start asking the question, well, how do I get it out of there? Now, you may try to. Okay, well, let me try to work it off, or let me try to, you know, let me try to rationalize it away. That doesn't work. Now, what may happen, what you may do, is you may go, well, maybe if I try to make up for it. So if I try to do. Maybe if I do a good thing, then it'll erase the bad thing and they'll offset. And so you immediately start trying to do that. And what happens is you go, okay, well, I did a good thing. And I did a good thing. And I did a good thing. But what you notice is those get recorded, but this doesn't get unrecorded. Now, there's a reason for that. I need you to think about this big misunderstanding. The reason for that in the Bible. The Bible says for the wages of sin is death. The reason for that is that God is a judge. Now think about this. If a guilty murderer came into a courtroom, what that guilty murderer can't do is get off the hook for his murder by saying, yeah, I did kill that guy, but I was nice to these three people. Will you let me off? No. No. A good judge is going to judge all sin. And the Bible says that the wages of sin is death. So it actually doesn't matter that you did all these other good things. There's still this bad thing, this crime against a holy God that still deserves punishment. So you're like, okay, well, that didn't work. So then you try something else. And you're like, well, what if I go and I apologize? I'll try to apologize. So, okay, man, you try to make amends with the person that you sinned against. And I'm so sorry, and I'll never. And would you please forgive? And you try to do that, and it doesn't take that away from the books. And the reason for that is, I need you to think about this, because there's a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. There's a difference between justice and reconciliation. We should always try to reconcile with people that we sinned against. But that doesn't take away the fact that. That we sinned in God's sight. Now, here's what's really interesting. So you begin to realize this really, really good news. What the Bible says is that there actually is a way to get your sins out of the books. And if you read your Bibles really carefully, you're gonna notice this phrase, starting in Moses, going through David, going through Isaiah, and all the way to the book of Revelation is it uses this phrase that God will quote, blot out your transgressions. Blot them out. Okay, so here's what the Bible says, is that actually the minute you place your faith in Jesus and believe that somehow in some way, the cross counted for you, you can't erase it. You can't make up for it. But here's what you can do, is God begins to apply the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ every one of your sins, and he begins to, in the words of the Bible, he begins to blot out those sins. The book of Isaiah says that God is the one who blots out our transgressions. And he remembers our sins no more. If you go to Psalm 51, I memorized Psalm 51 when I was in college. If you go to Psalm 51 right after David commits adultery, and some of you have that sin in your life, right after David commits adultery, what he says is, have mercy on me, oh God, according to your unfailing love, watch this. According to your great compassion, watch this. Blot out my transgressions. And so the Bible says that the second that you look to Jesus and you believe that somehow, in some way, the cross counted for you, that he covers all of your sins with the blood of the slain lamb, who's the same one on the great White throne who's judging you now, it actually gets even better. Because if you go to the New Testament, the Bible says not only does he blot out your transgressions, in the New Testament, God begins to give Christians a new name. Do you know what he calls you? He calls you a saint. And saint means holy one. See, the other thing God does is what he does is he writes a new name over your sins. And now when he looks at you, he doesn't just see a sinner, he looks at you and he sees a saint. But then, y', all, it gets even better. But wait, there's more. In the book of First John, what it says is, it says, if we walk in the light as he is in the light. And what that means is light reveals things. So it's just talking about honesty. When we get honest with God and with ourselves, and we admit that we're sinners, we believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, and then we confess that Jesus was crucified for our sins. Somehow, in some way, the cross counted for you. When you admit, believe and confess that the Bible says we walk in the light as he is in the light. Watch this. The blood of Jesus, his son. Watch this. It cleanses us from all sin because his blood is the only stain remover that can remove anything from the books. And just like it does it up there, it does it in the books and it takes away your sin. Come on, somebody. That's real good news. So can I say this to you? Okay, this is what this means, is that he applies all these things to your life and he begins to do so. Here's the moral of this. Listen, let's go back to this. You got the books, and you have the book. Here's the moral of the story. You don't want to be judged by what's in the books. You want to be Judged by the fact that your name is in the book. And here's why. There's only names in the book. Because these are the people whose sins have been removed. So the only thing left is the names of the one who have been adopted by their heavenly Father. Okay? So that's what that is. So you don't want to be judged by what's in the books. You want to be judged by what's in the book. You don't want to be judged based on what you did. You want to be judged based on what Jesus did. I promise. Okay, so this right here, this is what this is saying. Now, a lot of people, what they'll do is they'll get confused. They'll talk about hell and they'll be like, oh, what about hell? Listen, you need to understand this. Hell isn't a place in one sense where God just sends people he's mad at. Hell is a place where you have the option of paying for your own sins if you want to. So here's the question that God's going to ask you. Here's question number one. You're going to face a judgment day. I think it's going to be like this. Actually, don't read it. I think it's going to be like this. There's going to be like a big long line. I think it's going to be really awe inspiring, big long line. And eventually there's going to be a moment, something like this, where it's, josh Howerton needs you right now, please. Okay. All right. And you're going to stand face to face with Jesus and he's going to ask you this question. He's going to ask. God's going to ask you the question, what'd you do with Jesus? In other words, he's gonna go, were you planning on paying for your own sins or are you gonna let Jesus pay for your sins at the cross? Which one were you planning on doing? Now, if you're asking, man, Josh, why are you teaching this? Here's why I'm teaching it. Because most. I'm gonna say this. Most people are gonna get the answer to that question wrong. And they're not gonna be ready. How do I know that? Because Jesus said this. Look at what Jesus said in Matthew 7. Jesus said, not everybody who says to me, lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. Some of you, that was like literally my plan. Like, literally. You're like, When I was 10, somebody told me to pray a prayer and say, Jesus was my Lord. And that was gonna get me In I thought that was like the whole thing. And Jesus saying, not everybody who says to me, lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father who's in heaven. Now, what does that mean? Watch what he says here. He says, many are gonna say to me on that day, lord, didn't we? Now, don't read it. They're gonna say to him, lord, didn't we? And what Jesus says is he lists a bunch of religious things that they thought about in their. But I'm gonna 20, 25 it for you. So there's gonna be a lot of people who were at Lake Point. I pray not. But who in that moment, what you're gonna be saying is, lord, Lord, you know, didn't we read our Bible a lot? And didn't we go to church sometimes? And didn't we try really hard to be nice to people? And didn't we, you know, that sort of thing? And this is what they do. They list a bunch of things. They say, lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and. And in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles? But watch what Jesus said. He's going, I wasn't looking for that. Watch what he says then. I will tell them plainly. I never. What's that word? Knew you. I wasn't looking for religious works. I was looking for a relationship with you. I needed to know you is what he's saying right here. Okay? Now that's the most important thing that'll ever happen in your life. Now, if you guys are newer to Lake Point, I'll fill you in on my backstory. I'm a. I've grown up in church my whole life. I'm a third generation Baptist pastor. If there's such a thing as over saved, I'm it, you know? And when I grew up. And some of you guys, this is a throwback. Some of you guys will remember this. When I grew up, like, listen, man, we were at church all the time. So it was like we came to. Did anybody else. Y' all call it big church? Anybody else go to big church? Okay, we went to big church when I was a kid. That was Sunday morning. And then we would stay for the other hour and a half and we go to Sunday school. And listen, y', all, man, I had some mean Sunday school teachers. I mean, in second grade, I got one in particular, and she talked about hell all the time. All the time. Y' all don't want to go to hell, do ya? You know, and I remember we'd be bad in class, and she'd be like, don't you want to go to heaven? I'm like, not if you're going to be there. You know, it's like, I don't know what's going. You know, all this stuff. And so we go to Sunday school. Then we would come back. Some of you guys don't remember this. We would come back to church on Sunday night again, and we went. That was when ras. Me else do ras. I did ras growing up. Okay, I see you Royal ambassadors. I did the whole thing. Then we came back on Wednesday night. That was youth group. And then my mom had us come back on Thursday for junior Bible quiz practice. That was like a little competition we did where you'd, like, compete with other people on Bible trivia because we were cool like that, you know, kind of thing. My mom's strategy was, man, I want to get them so full of the word, if a mosquito bites him, it's going to fly away. Singing there's power in the blood. You know, that was her strategy. And listen, in a lot of ways, it worked. And so here's what happened to me. I was 8 years old, and I realized. I mean, I was like, well, I don't want to go to hell. You know, I'm a lot of things, but I'm not an idiot. I don't want to go to hell. And so, eight years old, I prayed a Lord, Lord prayer, and I thought that was it. And I continued learning things about God, but I'm not sure that there was any life on the inside of me. When I was 16 years old, my youth pastor, Jeff Carlisle, shout out, Jeff Carlisle. My youth pastor, Jeff Carlisle, started discipling me. He wanted me to read Romans. He was like, josh, you need to have a relationship with Jesus. And so I had a friend that invited me to his church across town. It was one of those crazy charismatic churches. And I walked in and no kidding. This true story. It wasn't the preaching my freshman year that looking around it was. I saw the worship of the people, and I watched these people worship. And I thought, man, I know a lot of things about God, but these people, they know him. 16 years old, I'm alone in my bedroom reading Romans 1 with my door closed, and I realized I needed a relationship with Jesus. Gave my life to him when I was 16 years old, started a relationship with him alone in my bedroom. My life's never been the same. 26 years later, never been the same. It's never Been the same. And listen, listen. I want that for you. And my greatest fear is that this is happening in your life. I want to give you an example of this. Okay? So years ago, I went on a mission trip to Chicago, and we were walking towards one of the baseball stadiums in Chicago, and there was a. There's a. If you walk past it, there's a big apartment complex, and all the windows are busted out, and it has these. You can see where fire has come up out of some of the windows. And true story, at that apartment complex, years ago, a fire started on one of the bottom floors and was burning its way up. You can still go see this building. And firemen came, and they thought they got everybody out of the building, but they were going around, they were like, is all your family out? Yes. Is all your family out? Yes. Is all your family out? Yes. And they got to one woman who was hysterical, and she was screaming, my baby. My baby. And she thought somebody had gotten her baby out of the apartment. They hadn't. And her baby was up there on the 23rd floor, still there as the fire was getting up there. So the fireman puts on his gear, and he's like, hey, what floor were you on? She tells him, he's okay, what room were you in? She tells me, okay, I got that. Now, what room in your apartment is the crib in? And he logs it in his head, puts on his gear, runs like a hero into this burning building. And true story. He starts feeling his way up, and he counts the floors. All the smoke's there. Can't see everything. He's doing the fireman's crawl. Feels his way up to the correct floor. Gets on the floor, feels his way from this door. Okay, let me count the doors. Count the doors. Figures out which door was hers. Puts his fingers up there to feel the numbers on the door. Okay, this is the one. Gets in, finds the room that the crib is in. And underneath the smoke, he can see the four legs of this little crib there. Like, that's it. So then he reaches up and he's feeling around in the crib, grabs the baby. He can hear the baby. Grabs the baby, puts it underneath his little fireman's gear, does a little fireman's crawl all the way back down. And like you couldn't have scripted it any better in a Hollywood movie, the second he stepped out of that front door, the interior of the building collapsed, went up in flames. Just as he steps out, everybody starts cheering. Ah, the crowd's going wild. Lady runs up to him. My baby. My baby. And he reaches inside of his fireman's gear and he pulls out the doll that had been laying next to the baby in the crib. Now listen, same size, same shape, same little hair. A perfect counterfeit of life on the outside. But listen, there was no life on the inside. And my fear is that that's exactly where some of you are, is you're doing some of these things on the outside, but there's no life on the inside. So listen, do you know what the right answer? Someday you're going to be asked that question, what did you do with Jesus? And the right answer to that question is something like this. I gave my life to him. I had a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. That changed me. That's the right answer to that question. Now, that's not the only question you're going to be asked. That's question number one. There's a second question you're going to be asked. And watch this. So there's two judgments in the Bible. Like I said, great wide. The second judgment you're going to face is what they call the bema seat judgment. Now I'm going to read about it to you and you're going to see it here in a second. And for you little Bible nerds, I'm going to explain something you may not have understood. But if you've ever wondered why are there all these one set of verses in the Bible that are about grace and forgiveness and it's apart from works, doesn't have to do anything with what you've done. And then there's another set of verses in the Bible about it. Actually, it's really important how you live. And it really matters that we try to honor God with our lives and leverage our lives for something good. Why are there two sets of verses? Here's why. You're going to face two judgments. And this second judgment, the bema seat judgment, it's not about whether or not you're going to get into heaven. This is really important. It's about what heaven's going to be like for you. That's this judgment. Now let me read it to you right here. It says this. For we must all appear before. And your Bible say judgment seat. That's actually a weird translation. What it literally says is bema seat. Here's what a bema seat was in the Roman era Olympics. Whenever the runners would run a race. That's where we're getting the title for this series, Run to win. Runners would run a race. They would Take the winning runners, only the ones who won. And they would come and they would stand before what was called a bema seat. It was an elevated platform where the judges of the competition were. And then the judges would hand out rewards to the winning runners based on how well they ran. God's saying, if you're a Christian, you're going to stand before this bema seat, this second one, and then watch what's going to happen. You're gonna stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Why? So that each of us may receive what is due us for the things while done in the body, whether good or bad. So here's the question that you're gonna be asked. The second question you're gonna be asked. It's gonna be something like this. God's gonna ask you the question, what did you do with what I gave you? What did you do with what I gave you? Now pause and think about this, every single one of you. You've been given some things. You've been given maybe a family. You've been given a life. Only one life. Twill soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. You've been given a life. You've been given differing amounts of resources.
- [36:48]
B
Listen.
- [36:49]
A
Listen to me. You were born in the year 2025. There's stuff you never think about that God gave you. You weren't born in A.D. 125. You were born in 2025, the era in human history where more things are at the touch of your fingers than ever before. Listen, you know, you, most of you, you live in the United States of America. And most of you didn't choose that that was given to you. And for any of her faults, this is. I think it's the greatest nation that's ever existed. And you were given all of that. And someday you will stand before the living God and he will ask you the question, what did you do with the things that I gave you? Now, here's the question. How can we use the things that God has given us in such a way that we'll receive a reward for how we used them in eternity? And the Bible answers that question. Look. Look at what it says. It says this in 2nd Corinthians, 1 Corinthians. Watch this. But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. And listen, it says builder because you're. Whether you're building something, some of you building a family, you're building a reputation, you're building a career, you're building financial portfolio all of you, you're building something. And so here's the question that everything you built is going to pass on this little conveyor belt. I think it's going to look like this. It's going to pass through the fire. The fire will show if a person's work has any value. In other words, did what you built matter in a way that it echoes in eternity. If the work survives as it passes through the fire, that builder will receive a reward. So what'll happen is everything you've ever built will pass. The fire will burn up. It'll come to nothing. Everything that you built with your life that doesn't matter at all and doesn't change eternity at all. And then the only things that will last are the things you used your life for that matter and stay in eternity. And do you know this? There's only one thing thing that lasts into eternity. Do you know what it is? The souls of people. The souls of people. That's it. And for the next three weeks I'm going to teach you from the Bible what the three things are that we can do that will last in eternity. And here's a big idea. You can't change the world, but you can change someone's world. Now I want you to see an example of this in the life of a Lake Point family that's here, that's laying it on the line to do something exactly like that in the life of Lewis and Casey. Check this out with me right now.
- [39:56]
B
My biomom was just not equipped to take care of us. She was really young. When I was about six weeks old, she just walked out and left. I grew up thinking she didn't choose me, she doesn't want me. I was put in my grandmother's care. She was very physically and emotionally abusive. My dad fought very hard to get custody of me and my sister. The judge court ordered to have me removed and placed in my parents care. The woman I call my mom, she, she is my stepmom. She really showed tremendous grace and kindness. She used to tell me God shows us grace and kindness when we don't deserve it. She was the first person in my life that chose me.
- [40:47]
A
I always wanted a child of my own. When we got our home, the objective was to start a family.
- [40:53]
B
I got sick. My body kind of just started shutting down. And so we started running all these different tests and that's when we found out that I had pcos and that our chances of getting pregnant were very, very low. We decided to put our dreams on hold and to Take a really nice trip to Disney. My husband, while we were at Disney.
- [41:16]
A
Said.
- [41:19]
B
I think I wanted foster. The whole entire week we were at Disney, God kind of kept putting people in our path that had either been fostering and just adopted, or they were there with their foster kid. We came back and we went to church, and it just so happens was the announcement for the foster and adoption conference. And my husband said, we really should sign up for that conference. So I actually signed us up for it. I had no interest in doing this. I've been a product of the system, and I had no desire to ever go back to it. But I left that day knowing that it's what God really wanted me to do. I capitulated to both God and my husband, and I decided that we would jump into this world and we would do it. It's been the best decision we've ever made. The conference really did open up my eyes. I really did believe that I could use everything that happened to me as a child and turn all of that negative into something positive. I really found a purpose for it. Without that conference, we wouldn't be fostering today. Our church does support fostering and adoption.
- [42:34]
A
Right now, 9,000 children in the greater DFW area are in foster care, and 40% of them are within 30 minutes of a Lake Point campus. See, the entire New Testament is this story that you have been adopted by the God of the universe and that now your identity has changed, your future has changed, your past has been erased, your name has been changed, you've got a new inheritance. Your relationship with God is one of a father. God's always been right next to us, supporting us, giving us strength, guidance, and he always provides.
- [43:14]
B
Would we love to have a forever family with a child? Absolutely. 100% yes. But we've also learned that that's in his timing and not in ours. And we. We are patiently waiting.
- [43:30]
A
We trust in him.
- [43:31]
B
And maybe it comes and maybe it doesn't. And that's okay. Because in the interim, we get to love on all these other kids. And that is a miracle. I'm Casey.
- [43:42]
A
I'm Lewis. And this is how Jesus changed our lives. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Guys, we have the honor of having Lewis and Casey with us right now. And here's why I wanted to do this. So, first of all, the entire series is based on this verse from the book of Corinthians. It says, do you not know that in a race, everybody runs, but only one person gets the prize? And then it says, run to Win live your life that way. And right now, Lewis and Casey, they are leveraging their lives for something like that. The reason I want to have them up here is there's two reasons. Number one is people like Lewis and Casey. They have now fostered, I think it's over 20 children that they fostered now. And I know it's amazing. And the reason that I want to have them up here is people like this. They have a bunch of like, secret sacrifices and quiet crucifixions that never get noticed. But right now I want to make sure it gets noticed. Will you help me honor them and everyone like them? Give them a good amen. Let's honor a man. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. That's right. Come on. That's it. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. I hope you guys feel a little well done. Good and faithful servants. Yeah. Now stay standing and by the way, stay with me. Don't do the thing where you start leaving right now. I hate that. Let's do that. Let's stay with me for just a second right now. The other reason I wanted them up here is we are from now to the end of the year, we're going to. We going to start receiving what we call our annual missions offering. And this is the offering that we receive at the end of every year where 100 people of it. We give it away and it helps fund things like our church planting network that is planted now, 80 and counting thriving churches in some of the hardest to reach cities in North America. This is the offering that funds our. I think it's like 20 international partners in countries all over the globe reaching people in some of the hardest to reach places in the world. And this is the offering that funds are more than 40 local partners in the DFW area, helping the last, the lost, the least and the lonely in our city. One of those things is our adoption and foster fund that we as a church use to resource bless and encourage families that are doing foster care and adoption like Lewis and Casey. So your giving helps things like that happen. Okay, so here's how I'm asking you to do. I'm asking you to do what my family's doing, doing. I'm asking you to begin praying about what God would have you give above your normal giving to the annual missions offering at the end of this year. And you can give in one of three ways to that offering. You'll see a little envelope on the seat right in front of you that says annual missions offering. You can stick it in that number two. You can write a check and just put the letters AMO in the subject line and we'll know that's for Annual Missions offering. Or you can text the word GIVE to the number 20411 and then choose Annual Missions Offering from that dropdown menu. A hundred percent of that giving goes to this offering that we give away to those things. So begin praying right now about what God would have your family give above your normal giving to that offering and we'll receive that from now to the end of the year. Now we're getting ready to receive our regular giving right now through the this last song. You can give in one of three ways in the buckets they come by in the boxes next to doors on your way out. Or you can text the word give to the number 20411. But right now, worship with us both as we give and as we sing. Let's go.