Latest / Reformed Thinking / Our Holy Ambition: Pleasing Christ in Light of His Judgment Seat (2 Corinthians 5:9)

Transcript

Our Holy Ambition: Pleasing Christ in Light of His Judgment Seat (2 Corinthians 5:9) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to reformed thinking. So I want you to picture this
• 0:04
  scenario for a second. You dedicate your entire life to
• 0:07
  a single specific pursuit. Right, like giving up everything
• 0:10
  else, Yeah. Everything.
• 0:12
  You endure grueling physical training, you spend vast sums of
• 0:16
  your own money, and you just completely exhaust yourself day
• 0:19
  in and day. Out and you probably ignore your
• 0:21
  family, you ignore your own health, all of it.
• 0:23
  You do. And you do all of this for the
• 0:26
  chance to stand in a public square while a huge crowd cheers
• 0:29
  for you, and then someone places a wreath made of decaying celery
• 0:33
  on your head. Which is just wild.
• 0:35
  Think about a crown of celery that will wilt and rot in about
• 0:39
  a week. A week if you're lucky.
• 0:40
  And today we are looking at human ambition.
• 0:43
  We usually measure a person's life like a corporate resume,
• 0:46
  you know, checking off visible, quantifiable metrics.
• 0:49
  Yeah, we look at the job title, the salary bracket, or today,
• 0:52
  the number of followers on a social media account.
• 0:54
  Right. You get the promotion, you are
• 0:56
  succeeding. You lose the account, you are
• 0:58
  failing. It feels very clean, very
• 1:01
  mathematical. It is a very natural human
• 1:03
  tendency, honestly. We feel secure when we can count
• 1:07
  things, when we can categorize a life based on visible
• 1:10
  achievements. Because the metrics give us a
• 1:13
  false sense of control. But then you step into the
• 1:16
  theology of the New Testament, specifically the letters of the
• 1:19
  Apostle Paul. And suddenly that entire resume
• 1:21
  just gets thrown in the trash. It totally gets thrown out.
• 1:25
  We are looking at a metric for success that is entirely
• 1:28
  invisible to the outside world, and that is what we are
• 1:31
  unpacking in this deep dive. We have two extensive
• 1:34
  theological texts. For this one, they conduct A
• 1:36
  rigorous examination of a single verse, Second Corinthians 5.9
• 1:40
  and the theological concept of holy ambition.
• 1:42
  And right away, these texts draw a massive contrast between 2
• 1:46
  completely different ways of viewing human existence.
• 1:49
  Let's look at the historical standard first.
• 1:51
  Yeah, let's start there. The sources point us to the
• 1:53
  historic Westminster Shorter Catechism.
• 1:56
  It asks the most basic question a human being can ask, which is
• 2:00
  what is the chief end of man? And the answer it provides is
• 2:03
  that man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him
• 2:07
  forever. That is the historic Orthodox
• 2:10
  standard, but our sources point out that we are currently living
• 2:13
  under a very different cultural catechism.
• 2:16
  Oh, totally. The secular world dictates that
• 2:18
  your chief end is to glorify yourself, to live your own
• 2:22
  truth, and to pursue your own carnal happiness.
• 2:26
  What makes these source texts so arresting is their argument that
• 2:29
  this narcissistic worldview has breached the walls of the
• 2:32
  church. This is not just an outside
• 2:34
  problem. No, the numbers back that up in
• 2:36
  a pretty startling way. The material sites a Ligonier
• 2:40
  Ministries survey on the state of theology.
• 2:42
  Right. And the data there is just
• 2:44
  frocking. It really is.
• 2:46
  The data shows that over half of professing American evangelicals
• 2:50
  believe God's primary goal is our personal happiness.
• 2:53
  Over half. I mean, think about that.
• 2:55
  And on top of that, a massive percentage believe God accepts
• 2:58
  the worship of all religions. When I read that part of the
• 3:01
  text, it felt like a total inversion of Christianity.
• 3:04
  Because it is a total inversion, the texts argue that this is an
• 3:07
  anthropocentric theology, meaning man centered.
• 3:10
  It treats the creator of the universe as a cosmic bellhop,
• 3:14
  basically, whose primary job is to facilitate human self
• 3:18
  actualization. Yeah, if God's primary goal is
• 3:21
  your personal happiness, then you are actually the center of
• 3:24
  the universe and God is just a tool to help you achieve your
• 3:27
  goals. And this discussion is going to
• 3:29
  confront that man centered theology head on.
• 3:32
  The Apostle Paul replaces the idol of self fulfillment with a
• 3:35
  completely different Apostolic aim.
• 3:38
  Which is the ambition to be well pleasing to Christ?
• 3:41
  Right, so to understand how Paul makes this argument, we have to
• 3:44
  look at who he was talking to. We are dropping into the
• 3:47
  midfirst century around AD 55 to 56.
• 3:52
  Paul is writing to the church in Corinth.
• 3:54
  And I want to paint a picture of the city for you, the listener,
• 3:56
  because it completely changes how you read the letter.
• 3:58
  Corinth sat on a narrow isthmus connecting mainland Greece with
• 4:02
  the Peloponnese. It had ports on both the Agent
• 4:05
  and Ionian seas. So if you wanted to move goods
• 4:07
  across the ancient world efficiently, you went through
• 4:10
  Corinth. It was an absolute economic
• 4:12
  powerhouse. It was, but it was also a city
• 4:16
  with a very specific aggressive political history.
• 4:20
  The original Greek city was completely destroyed by the
• 4:23
  Roman general Lucius Monius in 146 BC.
• 4:26
  He just wiped it off the map. Yeah, the Romans levelled it and
• 4:29
  it's sat in ruins for a century until Julius Caesar refounded it
• 4:33
  as a Roman colony in 44 BC. So by the time Paul arrives a
• 4:37
  century later, it is heavily romanized in its laws and social
• 4:40
  structures. But it is also a place of
• 4:42
  immense wealth and severe immorality.
• 4:46
  It famously housed the Temple of Aphrodite.
• 4:48
  Which was a Center for Pagan worship and massive temple
• 4:50
  prostitution. Right, so you have this booming,
• 4:52
  ruthless, highly sexualized port city.
• 4:55
  It sounds like a place where anyone who wanted to make a name
• 4:57
  for themselves would go. A place of intense competition.
• 5:00
  And our sources highlight a very specific Greek word that defined
• 5:04
  the Greco Roman culture of Corinth.
• 5:07
  The word is philotimia. Philotimia, the love of honor.
• 5:10
  In the Roman world, society was driven by a relentless pursuit
• 5:13
  of public recognition. The culture was intensely
• 5:16
  public. Citizens fiercely competed for
• 5:18
  civic offices and military victories.
• 5:21
  Wealthy benefactors would spend vast fortunes to build theaters
• 5:24
  or pave roads. Just to have their names carved
• 5:27
  into stone monuments, they needed the public to know they
• 5:29
  were the ones who funded the infrastructure.
• 5:31
  Exactly. And right outside of Corinth,
• 5:34
  they held the massive Ismian Games, which were second only to
• 5:38
  the Olympics. This goes back to the celery
• 5:40
  wreath I mentioned at the start of the show.
• 5:42
  Yeah, men would endure grueling athletic training, striving for
• 5:47
  a feeding wreath made of pine or celery.
• 5:49
  All for the roar of the crowd and the validation of the city.
• 5:52
  They were literally dedicating their entire lives, their
• 5:55
  wealth, their physical bodies to win a crown made of vegetation.
• 5:59
  A crown that would rot in the week just so people would
• 6:02
  applaud them in the public square.
• 6:03
  It is the absolute obsession with human approval.
• 6:06
  You wanted to be known as a benefactor.
• 6:08
  You wanted the applause of the Senate and the marketplace.
• 6:10
  And this cultural obsession leads directly into the church
• 6:14
  at Corinth. Which creates a massive crisis.
• 6:17
  Our texts introduce us to a group that Paul sarcastically
• 6:20
  calls the Super Apostles. These false teachers infiltrated
• 6:24
  the Corinthian congregation and brought the city's pragmatic,
• 6:28
  worldly metrics right through the church doors.
• 6:31
  They started evaluating spiritual leaders using the same
• 6:34
  metrics the Pagan city used to evaluate politicians and
• 6:38
  athletes. Yeah, they boasted about their
• 6:39
  eloquent oratory, their mystical visions, and their impressive
• 6:44
  letters of recommendation. And they looked at Paul, who
• 6:47
  suffered physical weakness, who worked a manual labor job making
• 6:50
  tents, and who lacked polished Greek rhetorical skills.
• 6:53
  And they mocked him. They thought he was a failure
• 6:55
  because he wasn't famous or wealthy.
• 6:58
  They wanted a leaner who looked like a Corinthian winner.
• 7:00
  They wanted a polished CEO, not a suffering servant.
• 7:04
  When I think about the ancient agora and this relentless
• 7:07
  competition for honor, I immediately think about our
• 7:10
  modern world. Oh for sure, the obsession with
• 7:12
  social media algorithms or aggressive corporate ladder
• 7:15
  climbing. We are still completely obsessed
• 7:18
  with philotimia. We just swapped out stone
• 7:20
  monuments for blue checkmarks, viral videos and quarterly
• 7:23
  earnings reports. We are terrified of being
• 7:25
  perceived as weak or unpolished. So how did Paul's deliberate
• 7:29
  embrace of weakness completely upend the Corinthians definition
• 7:32
  of success? Well, Paul appends their
• 7:35
  definition of success by entirely redefining the
• 7:37
  audience. OK, unpack that.
• 7:39
  The Super Apostles wanted to perform for the crowd.
• 7:41
  They wanted visible, immediate validation.
• 7:45
  But Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 5.9 that his settled ambition,
• 7:49
  his philotemia, is to please the Lord.
• 7:51
  He takes that massive cultural engine of ambition, that
• 7:54
  desperate desire for honor, and he redirects it.
• 7:57
  Right. He redirects it away from the
• 7:59
  public square and aims it directly at the throne room of
• 8:01
  Heaven. True honor is not found in the
• 8:03
  applause of the crowd. It is found in the hidden,
• 8:06
  steadfast devotion to the pleasure of God.
• 8:09
  He tells them the metrics they are using to judge them are
• 8:11
  completely broken. Yeah, they are fighting for a
• 8:13
  rotting celery wreath while he's looking at eternal realities.
• 8:17
  Let's look at how Paul actually builds this argument leading up
• 8:20
  to Chapter 5. Our sources map out the flow of
• 8:23
  his thought and it is incredibly logical.
• 8:26
  In chapter 3, Paul mounts a defense of the New Covenant of
• 8:29
  Grace, contrasting it with the Old Covenant of Law.
• 8:32
  He argues that the new covenant brings a surpassing eternal
• 8:36
  glory. Then in chapter 4, he addresses
• 8:38
  his own physical weakness head on.
• 8:41
  He describes believers as fragile jars of clay that hold a
• 8:45
  surpassing treasure. I love the Jars of Clay imagery.
• 8:48
  It completely validates the human experience of weakness.
• 8:52
  It really does. It acknowledges that we break
• 8:53
  easily, we get sick, we fail. But that very weakness is what
• 8:57
  makes the divine strength inside us so obvious.
• 9:00
  He talks about facing daily afflictions, being struck down
• 9:03
  but not destroyed, and he frames all of this suffering as a
• 9:07
  light, momentary affliction. An.
• 9:09
  Affliction that is preparing believers for an eternal weight
• 9:12
  of glory. And then we hit chapter 5 and
• 9:15
  Paul uses this amazing architectural metaphor.
• 9:17
  He compares the physical human body to an earthly tent.
• 9:21
  That metaphor would have resonated intensely with Paul,
• 9:23
  considering he was a bivocational tent maker.
• 9:26
  Right. He spent his days cutting
• 9:27
  leather and sewing heavy fabric. He knew first hand that tents
• 9:31
  are temporary. They are fragile and prone to
• 9:33
  decay. They are not permanent
• 9:35
  structures. He says that while we are in
• 9:37
  this earthly tent, we groan. We experience sickness, aging
• 9:42
  and persecution. But the texts point out a vital
• 9:45
  distinction about this groaning It is not a pessimistic despair.
• 9:48
  It is not a cynical complaining about how terrible life is.
• 9:51
  No, not at all. Believers groan because they are
• 9:54
  longing for their guaranteed heavenly dwelling, a permanent
• 9:57
  building from God. It is a deep homesickness for
• 10:00
  heaven and our texts position verse 9 as the logical pivot of
• 10:04
  this entire section. It connects the eschatological
• 10:07
  hope of heaven in verses one through 8 to the solemn reality
• 10:10
  of the impending judgment in verse 10.
• 10:12
  The core principle here is that esotology produces ethics.
• 10:16
  Let's unpack that phrase for anyone who might not use those
• 10:18
  terms daily. Sure.
• 10:20
  Eschatology is the study of the end times, the final destiny of
• 10:23
  the soul, and the culmination of history.
• 10:25
  And ethics is how we behave right now, today.
• 10:28
  So you are saying that the unseen future dictates present
• 10:31
  conduct. Precisely.
• 10:33
  Paul is arguing that because we have a guaranteed heavenly
• 10:36
  dwelling and because we have the Holy Spirit as a down payment on
• 10:39
  that future reality, we do not just sit around passively
• 10:43
  waiting to die. That future hope creates a
• 10:45
  present driving ambition to please Christ.
• 10:48
  But there is a second guardrail here, right?
• 10:50
  Yes. Verse 10 introduces the judgment
• 10:52
  seat of Christ, often called a Bema seat.
• 10:55
  The Bema seat. This is where Paul says every
• 10:58
  single person must appear before Christ to receive what is due
• 11:01
  for deeds done in the body, whether good or evil.
• 11:04
  That's right. I have to push back here on
• 11:05
  behalf of the listener because if believers are totally secure
• 11:08
  in their salvation, if the heavenly dwelling is guaranteed
• 11:11
  like you just said, doesn't facing a judgment seat create
• 11:14
  paralyzing fear? That is a.
• 11:16
  Very common point of confusion and our sources make a critical
• 11:20
  theological distinction to clear it up.
• 11:21
  How does? The threat of judgement produce
• 11:23
  a healthy drive instead of just sheer terror well, the.
• 11:27
  Bema seat for the believer is not a judgement of condemnation.
• 11:30
  It is not a second justification where your salvation is on the
• 11:33
  line the. Texts are very clear on this.
• 11:36
  There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus the sins.
• 11:39
  Of the believer were judged completely on the cross instead.
• 11:42
  The Bama Seat is an evaluation of rewards.
• 11:45
  So it is an assessment of stewardship, not a trial for
• 11:48
  your soul spot. On It is a public manifestation
• 11:51
  of the deeds and motives of a believer's life.
• 11:55
  The texts use the biblical imagery of burning away wood,
• 11:58
  hay and stubble. Those materials represent
• 12:01
  actions driven by self-centered motives and the desire for human
• 12:05
  applause, right? And what remains through the
• 12:07
  fire are the gold, silver and precious stones which represent
• 12:11
  the actions driven by a sincere devotion to pleasing Christ.
• 12:15
  This. Reality does not create
• 12:16
  paralyzing terror. It creates A reverent awe and a
• 12:19
  solemn responsibility. It purifies our motives that.
• 12:22
  Shifts the motivation entirely. It moves the believer from
• 12:25
  thinking I need to earn my salvation to I want my life to
• 12:28
  actually honor the one who saved me.
• 12:29
  Your. Sources go deep into the Greek
• 12:31
  structure of 2nd Corinthians 5.9 to prove this point.
• 12:34
  They call it the grammar of grace, the.
• 12:36
  Greek syntax here is incredibly precise.
• 12:39
  The verse begins with the conjunction deo Kai, which
• 12:42
  translates to therefore also or for this reason also this.
• 12:47
  Single conjunction proves that Christian ambition is a direct
• 12:51
  result of the preceding theological truths, Yes.
• 12:54
  Because of the Holy Spirit's guarantee of heaven, therefore,
• 12:56
  we aim to please Him. The grammar forbids us from
• 12:59
  treating this ambition as a standalone moral duty.
• 13:01
  We do. Not strive in order to earn
• 13:03
  heaven. The absolute certainty of heaven
• 13:05
  generates the striving the. Text then uses a fascinating
• 13:08
  phrase 8 endamontes 8 to examontes whether.
• 13:12
  At home or away, literally, whether in country or out of
• 13:15
  country, our sources say this phrase completely shatters the
• 13:19
  secular, sacred divide. It does.
• 13:20
  At home refers to being alive in the physical body and during the
• 13:24
  trials of this present world and.
• 13:26
  Away refers to being physically dead but present with the Lord
• 13:29
  in the intermediate state by. Covering both states, Paul is
• 13:32
  establishing A radical continuity of existence.
• 13:35
  Think. About the implications of that
• 13:36
  continuity, the location of the believer does not not alter
• 13:39
  their vocation, whether. You are sitting in a cubicle
• 13:42
  dealing with a frustrating spreadsheet, or you are on your
• 13:45
  deathbed, or you are standing in the intermediate state in the
• 13:49
  direct presence of Jesus. Your primary objective is
• 13:52
  identical, Please. Him, there is no secular
• 13:56
  compartment of your life where Christ's pleasure stops
• 13:59
  mattering that. Is a staggering realization, and
• 14:02
  it leads to the main verb of the sentence, philata momita.
• 14:05
  We make it our aim, or we make it our ambition.
• 14:08
  We. Discussed the noun form of this
• 14:10
  earlier regarding the culture of Corinth.
• 14:12
  Here Paul uses the present tense verb, which indicates A
• 14:15
  continuous habitual action. It is not a fleeting New Year's
• 14:19
  resolution. It is the permanent driving
• 14:22
  posture of a believer's life. Furthermore.
• 14:24
  Our sources argue that redemption takes the natural
• 14:26
  human engine of ambition and completely repurposes it
• 14:29
  ambition. Itself is not the problem.
• 14:32
  The object of the ambition is the problem.
• 14:34
  Fallen human nature takes the engine of zeal and places it on
• 14:37
  the tracks of self. Idolatry we want.
• 14:39
  To build our own kingdoms, but. Grace takes that same engine,
• 14:42
  pulls it off the tracks of self worship, and sets it firmly on
• 14:45
  the tracks of Christ's glory. A.
• 14:47
  Christian is not supposed to be an apathetic person without
• 14:50
  drive. A Christian should be fiercely
• 14:52
  ambitious, but for the right thing.
• 14:55
  And the verse ends with the objective you are a story well
• 14:59
  pleasing. Notice the date of pronoun
• 15:02
  attached to it in the Greek to him the.
• 15:04
  Objective is intensely personal. The goal is not.
• 15:08
  Abstract moral respectability it is not.
• 15:10
  About satisfying a rule book or maintaining A stellar reputation
• 15:14
  in the community, it is aimed solely at the Lord Jesus Christ,
• 15:18
  this reminds. Me of a healthy marriage.
• 15:19
  Think about why you buy your spouse a thoughtful anniversary
• 15:22
  gift. You do.
• 15:23
  Not buy the gift to earn the legal status of being married,
• 15:26
  no. You do not hand over the present
• 15:28
  and say here, please do not divorce me.
• 15:30
  That would be a terrible fear based relationship you.
• 15:33
  Buy the gift as a joyful, loving response to the security of the
• 15:36
  relationship. You just genuinely want to see
• 15:38
  them smile that. Analogy perfectly captures the
• 15:41
  theological framework our sources are explaining, and the
• 15:44
  texts connect this directly to reformed theology.
• 15:46
  Specifically, the third use of the law as outlined in the
• 15:49
  Westminster Confession of Faith. Let's.
• 15:51
  Breakdown the third use of the law because it explains the
• 15:54
  exact mechanism of how this works in.
• 15:56
  Protestant theology, the moral law, has different uses.
• 16:00
  The first use is a civil use to restrain societal evil through
• 16:04
  the threat of punishment. The.
• 16:06
  Second, use is pedagogical, acting as a mirror that exposes
• 16:09
  our sin and drives. Us to Christ for salvation
• 16:13
  because we realize we cannot keep the law perfectly.
• 16:16
  But the third use is normative and is for the justified
• 16:19
  believer it acts. As a guide for how to live a
• 16:21
  life that pleases God, our sources explicitly reject the
• 16:25
  Roman Catholic concept of infused grace and works
• 16:28
  righteousness, which. Suggests that human merit
• 16:30
  cooperates with grace for justification.
• 16:33
  The Reformed view affirms that we are justified by faith alone
• 16:36
  but once. A Sinner is justified.
• 16:38
  God gives them a new heart that actually desires to offer works
• 16:42
  that are acceptable to God through Christ.
• 16:44
  The. Ambition to be well pleasing is
• 16:45
  the grateful response of someone who already knows they are
• 16:48
  completely accepted has. Anyone ever actually achieved
• 16:51
  this though? Has anyone ever lived a life
• 16:52
  perfectly pleasing to God according?
• 16:55
  To our sources, there is only one human being in all of
• 16:57
  history who has Florida State fulfilled Second Corinthians 5.9
• 17:02
  and that is Jesus Christ. We cannot.
• 17:04
  Talk about human ambition without looking at the perfect
• 17:06
  ambition of Christ, the. Texts point us to John 8.29
• 17:11
  where Jesus says he who sent me is with me.
• 17:14
  He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are
• 17:16
  pleasing to Him. Christ.
• 17:18
  'S total undivided aim was to do the will of the Father, and at
• 17:22
  his baptism and transfiguration the Father declared from heaven.
• 17:25
  This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased the.
• 17:29
  Sources break this down into two theological categories regarding
• 17:32
  Christ's work, his active obedience and his passive
• 17:36
  obedience. This is.
• 17:37
  A crucial distinction for understanding how we relate to
• 17:40
  God. Let's define those terms
• 17:41
  clearly, because they sound a bit technical, but they are
• 17:44
  incredibly practical. Sure.
• 17:46
  What is active obedience christ's active obedience refers
• 17:49
  to his perfect, flawless submission to the moral law of
• 17:52
  God throughout his entire earthly life from.
• 17:55
  Birth to the cross, he never once yielded to self-centered
• 17:58
  ambition he loved. God perfectly with all his
• 18:00
  heart, soul, mind and strength and loved his neighbor
• 18:04
  perfectly. He earned a perfect record of
• 18:06
  righteousness. And what?
• 18:07
  About his passive obedience. His passive.
• 18:09
  Obedience refers to his willingness to suffer and absorb
• 18:14
  the infinite wrath of God on the cross.
• 18:17
  The word passive here comes from the Latin passio, meaning
• 18:21
  suffering he. Willingly became the substitute
• 18:24
  for self pleasing sinners taking the penalty they deserve, right?
• 18:27
  He actively earned the perfect positive record and he passively
• 18:31
  took the punishment to wipe out our negative broken record and
• 18:34
  this. Leads to one of the most
• 18:35
  beautiful concepts in theology, imputation or the Great
• 18:40
  Exchange. Imputation is the mechanism of
• 18:42
  justification when a Sinner repents and believes a massive
• 18:46
  legal transfer takes place. The sinner's selfish ambition,
• 18:49
  their people pleasing, their failures, all of that guilt is
• 18:52
  credited or imputed to Christ on the cross and.
• 18:56
  He pays the penalty for it in full.
• 18:58
  Simultaneously, Christ's perfect, well pleasing record of
• 19:01
  active obedience is credited to the believer when God.
• 19:04
  Looks at the justified Sinner. He sees the flawless record of
• 19:07
  his own son. I have to ask the obvious
• 19:09
  question here, because this is where people get tripped up.
• 19:12
  If Christ's perfect record is already credited to my account,
• 19:16
  if God already sees me as perfectly pleasing legally
• 19:19
  because of Jesus, why does my flawed daily obedience even
• 19:22
  matter to God? It's a.
• 19:23
  Fair question like. If the grade in the class is
• 19:26
  already an A+, why do I need to keep taking tests that?
• 19:30
  Question highlights the error of antinomianism, which is the
• 19:34
  false idea that grace makes obedience unnecessary and the.
• 19:38
  Texts provide a stunning answer by pointing to Christ's ongoing
• 19:42
  priestly work. Yes.
• 19:43
  Your legal standing before the judge is secure forever, but
• 19:47
  your daily relational fellowship with your father involves your
• 19:50
  actual conduct because. Christ is our advocate and high
• 19:54
  priest in heaven right now. Our imperfect, flawed attempts
• 19:57
  to please God are washed clean by His blood and presented to
• 20:00
  the Father as acceptable sacrifices that.
• 20:02
  Completely changes the motivation.
• 20:04
  It means our daily obedience is not a crushing, impossible
• 20:07
  demand where we are constantly failing to hit the mark and
• 20:10
  worrying about being punished it.
• 20:11
  Makes obedience joyful. We can offer our flawed efforts
• 20:16
  like a talk handing their parent a messy scribbled drawing,
• 20:20
  knowing the parent accepts it with joy because of the
• 20:23
  relationship we know. Our efforts are purified and
• 20:25
  accepted because of our union with Christ.
• 20:28
  It replaces paralyzing fear with sincere gratitude.
• 20:32
  And this. Theological foundation is
• 20:33
  absolutely necessary when we start looking at how the sources
• 20:36
  apply this to modern controversies.
• 20:39
  The text. Do not just leave this in the
• 20:41
  abstract academic realm. They aggressively confront the
• 20:45
  current landscape of the Church. They really.
• 20:46
  Do the sources take direct aim at a clash between pragmatism
• 20:50
  and fidelity? Specifically, they offer a
• 20:53
  severe critique of the modern seeker sensitive church model,
• 20:56
  the. Argument presented in the text
• 20:58
  is that much of modern evangelicalism has adopted
• 21:01
  worldly metrics for success, very similar to the Super
• 21:04
  apostles in Corinth they measure.
• 21:05
  A church's health by seating capacity, the size of the
• 21:08
  building, the production value of the service, and cultural
• 21:11
  relevance. The.
• 21:11
  Sources argue that this fundamentally betrays the
• 21:14
  command to please Christ alone. The.
• 21:16
  Text implies that if a church softens the offense of the cross
• 21:19
  or avoids talking about sin and repentance just to keep the
• 21:22
  seats full and the culture happy, they have replaced the
• 21:25
  approval of Christ with the applause of men.
• 21:27
  They're operating on the phelotymia of Corinth rather
• 21:30
  than the ambition of Paul. They want the celery wreath of
• 21:34
  cultural approval. Yeah.
• 21:35
  That rotting celery wreath and the sources trace this back to a
• 21:39
  deeper theological divide regarding the nature of grace
• 21:41
  itself the. Texts are written from a
• 21:43
  distinctly reformed perspective, contrasting it with Armenian
• 21:47
  views. They.
• 21:48
  Argue that Armenian theology makes pleasing God a fragile
• 21:51
  endeavor tied to autonomous human free will.
• 21:54
  Because if your final salvation depends on your ability to
• 21:57
  maintain a perfectly pleasing life through your own unassisted
• 22:00
  free will, you are going to live in constant terror of losing
• 22:04
  your salvation the moment your ambition falters.
• 22:07
  The. Reformed view, however, anchors
• 22:09
  our actions in God's sovereign preserving grace, the.
• 22:12
  Text quotes Philippians noting that God works in believers both
• 22:16
  to will and to work for his good pleasure our ambition to please
• 22:21
  him is the fruit of his preserving grace working inside
• 22:24
  us, not the root cause of our salvation the.
• 22:27
  Sources also tackle the issue of how we actually know what
• 22:31
  pleases God. They bring up the doctrine of
• 22:33
  the sufficiency of Scripture and they.
• 22:35
  Explicitly reject modern mystical trends the texts right
• 22:39
  from a cessationist perspective, let's.
• 22:41
  Define cessationism for a second it is the theological view that
• 22:45
  the miraculous sign gifts like receiving new Apostolic visions,
• 22:50
  prophesying new revelations, or speaking in ecstatic tongues
• 22:53
  ceased with the foundational era of the early church once the New
• 22:57
  Testament was completed right the.
• 22:58
  Authors argue that believers today do not need to chase after
• 23:01
  new revelations, dreams or emotional highs to figure out
• 23:05
  what God wanted them to do because.
• 23:06
  The Canon of Scripture is closed and inerrant.
• 23:09
  The texts argue that the Bible provides precise, sufficient
• 23:12
  instructions on what pleases God things.
• 23:14
  Like moral purity, truth telling, loving your neighbor,
• 23:17
  and holy living, you do. Not need a mystical experience
• 23:20
  or a voice from heaven to tell you to be honest at work.
• 23:24
  You just need to open the book. The authors also frame all of
• 23:27
  this within a very specific eschatological structure.
• 23:31
  They write from a dispensational, premillennial,
• 23:33
  pre tribulational perspective. This.
• 23:36
  Framework views the church age as a distinct period in
• 23:39
  redemptive history, separate from national Israel it.
• 23:43
  Anticipates a sudden, imminent return of Christ to rapture the
• 23:47
  Church before a period of global tribulation.
• 23:49
  The reason? The texts bring this up is to
• 23:51
  heighten the urgency of the Christian life if.
• 23:54
  You believe the Church is a heavenly people currently living
• 23:56
  as pilgrims, and that Christ could return at any moment to
• 24:00
  call His Church to the Bema seat judgement.
• 24:02
  It radically alters how you live.
• 24:04
  You are. Not trying to build a permanent
• 24:06
  geopolitical utopia on Earth. You are living as a faithful
• 24:10
  ambassador awaiting a sudden return.
• 24:12
  I want to. Address something practical
• 24:13
  here, go for it. When the text pushes so hard
• 24:16
  against seeking the approval of men, whether that is the secular
• 24:19
  culture or the seeker sensitive church, is it possible to become
• 24:23
  so hyper focused on rejecting human approval that a person
• 24:27
  just becomes unnecessarily abrasive like?
• 24:29
  Can a Christian use pleasing God as an excuse to be a jerk
• 24:33
  lacking in basic kindness and human decency that.
• 24:36
  Is a very real danger. While the sources prioritize
• 24:40
  absolute fidelity to biblical truth, we must remember that
• 24:43
  love for neighbor is also explicitly commanded by Christ
• 24:47
  refusing. To compromise the truth does not
• 24:49
  require a believer to be hostile or aggressive just for the sake
• 24:52
  of being offensive. The goal?
• 24:53
  Is not to alienate people on purpose.
• 24:56
  The goal is to remain faithful to Christ, even if that fidelity
• 24:59
  results in alienation. Christ.
• 25:01
  Was perfectly pleasing to the Father and he wept over
• 25:03
  Jerusalem. He showed immense compassion to
• 25:06
  outcasts even while speaking hard truths to the religious
• 25:09
  elite. The standard.
• 25:10
  Is Christ himself who perfectly balanced grace and truth.
• 25:14
  How do? We bring all this massive
• 25:15
  theology home to our daily routines.
• 25:18
  Our sources spend a lot of time applying this to everyday
• 25:20
  ambition. The.
• 25:21
  Primary application the sources make is dismantling the divided
• 25:25
  life we touch on this earlier with the secular sacred divide,
• 25:30
  the. Texts argue forcefully against
• 25:32
  the habit of giving Sunday morning to Christ but reserving
• 25:35
  Monday through Saturday for personal, selfish ambition.
• 25:39
  You. Cannot compartmentalize it.
• 25:41
  You cannot say I will be a Christian at church, but at work
• 25:44
  I operate by the ruthless rules of the corporate ladder, and
• 25:48
  I'll step on whoever I need to step on to get ahead.
• 25:51
  The sources. Provide very granular, beautiful
• 25:53
  examples of what it looks like to live out Seven Corinthians
• 25:56
  5.9 in the mundane moments. They mentioned the mother
• 26:00
  changing diapers in the middle of the night.
• 26:02
  They. Mentioned the employee refusing
• 26:03
  to participate in dishonest financial gain at the office,
• 26:06
  even if it cost them a promotion they point to.
• 26:08
  The students studying diligently not to show off, but as an act
• 26:12
  of worship, and they. Mentioned the bedridden St.
• 26:14
  enduring chronic illness with patients in prayer.
• 26:17
  I think that the last one is incredibly moving.
• 26:19
  It is. We almost always associate
• 26:21
  ambition with health figure and youth, but the.
• 26:24
  Text says that a bedridden Christian, who might feel
• 26:27
  completely useless by the world's metrics because they
• 26:30
  cannot produce anything visible, can exercise a holy ambition
• 26:34
  that is immensely pleasing to Christ.
• 26:37
  Simply by trusting Him in their weakness and praying for others.
• 26:41
  Every single one of these scenarios is a platform for
• 26:44
  pleasing the Lord in order. To build on those platforms, the
• 26:47
  text calls for the active purging of idols.
• 26:50
  The sources are uncompromising here.
• 26:52
  They. List specific cultural and
• 26:54
  personal idols that compete for the Christian's ambition.
• 26:57
  Our texts. Call out some very specific
• 26:59
  cultural and personal idols. And before we list the cultural
• 27:01
  ones, I need to make something very clear to you, the listener.
• 27:04
  Right a quick. Point of order.
• 27:06
  The sources we are analyzing today dive into some highly
• 27:09
  charged political and social issues.
• 27:11
  As always on the show, we are not taking any sides.
• 27:14
  We are completely impartial our. Goal is not to endorse the
• 27:17
  viewpoints of these authors regarding these political
• 27:20
  movements, but simply to convey the ideas contained in the
• 27:23
  original source material. We want you to understand their
• 27:27
  argument looking. At the text, they identify
• 27:29
  people pleasing as a massive personal idol, but they also
• 27:33
  point to broader cultural movements.
• 27:36
  The. Sources explicitly argue that
• 27:38
  believers must reject critical race theory, social justice
• 27:41
  agendas, and political mechanism.
• 27:43
  Political. Mechanism being the idea that a
• 27:46
  specific politician or political party is going to save the world
• 27:50
  and bring about righteousness, right?
• 27:52
  The authors view these as secular frameworks that distract
• 27:56
  the church from its true mission and attempt to redefine
• 27:59
  righteousness outside of biblical parameters.
• 28:01
  Furthermore. They call out personal moral
• 28:03
  failures like pornography, drunkenness and laziness.
• 28:07
  Whether addressing systemic cultural philosophies or hidden
• 28:10
  private sins, the argument of the text remains the same.
• 28:13
  Anything. That diverts the believers
• 28:15
  primary allegiance away from the pleasure of Christ must be
• 28:17
  rooted out. The body is for the Lord, and
• 28:20
  the mind is for the Lord. The sources.
• 28:22
  Also highlight a specific call to public action.
• 28:25
  They argue that believers need to stop hiding their
• 28:27
  convictions. One of the primary ways they
• 28:29
  show this is through believers baptism, the.
• 28:31
  Texts frame baptism not just as a ritual, but as a necessary
• 28:35
  public pledge of a good conscience toward God.
• 28:38
  It is. The outward declaration that a
• 28:40
  person has abandoned their self idolatry, died to the world's
• 28:43
  metrics of success, and now belongs entirely to Christ is a.
• 28:47
  Public drawing of the line in the sand.
• 28:50
  It forces the believer to publicly declare their new
• 28:53
  allegiance. You are.
• 28:54
  Saying to the world, I no longer care about your celery reefs.
• 28:57
  I am living for a different Kingdom.
• 29:00
  It is. Like an internal compass?
• 29:01
  Think about. How a compass works the terrain
• 29:04
  around you is constantly changing.
• 29:06
  You might be walking through a dense forest, or climbing a
• 29:09
  steep mountain, or walking through a flat arid desert in.
• 29:13
  Life. You might experience seasons of
• 29:14
  immense wealth or crushing poverty.
• 29:16
  You might have vibrant health or severe sickness.
• 29:19
  The terrain always changes but the.
• 29:21
  Needle of that compass always points to the exact same true
• 29:25
  north regardless of the weather or the elevation.
• 29:28
  For the Christian true north is the smile of the Savior that is
• 29:32
  a. Phenomenal way to visualize it.
• 29:34
  The changing terrain is the weather at home or away aspect
• 29:37
  of Paul's letter. The needle pointing N is the
• 29:40
  well pleasing to him as we. Wrap up this deep dive.
• 29:43
  Let's summarize the core argument of our sources, the
• 29:46
  texts. Take the vast sweeping realities
• 29:48
  of theology, eschatology, justification, the nature of the
• 29:52
  New Covenant, and they strip the daily Christian life down to 1
• 29:56
  brilliantly simple aim to please.
• 29:57
  The risen Lord it. Replaces the exhausting anxiety
• 30:00
  of constantly seeking human applause with the steady,
• 30:03
  unshakable piece of divine approval when your.
• 30:06
  Audience is reduced to an audience of 1.
• 30:09
  You are freed from the tyranny of the crowd it.
• 30:11
  Doesn't matter what the social media algorithm says about you.
• 30:14
  Doesn't matter what your coworkers think of your refusal
• 30:16
  to cut ethical corners. You answer to 1 judge our.
• 30:20
  Sources place a heavy focus on the Bema seat of Christ, the
• 30:23
  place where all motives will be laid bare.
• 30:26
  We talked earlier about how the fire will burn up the wood, hay
• 30:29
  and stubble, of our selfish motives and that.
• 30:31
  Reality usually makes us think about the bad things we've
• 30:33
  hidden, but there is a different angle on the Bema seat today.
• 30:37
  We. Spend so much time worrying that
• 30:39
  our hidden sins will be exposed. But the Bema seat is also the
• 30:43
  day when you're hitting. Faithfulness is vindicated.
• 30:45
  The Times. You bit your tongue and showed
• 30:47
  patience when you were exhausted.
• 30:49
  The times you gave money in secret to someone hurting.
• 30:53
  The times you prayed alone in your room for a friend who never
• 30:55
  even knew you were praying the. World ignored those moments.
• 30:59
  The world didn't give you a celery wreath for them, but
• 31:02
  Christ saw every single one of them.
• 31:04
  And on that day, those hidden, seemingly insignificant acts of
• 31:09
  love will be brought out of the shadows, recognized and rewarded
• 31:13
  by the Creator of the Universe himself.
• 31:15
  So we. Leave you with this final
• 31:16
  thought to consider if the Bema seat will expose the hidden
• 31:19
  internal motives behind every outward action.
• 31:22
  What seemingly good or religious thing are you doing today that
• 31:26
  might actually bring up as wood, hay, or stubble because your
• 31:29
  secret audience is just yourself.
• 31:31
  Thank you for joining us on this deep dive.