Preached · June 12, 2016
Amen. Well, we are in week two of the If series, and we're digging in specifically into Romans 8:1, and we're taking a look at If Only.
The Top Five Regrets of the Dying
They say that when you give a sermon or a speech or a presentation, you should start with something kind of light, humorous — get people laughing, get people on your side. So I thought we'd start this morning by talking about the top five regrets of those on their deathbeds. Real light, fluffy topic.
So there was a nurse. She worked in hospice care. She helped people pass from this life to the next — helped them die, essentially. And she had the privilege of asking them what some of their regrets were. So we're going to go through five through one.
Regret number five: "I wish I let myself be happier." In her interviews with the dead and the dying, there was so much regret about this sense of needing to be serious all the time, of never being able to have a laugh or experience joy — and people realizing that joy and happiness, most often, can be a choice. Something we choose to participate in.
Number four: "I wish I stayed in touch with my friends." In the end, when you're on your deathbed, all that's left is love and relationships. And when you spend a lifetime ignoring those, that can lead to regret.
Number three: "I wish I had the courage to express my feelings." There can be this attitude that what I feel, what's going on inside my heart, my emotions — they don't deserve to be expressed, they don't deserve to be told. The pastor often talks about that Minnesota nice, where we're just polite, nice people who never make a kerfuffle. And people regret that when they get to the end of their lives.
Number two — and this most often came from the men she was helping: "I wish I didn't work so hard." Again, when you get to the end of your life, that sense of, was it worth it, when so many other things had to fall by the wayside?
And the number one regret was: "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me." And what this did in people was engender a sense of bitterness and resentment — that they were really never able to pursue the dreams they had for their lives, and instead always had this sense of obligation. And eventually it led to bitterness and resentment.
Growing Up on Judgment
So, regrets. Looking on our past with shame — that's what we want to talk about. Our past can haunt us. And our past, at times, feels like it can define our future. So this morning I want to talk about judgment. Specifically, the judgment that we're going to experience upon our death, when we stand before the judgment seat of God — or the judgment seat of Christ, or the great white throne, or the Bema seat.
Anybody grow up in a church that really, really emphasized judgment? Good for you. I guess it was just me. Man, this sermon is going to be pointless. I grew up in a church that was just kind of obsessed with God's judgment — lots of figuring out all the details of what judgment happened when, at what point on God's grand timeline of the future.
So there was the sheep and goats judgment in Matthew 25. This was after the rapture, but before the millennium, and this got to decide who gets to experience the millennium and who didn't. And then there was the Bema seat of Christ, or the judgment seat of Christ, and that was during the millennium — that was when Jesus gave out rewards to those who deserved them, specifically for people's deeds. And then there was the great white throne judgment, where everyone, living or dead, got sent to either New Jerusalem or the Lake of Fire, with those believers receiving degrees or levels of reward or joy in the New Jerusalem.
And this idea of judgment didn't come out of nowhere. We see hints of it throughout Scripture.
Romans 14:
For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. Each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.
Or 2 Corinthians 5:10:
So we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us, for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
Or Romans 2:
Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God will repay each person according to what they have done.
The God I Imagined
So my imagination, as a teenager who loves sci-fi too much, went wild with these passages. My imagination went wild. I imagined standing before the throne of God, which was huge — like bigger than the earth itself. And God had this cosmic Blu-ray player that he would put in the Blu-ray of my life and turn on the director's commentary of all my thoughts running throughout the course of my life. And behind me was all 15 billion people who had ever lived on the planet. And they all got to watch my life play before the eyes of God, the angels, the divine, and everyone else.
Which is a horrifying thought, right? Not that I've done terrible things, but I've thought terrible things. And I really don't want that director's commentary turned on. But this is playing out in front of everyone, and God himself. And so he's keeping marks and tallies of, "Oh, that's a good thing. Oh, that's a bad thing, Anthony." It's a horrifying image that I had in my mind — every lewd thought, every single word and action and idea, every mean comment, every illegal act played out in front of everyone.
I asked some folks on Facebook some of their thoughts about judgment and rewards, what they grew up with. One person wrote:
God's final judgment will be just about me. This scary God would be holding a book with all of my sins and wrongdoings. And God would point a bony finger at me and sentence me to hell. And there are levels in heaven, and there were jewels for my heavenly crown that can be earned by earthly actions.
Somebody else wrote:
I was almost scared of God, as I felt that everything bad that I had done was written down, and that this mean God would say, "Nope, sorry, you're not getting in." I remember people saying he or she was a good person, that they'll have an extra jewel in their crown in heaven.
How many of us have heard that jewel-in-the-crown kind of language?
I remember in the '90s there was this song, this Christian song by an artist named Eli. This idea kind of permeated Christian culture — about judgment. And the song starts out with a man dying, and he goes to the gates of heaven where St. Peter is, of course. And Peter's going to show this man who's died his mansion in heaven. So the lyrics of the verse go like this:
Past a mansion made of stone, but with each new house he's shown, they get smaller by degrees.
Stopped in front of a two-room shack, and Pete said, "Hope you're happy with that." And the man said, "How can this be?" And then there's this really happy, peppy chorus:
Lumber, that's all the lumber you sent.
He's just so happy, right? You've never heard such a happy song about God's judgment.
Now, for most of us — maybe not most of us, some of us, at least me — this is the idea of God that we grew up with. That we acquired kind of passively through Christian culture, through songs like this. The God that we are acquainted with, and honestly, some of us might even prefer. Yeah, sure, salvation's a gift, not by works, through faith, blah, blah, blah. But God's still keeping track of all of our deeds, so we know where we are in the heavenly lineup. Yes, God can forgive anyone at any time, but it's really good to know that I'm going to have a better experience in heaven than a lot of people, on the merit of how good I am. At least I'm not the thief on the cross, who got forgiven and then immediately died, because he didn't have any good deeds in his account, so he'll probably get the shack. But, man, I've lived a Christian life for 20-some years now. I'm going to have a great experience up there.
The Lie of Regret
Or we can reverse that logic. We can say: I'm so screwed up, I've done it so many times, in so many ways, that I could never possibly be loved by or used by God for anything worthwhile, much less anything great. My past can't be redeemed, it can't be restored, it can't be used by God, and in reality I will never accomplish great things in God's kingdom.
This is the lie. The lie is: my regrets define my past, determine my future, and haunt my present moment.
They define my past. When I think about my past, it's filled with sorrow and heartache, and I don't like thinking about it, I don't like bringing it up. Don't ask me to share my testimony, don't ask me to share my story. My regrets are too real, too large.
And my regrets determine my future — my place in God's kingdom, my dreams about how to be used in God's kingdom. They're never going to happen. My regrets are too big. God can't possibly use me.
And they haunt my present. They make me feel crummy, useless, and worthless.
Not About Your Guilt, But God's Grace
But I've got good news. The judgment seat of Christ is not about how guilty you are, but about how gracious God is. Write that down. The judgment seat of Christ is not about how guilty you are, but about how gracious God is.
When we look at the passages about judgment, and we pluck them out of the Bible, we don't read far enough to hear the whole story. Take 2 Corinthians chapter 5, for instance. It says:
We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
But keep reading the chapter! This is what it says after that:
From now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here. This is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
And what's that ministry? What is it declaring? That God is reconciling the world to himself, not counting people's sins against them. Can I have a hallelujah? That is good news.
Why would we fear judgment? Why would we fear the judgment seat of Christ when we're told by Jesus himself in John 5:
Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son.
And Jesus says:
Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged, but has crossed over from death to life.
Can I have a hallelujah? Scripture tells us that we are in Christ, that our lives are hidden with Christ in God, that we are one in spirit with Jesus, that we are God's temple, his residing place, the place where he makes his dwelling. We are the body of Christ. We are clothed with Christ. We are justified and sanctified and glorified. Do we really think that when we get to the judgment seat, it will be anything else but God continuing to lavish his grace upon us?
Keep Reading: Romans 7
Now, what about Romans 2? This is what Romans 2 says, if you remember:
You are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, for his righteous judgment will be revealed, and God will repay each person according to what they have done.
Now we have to remember, this is Romans 2. This is the beginning of Paul's argument. This is not the conclusion. So if you want to hear the conclusion, you have to keep reading. You have to get to Romans chapter 7 and chapter 8.
So look, if you have ever been filled with regret or shame, then you are in good company with the Apostle Paul. Listen to Romans 7:
For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help. I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it. I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
How many people can relate to this passage? Oh, you guys are so brave to raise your hand. Scripture is so honest. Something has gone deeply wrong within me, Paul writes.
Anybody go to the Spencer classic car show thingy yesterday? So we accidentally went to Spencer yesterday, like you do. And we're driving down Grand Avenue, and they have all of these classic cars. And me and my brother David, who was like the delinquent one — but we had this thing in common about our delinquency. And that was: whenever we saw a nice car, we wanted to kick it. Like, we just had this something within us that just wanted to kick it. And as I'm driving down Grand Avenue, passing probably millions of dollars' worth of nice cars, I just kind of want to swerve my car into one. Something has gone wrong deep within me.
Now Paul keeps going:
It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
Have you ever found yourself engaging in some action, some addiction, some habit, and you then think, how did I end up here? Paul keeps going:
I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? I want to serve God with all of my heart and mind, but I'm pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.
And that's the end of Romans chapter 7.
Therefore, There Is No Condemnation
Do you know what Paul says next? Do you know what Paul says next?
Therefore, there is no condemnation.
What do you mean, "therefore"? Paul just wrote about how screwed up he is, about how screwed up we all are. And God will say — I messed up this way. Therefore, there is no condemnation. No, no, no, no, no. God, listen, listen — I have this huge regret. I really sinned big this time. Therefore, there is no condemnation. Wait, wait, wait — don't you remember how many relationships I've messed up? How many times I've returned to the bottle? How many times I stole from work? How many times I hit my children? How many times I slept around? How many times? How many times? Therefore, there is no condemnation.
God is saying, through the Apostle Paul: listen, the bigger your sin is, the bigger my forgiveness is. The more times you mess up, the more opportunities I have to show you grace. Paul summarizes this really well in Romans 5, where he says, where sin increased, grace increased all the more. Or one translation puts it this way — and I love it — where sin abounded, grace super-abounded. Isn't that good news?
Look, every time you mess up, you are prone to think that this is just one more reason for God to reject or dislike you. Another thing that God can put on his list, his tally sheet of bad things, so that when you go to heaven you get the smaller mansion, the lower level, just a little bit less love from our Heavenly Father. But in reality, every mistake, every regret, every failure, every time we do the thing we don't want to do, it's one more opportunity for God to say: this is grace. This is love. This is forgiveness. This is redemption. You can't out-sin me. You can't out-mistake me. You can't out-fail me. There's no debt that I can't forgive, no regret that I can't redeem, no sin that I can't atone for. Your sins abound; my grace super-abounds. Your mistakes pile up; my pile of grace is bigger. Can I get an amen?
This is Romans chapter 8 from The Message, and I think it nails what we're trying to say this morning:
With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma of our sin is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is already doing within us.
So, brothers and sisters, this is the good news. The judgment seat of Christ is not about your guilt. It's about God's grace. We stand before God's throne not to be embarrassed by our sins being played out for all humanity, angels, and the divine. Rather, we stand before God's throne to be embraced, so we can hear him call us son, daughter, child. Well done.
We Become Like the God We Worship
Now, why do I bring this all up? Well, I think Brennan Manning sums it up well. He writes that it's always true, to some extent, that we make our images of God. And it's even truer that our image of God makes us. Eventually, we become like the God we create. If we view God as this competitive, petty, and unforgiving deity — as petty, competitive, and unforgiving as we are — then we will only continue to grow more competitive, petty, and unforgiving.
If the God we worship is still tallying up good things and bad things, still doling out rewards to the good Christians and withholding from the bad ones, if we need to keep a certain amount of anxiety about what size mansion we're going to get in heaven, then, brothers and sisters, I'm here to tell you that we're worshiping the wrong God. And it's time to repent of that — to change your mind and worship the God of grace. A God of grace who desires you to grow. A God of grace who desires you to change. A God of grace who desires you to live the life of Jesus. But a God of grace who is going to embrace you and say, "Well done, child." We need to repent of our images of a God who is just as petty as we are.
Response
I want to invite the worship team to come forward right now, and we're going to move into a song. It has a bridge that says, "By your Spirit I will rise from the ashes of defeat. The resurrecting King is resurrecting me." This morning, we want to sing that over each of your lives. We want you to sing that over each of our lives.
Our God desires breakthrough in our lives — to break us out of the chains of regret that hold us, chain us, keep us down. Because we believe — we fully, truly believe — that God has big dreams for each and every single one of you. That God desires to use you for his kingdom, to bring peace and healing and redemption in the world. And God wants to break you free from your regrets, from those things that hold you down, so that he can use you to bring healing to this world.
So I want to invite you to stand as we sing together. Perhaps take a posture that says, "God, I am willing. I am open to being healed this morning. God, I am open to your healing grace in my life. God, I repent of thinking of you as just as petty as I am. God, help me to become just as forgiving, just as merciful, just as grace-filled as you are." So sing this song as a prayer over your life, and we will do the same for you. Let's sing together.
