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"What Moves You to Serve Christ" by Neal Pollard · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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For we know that if the earthly house
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of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God,
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a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
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For we that are in this body do groan, desiring to be clothed with
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our house which is from God, if so be
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that being unclothed we will not be found naked.
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For we that are in this body do groan, being burdened,
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not that we should be unclothed, but clothed upon,
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that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
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For he who has wrought this selfsame thing is
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God, who has given us the earnest of
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the Spirit. For we are willing, yea rather,
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to be absent from the body and to be present with
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the Lord. For we walk by faith and
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not by sight. We desire
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and are willing to be absent from the body and present
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with the Lord. Wherefore we make it our aim,
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that whether present or absent, that we may be found
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well pleasing unto him. For we must all
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appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive
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the things which he has done in his body, according to what he has done,
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whether good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror
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of the Lord, we persuade men.
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We make ourselves manifest to God, and we trust that
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we are manifest in your sight also. And we say this
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again, not to cause you to have glory in us, but that you may have
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somewhat to answer those who glory in appearance rather than in flesh.
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For if we are beside ourselves, it is of God; if
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we are sober, It is for your cause.
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Wherefore the love of Christ controls us,
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because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then we are all dead.
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And that he died for all, that they which live henceforth should not live unto
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themselves, but unto him who died for them and rose again.
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Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh. Yea,
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though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet henceforth know we
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him no more. Wherefore if any man is in Christ, He is a new creature:
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old things are passed away; behold, all things are become
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new. And all things are of God,
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who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and has given unto us the
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ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling
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the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses against them; and has given
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to us the word of reconciliation. Now then
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we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we
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urge you in Christ's stead, reconciled to God. For God
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made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin,
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that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
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These are the words that Paul says immediately after the Scripture reading
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that was read so well for us a moment ago by Jackson,
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in the middle of a discussion that the Apostle Paul is having.
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And if we were to try to summarize what Paul is doing there in 2
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Corinthians, chapter 5, Perhaps we would say it that
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he is trying to give us the motivation that we
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need in order to finish this life successfully, to serve
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Christ here, and to spend our forever with
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Christ. Now I want to ask you this morning, is there anything
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more central to why you came to worship today than to look
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for and to feed your motivation to serve God and to
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be able to spend your forever in God's house.
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George T. Doran is the one who gave us SMART goals. He introduced
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it to the world in 1981. He said that as we are striving
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to motivate ourselves and to achieve or to progress as we
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would like to in the objectives that we have, he says that those goals
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need to be specific, they need to be measurable,
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they need to be achievable, they need to be relevant, and they need to be
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time-bound. Without these variables in our
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goals, it's very easy for us to lose our motivation or to lose
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our way in doing even important tasks. But as we evaluate
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the things that we are doing in this life, there is nothing more important that
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we have on our agenda than to be ready for eternity.
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What moves you? What drives you to
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want to go to heaven?
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What is the impetus that prepares you for eternity?
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Is it more than hell and heaven?
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And while those are necessary motivators, even in this chapter,
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one out of 1,189 chapters of the Bible,
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there are several motivations that Paul gives
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us, moved by the Holy Spirit, that can be those little planks
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that help us to achieve that goal. And I want us
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to think about them ever briefly this morning. What moves
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you? What should drive you to serve Christ and to prepare
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to live with Him? The first objective, the first motivation,
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if you will, is a new house in verses 1 through
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4. Now, this house that he is talking about is the
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body. How do we know that? Go back into the chapter before, and he talks
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about this contrast that we sense here. He says it's a difference between
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the physical and the spiritual. It's the outer man versus the inner man.
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It is a temporary affliction and glory.
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It is that which is now and that which is to come. It's the
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temporary and the eternal. And with that contrast in the background,
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he says, we are longing for a time in which we
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are going to— this house is going to dissolve. And when you think
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about the house, he's talking about your body. We want this thing to
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be turned loose. That we have because we're looking
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for something better. And I thought about how could that be illustrated? I know that
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some of you have been to New York City. It's not my jam, but it
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is for some folks. And one of the most recognizable hotels
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in the world is the Waldorf Astoria. And it's a tale of
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2 hotels. I don't know if you know that or not. The first one
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was built in 1890 on Fifth Avenue, and the 2 buildings
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themselves, the hotels, were 13 and 16 stories respectively.
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And it was no small little hostel on the side.
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It had room for 1,000 guests, 1,000 guest rooms in that place.
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And it was a must-stay for foreign dignitaries
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who were coming to the United States, to New York City. And America's
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elite stayed there, but they, they were going to destroy it, tear it down in
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1929 to make room for this new little place called the Empire
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State Building. And so that was where the original was. It cost
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$15 million, by the way, in 1890 figures to build.
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Build that place. They moved it up on Park Avenue and the new hotel
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is now 47 stories high.
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It has room for 2,000 guest rooms.
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It is filled with, I think, 11 million
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bricks, 27,100 tons of steel,
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and there is exquisite black marble and gold woven throughout
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that hotel. It was the tallest hotel in the world for decades.
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And so while that first hotel was grand, What replaced it
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eclipsed it in grandeur. How does that relate to the
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thing that we're talking about now? I want you to think about the body that
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God has given you. Maybe you're not 100% satisfied
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or happy with it, but consider what was said. You have
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made my inward parts. You have woven me in
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my mother's womb. I will give thanks to you,
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for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works,
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and this my soul knows quite well, Psalm 139:13-14.
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And think about that in some specifics. God placed in
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your body a hypothalamus that you never even think about,
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and it regulates your body temperature through sweating and blood
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flow. That God has put in the front of your face eyelids,
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and they blink 15 to 20 times a minute. Now, you may be responsible
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for— maybe right now you're making yourself do that because you're thinking about it,
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but most of the time you don't. And it can close in 100 milliseconds
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when there is the threat of a foreign object coming its way. Did you
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know that there are muscles in your digestive tract
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that are constantly contracting and expanding and
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you have nothing to do with that? God put it inside of you to make
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it happen. When you think about the fact that God has put tear ducts,
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the glymphatic system, that he clots your blood through
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a multi-stage repair system known as hemostasis, that there
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are so many things going on in your body and God created
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that. So that it would work for decades.
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Moses would look at it in the overall in Psalm 90:10, and he
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said, this body will last you 7 decades,
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8 decades, some even longer than that. Last week
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we talked about Miss Betty making it to 102 years, all of
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those things happening. But what is also happening is
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that little by little, gradually over time,
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that body is wearing out.
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Solomon describes it graphically when he says, remember now your
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Creator in the days of youth while the evil days come not or the years
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draw nigh when you shall say, I have no pleasure in them.
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In the days when the sun and the moon and the stars be not darkened
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and the clouds return not after the rain, when the keepers of the house
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shall tremble and the strong men shall bow themselves and the grinders cease because
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they are few and they that look out the windows be darkened and the doors
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shall be shut in the street and the sound of the grinding is low,
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and he shall rise at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of
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music shall be brought low. And he shall be afraid of that which is high,
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and fear shall be in the way, and the grasshopper shall be a burden,
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and desire shall fail. For man goes to his long home, and the mourners
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go about the street. Wherever the silver cord is loose, or the golden bowl
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is broken, or the pitcher is broken at the fountain, or the wheel is broken
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at the cistern, and then shall the dust return to the earth as it was,
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and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Ecclesiastes 12:1-7.
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And what Solomon's doing there is saying, look at your body in
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any component part. Your hands aren't—
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don't have the grip strength. Your legs aren't steady. Your teeth
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are falling out. You can't see. You can't hear. Your body's
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wearing down. Paul's going to say in 1
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Corinthians 15:42 that it is sown a perishable body.
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It is raised an imperishable body. It is sown
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in dishonor, it's raised in glory. It's sown in weakness, it's raised in
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power. It's sown a natural body, it's raised a spiritual body. 1 Corinthians
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15:42-44. Do you know what Paul is giving you permission
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to do? To have as an incentive to serve
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him the anticipation of a new body that
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we're going to experience in the revelation. In fact, Paul would say,
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think about what happened to Paul's body on this earth. I long
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for it. I groan for it. You looking for
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motivation? I know we take it by faith,
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but it is so as much as any of the promises of God's Word that
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this is not what's being engineered for eternity. There's a new house that
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God is making for us. And maybe the older you are, the more precious that
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gets to you. You want a motivation to serve? Number 2
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is the presence of God. In verse 5 through verse 8,
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Paul says, as long as we're here, we walk by faith and
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not by sight. I want you to consider the fact
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that you have— some of you have come back from fall break. You've made some
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great memories. Maybe there were some great times, some individual
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moments that stand out. There's that meal that you won't soon forget
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for months, or there's that recognition that
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you received. Or maybe there was some experience of some luxurious
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thing or something that really, really satisfied you. But what
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you find is that those moments are so rare, you can probably recall them
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going back some way. And even if it was great, it was only great
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temporarily. There's just something about it.
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You see, the things of this life are wearing down and we're being destroyed.
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Matthew 6:19. At the same time,
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what Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 3:11 is, that God has put
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eternity in our heart. We know that we
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won't find our answer, our purpose from any of those things,
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the things that we get to enjoy and experience for a little while in this
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life. So what moves us? What drives us on?
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And maybe this is an odd way for this to connect in our mind,
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but Paul says it is to be absent from this body
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and present with the Lord. That's building on that last motivation.
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Paul says, I'm here and I'm going to do what I need to do,
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but I have a definite preference. You remember that? For to me to live is
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Christ and to die is gain. Philippians 1:21,
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I desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is better
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by far. When you begin to rank all
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those promises in Revelation chapter 21, and you think about all
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that John's trying to paint for us to make us long to go to heaven,
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as he begins to talk about that, And to me, the thing that stands out
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is a realization of something that we have just accepted by faith today.
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Think about what we did about 10 minutes ago, 15 minutes ago.
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The men brought around those emblems and we thought about the body of Christ.
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As we partook of that, maybe we took our mind back to the cross of
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Calvary and thought about the man, the Son of Man,
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Jesus of Nazareth, and the fruit of the vine that came
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around. We thought about his blood and the fact that he shed it until the
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life of the flesh is in the blood. And he was no more.
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He laid down his life on the cross. Think about
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as we were led so beautifully before the throne of God and we
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addressed our Father in prayer. I don't know what picture you have in your mind
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as you try to envision God. Think through all the acts
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of worship. What does Paul say? We walk by faith and
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not by sight. But in Revelation chapter 21, as he depicts
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it as our being in the Father's house,
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Is there anything that drives us any more than knowing that this Jesus
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that we have thought about, this God in whom we put our faith in,
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we are going to look at face to face forever
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without any separation from that that will ever be? Psalm 23:6,
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I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
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What drives you on? I love the Richard Baxter quote. My knowledge of
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that life is small. The eye of faith is dim, but it's enough
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that Christ knows all and I will be with him.
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What's driving you? How about being able
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to be in the very presence of God without interruption,
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without any limit of time in the forever that follows this life?
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What moves you to serve Christ? How about pleasing
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him? In verse 9, Paul says that
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it mattered to him how he lived in view of the judgment. That means that
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he could live in such a way that would not have been found pleasing to
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God, And I find that that word, it's only found a few times in the
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New Testament. Every time that word pleasing or well-pleasing is found,
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God is the object. And it is said
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to be the goal or the aim of the Christian life.
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You think about where those passages appear and we see it.
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It's the place where we see that we're to give up our body as a
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living sacrifice, which is pleasing or acceptable to God.
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Same word. Romans 12:1. Or children,
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obey your parents in the Lord, for this is pleasing to Him.
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Ephesians 6:1. Sharing and doing good
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works, God is well pleased, Hebrews 13:16.
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And maybe the one we know the best, without faith it's impossible to please
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God, Hebrews 11:6.
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There's no doubt that God sent his Son here to save us, but seeing what
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he went through for us, it will be the drive for us to serve him.
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Is there somebody in your life that you long to please?
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Now, my— outside of Christ, the number one individual in my life is
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my wife, and I hope if you're married that you'd say it's your spouse.
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But there's also somebody else or a few others who maybe
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their voice is always in your head and who have influenced you and you want
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to please them. There's no doubt that one of those individuals is my dad.
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That's my dad a few years ago.
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My dad was a football star for the Jonesboro
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Cardinals south of Atlanta in Georgia.
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And he was such a good athlete that he was going to go play football
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at Harding University before he contracted hepatitis. And so he's
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become my standard when it comes to things football.
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He's the reason why— and I'm a little aggravated by that today— I'm
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such a diehard Georgia Bulldogs fan, because my dad, he's my standard.
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I was not a high school football star, but I played a little bit of
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football. My dad saw me play a grand total
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of 1 game. It was our spring game my 10th grade year. I knew Dad
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was there. I registered 2 sacks and multiple tackles for loss. I played out
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of my mind. Because my dad was out there and
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I wanted to please him. And I know you have somebody in your
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life like that. Knowing what God gave
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up for me, I make it my aim whether I'm
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here or whether I'm there to be well pleasing to him.
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What moves you to serve God? May I suggest that pleasing him
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be something that drives you. But then number 4 is the judgment.
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There is a judgment to come. And in verse 10, he says, we must
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all, every one of us, and there are 3 individual elements that make
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that up. First of all, I realize that I will
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personally be there.
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I will, you will, each of us will
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be there. One of the frustrating things in this life is that people do
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wrong and they're not made to answer to justice. And maybe
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we think on a big scale, there was Josef Mengele and all those horrible experiments
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that he did. On the Jews in World War II.
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And when the war was over, he escaped to Brazil and was never brought to
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justice, and he died there as an old man. Or Pol Pot, who was
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hiding in plain sight. He was a dictator in Cambodia from 1975
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to '79 and was responsible for literally millions of people's death through
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forced labor camps and executions and starvation. And even after
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he was deposed, he carried on his attacks until 1997, a year before
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his death, in which he was stopped from doing that,
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but he never faced justice. Any of y'all remember the vending machine
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killer in Japan? They never found out who it was who killed people
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through the poison that he did in that machine, or Jack the Ripper in England
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who killed with impunity and was never brought to justice. But there
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will be an administration
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of judgment. No one is going to be so important that they will not be
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made to stand there No one will be so insignificant that they will not
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be made to appear there. I will stand there.
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That motivates me. But I will also stand before
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Christ, and oh, what we could say.
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Christ, who became man, who came down.
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Christ, who gave Himself in my place, 1 Timothy 3:4-5,
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that I might be saved. Christ, who was raised from the dead and
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took the power of death over me, Hebrews 2:14, the one who had His will
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for me written down, Mark 16:16, the One who in that Word
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says, come to Me, Matthew 11:28-30,
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the One who in that Word warns me of the punishment of the disobedient,
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Matthew 25:46, and who promises me of the heaven to come
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in John 14:1-3, the One who at
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the end of the Bible says one more time, come to Me, but who
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also says, behold, I am coming quickly.
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I will stand before Christ. He came the first time to save me.
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He'll come a second time to judge me. I could
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not ask for a judge that'll be more fair, more patient,
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and more loving than Christ, but his verdict will be right and
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it'll be irreversible. But I will also be rewarded according
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to what I've done. Did you know you're only going to be judged on 4
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things at the judgment? You're going to be judged by
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the things that you've done. So our verse here, 2 Corinthians 5:10,
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you're going to be judged by the things that you did not do. Do you
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know those 3 parables of preparation in Matthew 25 are all concerning
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people being lost for the things that they did not do? They did
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not get ready. I'm going to be judged,
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number 3, by the secrets of my heart.
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If I let something, some attitude, some mindset that is in darkness
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and not in light overpower and dominate me.
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And then I'll be judged by the things that I
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said. Every idle word that a man shall speak, he shall give an
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account thereof in the day of judgment. Matthew 12 and verse 37.
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To know that I live my life before the all-seeing eye of
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God motivates me. You know, the Titanic
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is still one of the greatest maritime disasters in all of history.
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1,517 people died on that night in 1912.
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76% of the crew, 62% of the passengers.
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And one of the tragedies of that night was that there were some who survived
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in families and others who did not. Families were separated for the rest
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of their lives here through the Titanic.
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And on the day of judgment, families will be separated.
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Spouses, children from parents, and parents
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from children, friends, and brethren.
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God doesn't want it that way. He's done everything He can
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so that it is not that way, but for many, it will be that way,
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and that should motivate me.
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Then fifth, and very briefly, the fear of the Lord. I believe that
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this is a motivation that comes out of the other, and Scripture says,
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knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. Jude says in Jude
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23, with some saved with fear. Hebrews 10:27 says
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that a fearful looking for of judgment is powerful.
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And even Felix shows us in Acts 24:25,
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as he heard Paul speak of the judgment to come, that he trembled. It is
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a legitimate motivation for us to
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say that this is coming. And if I don't prepare myself,
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oh, for those who accept the benefits of His grace, what a wonderful
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moment when He says, come, blessed of My Father, Matthew 25:31.
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But to those who do not accept the benefits of His grace, who are
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disobedient to Him, He will say, depart from
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Me. What if we
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could have the curtain of eternity lifted so
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that we could see what it would be like to be lost?
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But doesn't God do that? With the man in Luke chapter
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16 who lived for himself and died lost, and He would counsel us,
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He would say, I am in agony in this flame. Verse 24,
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he would say, do not come to this place of torment. Verse 28.
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Why is that in Scripture for us? Not as the sole and the sum
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totality of what our motivation should be, but as a motivator if that's
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what speaks to us to realize that that is the case.
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But then I'm motivated by the love of Christ.
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I want you to hear how Paul says it. He could have said it a
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lot of different ways, but he uses a vivid graphic word. He says, the love
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of Christ. I don't know what your version says. It may say compels me,
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it controls me, but it's a very vivid
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word. It's a word that means to seize hold of, to take power
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of. It is the word that the Holy Spirit directs Luke to use in
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Luke— in Acts 7:57 when the men stopped their ears
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and held their ears so they couldn't hear Stephen on that occasion. It's the word
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in Luke 22:63 when Jesus was held in custody
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by those that tortured Him and beat Him. But instead of this
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being an oppressive idea, it's the gateway to freedom.
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And the love and joy. The love that Christ showed
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for me and what we again have memorialized this morning is that
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which gets ahold of me and it won't let
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go. When you think about motivations, you think
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about Jesus giving up everything that we through his poverty
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might be made rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9, Desmond Doss,
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was not only in the Battle of Okinawa, he was on the
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infamous Hacksaw Ridge. And if you don't know what happened in that battle, the enemy
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snipers fired upon that ridge and through artillery fire
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left dozens of American soldiers wounded, left to
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die. And they continued their onslaught of shooting.
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So most soldiers took cover, but Desmond
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Doss, a medic, went again and again into danger.
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And he very early figured out that he needed a rope ladder system
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to drop those soldiers who were laying there wounded off the side of that
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cliff to safety. The Army credits him with saving
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75 men from dying because of what he did,
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gave him the Medal of Honor. But I want you to think about the
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75. You're there having perhaps
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your final thoughts. This is it.
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I'm going to bleed to death. Who would
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come into this kind of danger and would rescue me?
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If they try, they may die. It's done.
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Can you imagine how many last words those men were forming in their minds thinking
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that this was the very end? And along comes Desmond and he grabs
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them and he puts them in that litter and he drops them down to safety.
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And I want you to think about that That's us, every one of us.
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When we were still helpless, Christ died for the ungodly.
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For scarcely for a righteous man will some die; for a good
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man some would even dare to die. But God commended His love toward us,
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in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
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He came and risked everything to save
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us. He didn't leave us to die.
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Surely that motivates us. The next one
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I will just touch on, the work of Christ is reclamation, verses 11 through 15.
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Recognition, I see no one but Christ. When I look at anybody, what I'm supposed
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to do is see God, to see Christ and not them, and to see that
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they have a soul that will last forever. I bring reconciliation through Christ,
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verses 17 through 20, and I am a representation for Christ,
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verse 20 and verse 21. Folks are struggling
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for their purpose in life all the time, but we don't have to second guess
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that. It's been given to us. We know why we're here and
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we know what God wants us to do. And there is no work that exceeds
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it. When a soul is won to Christ and we have partnered with God
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to— in order to bring that about, man, there is a feeling that
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that gives like none other.
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And then one last one that's really a summary of all of them is the
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sacrifice of Christ. God made him to
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be sin for us who knew no sin. That we might be made the righteousness
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of God in Him.
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Substitutionary sacrifice. We talked about
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what Desmond did and he didn't lose his life, but what Jesus did in order
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to save our life necessitated that He had to give
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His life so that we may live.
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Can we appreciate that? In Auschwitz
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concentration camp, there was prisoner who escaped.
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And as a reprisal for that, the guards at Auschwitz said 10
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individuals will have to give their life. And so they picked 10
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names at random off the Auschwitz roster to die.
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And one of the names that was called is the man you see before you,
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Franciszek Gohonicek. And when his name was
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read, he cried out in distress and mentioned that he had a wife and 2
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sons. And there was another man who heard
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that. His name was Maximilian Kolbe. He stepped forward before
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people who were not known for their compassion, and he said, I would
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like to exchange myself for Gohonicek.
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Can you believe that the guards allowed that to take place?
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They put him in a starvation bunker, and that didn't kill him. And so he
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died by lethal injection, Maximilian Kolbe did, on August 14th,
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1941. Franzisek Gahonicek
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had a few more scrapes before the war was over, but he survived
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and he lived 54 more years. In 1972,
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they had a ceremony in front of 150,000 people in
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which they honored the life of Maximilian Kolbe, and Franzisek Gahonicek
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was one of the first to speak, and he said, I want to stand and
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give thanks for the gift of life.
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Again, that's us.
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One who was not called answered the
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call and died in our place.
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What moves you? What motivates you?
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You see, God says you don't have to choose one. You can choose several of
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these. Maybe all of these together move you to serve Christ
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and to not give up and to not fall away. But to make it all
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the way there. Or if you're not yet a child of God, it's to speak
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to your heart and say, have I responded to God's grace by doing what His
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Word says? Do I believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Am I willing
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to change my mind and change my life? And through repentance,
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am I willing to confess the name of Christ before others? And am I willing
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to allow myself to be buried in water to rise to walk in newness
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of life? Am I willing to do that? Well, what will move me?
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A new body. I look forward to that more and more all the time.
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The presence of my Redeemer and my God and my Creator.
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I want to please Him.
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I'm going to stand before Him. And the thought of
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me letting anything stand between me and that,
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it frightens me. But more than that,
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I am held captive by the love of Christ.
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And I know I've got a work to be a part of. I can't shirk
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that and leave that to others. And then there's the sacrifice that was
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made for me. Man, together, that'll move us to
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do His will. As children of God, we can forget
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as soon as anyone else. The invitation that we're
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going to be led in, in just a moment, I believe, is, Create in me
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a clean heart, O God, is an opportunity for renewal and restoration.
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Maybe if you've never come to him yet, you're moved to do that this
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morning. Or if you need to come back home to him, that you'll be moved
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to do that as well. This is your invitation. Won't you come as we stand