Gold, Silver, or Bronze? - Part A

What was it that motivated Paul the Apostle?

Or guys like Paul the Apostle? I mean, what would make a person decide, I'm going to travel around the world and have people say bad things to me, and throw me in jail, and beat me up, and have rocks thrown at me, and then I'll get up and I'll go to the next town, and we'll just keep doing that year after. What would motivate a person to do that?

Winning is a huge motivator, especially when the reward is a trophy or a gold medal. What about in the life of a Christian? Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip shares an important and powerful motivator you have to pursue Christ. Right now, we want to tell you about a resource that will help you become the difference maker God created you to be. I've enjoyed watching the growth and the ministry of my friend Levi Lusko. This month's Connect with Skip resource, Take Back Your Life, the new book by Levi Lusko.

Here's Levi to tell you about it. It's all around this idea of taking back your life. It's a 40-day interactive journey to thinking right so you can live right. And it's going to be really powerful and special, I think, for people to have this. Not only is it in hardcover, which just makes me happy because I've never had a book released in hardcover, but it has a ribbon, so you'll be able to keep track of your progress through these 40 days. It would be an incredible gift to someone who is looking to grow in their faith, or for any of us who want to maybe kind of do an oil change for your heart, a checkup on your wellness, on where you're at.

It'll deal with internal difficulties and help you deal better with external circumstances that are challenging as we explore how we can get to the very best version of ourselves that we are meant to be. Get the book, Take Back Your Life, with a donation of $35 to Connect with Skip. Call 1-800-922-1888 or online at connectwithskip.com. This hardcover book by Levi Lusko will help you take back your life. It's a 40-day interactive journey to thinking right so you can live right. 1-800-922-1888.

Now, we're in 2 Corinthians, Chapter 5, as we get into the message with Skip Heitzig. What motivates people to do a good job? That's a question that businesses have asked for years. Books and seminars are everywhere on how to give people incentive to produce and to live right, to do right, especially on the job. So how do we get people motivated?

Well, here's an example of what not to do. Here's a company's in-house memo to all employees regarding sick leave policy. Here's the new policy. Sickness, no excuse. We will no longer accept your doctor's statement. If you're able to go to the doctor, you're able to come to work. Leave of absence for an operation.

We will no longer allow this practice. We wish to discourage any thought that you may need an operation. As long as you're employed here, you will need all of whatever you have and should not consider having anything removed.

We hired you as you are, and to have anything removed would certainly make you less than we bargained for. Additionally, too much time is being spent in the restroom. In the future, we will go to the restroom in alphabetical order.

For instance, those whose names begin with A will go from 8 a.m. to 805 a.m., B from 805 to 810 a.m., and so on. If you're unable to go at your time, you will need to wait until the day your turn comes again. Death other than your own, this is no excuse. You can do nothing for them, and we're sure that someone else in a lesser position can attend to the arrangements. However, if the funeral can be held in the late afternoon, we'll be glad to let you off for one hour early, provided that your share of work is done ahead of time to keep the job going in your absence.

Death your own, this will be accepted as an excuse, but we would like a two-week notice as we feel it is your duty to teach someone else your job. Well, that's not going to motivate anyone. What people are discovering, honestly, when it comes to motivating people, is rewards often work. Giving people incentives to perform and produce by giving them some kind of a reward once a certain benchmark is met. Not only on the job, but they found that in education as well. I read some tests recently where they took a group of students and found that giving students rewards will help them consistently do homework.

Not just the internal reward of a job well done, wouldn't that be great, but external rewards, giving them pencils, pens, candy, notebooks. And then when someone gets a little bit older, our society will even give cash rewards for, say, information leading to the arrest of some notorious criminal. I was reading a Reuters news service article about a war criminal they believe is still alive in South America from Nazi Germany. He escaped afterwards.

His name is Albert Heim. They believe that if he's still alive, he's 94 years old and they're still hunting him down. They've offered $495,000 cash reward. Now, in all of these instances, people are given something, some reward, some award, to get them to do what's right. And sometimes it's cash.

I have a question. What was it that motivated Paul the Apostle? Or guys like Paul the Apostle? I mean, what would make a person decide, I'm going to travel around the world and have people say bad things to me and throw me in jail and beat me up and have rocks thrown at me and then I'll get up and I'll go to the next town and we'll just keep doing that year after? What would motivate a person to do that? What motivates a person to be a missionary? Guys like David Livingstone, who were trained for the medical profession in Hamilton, Scotland, got a medical degree as a doctor and decided, I'm going to give the rest of my life to Africa as a missionary. Why?

Or E. Stanley Jones to spend his whole life in India. What is it that would motivate people to do that? What kind of incentive is there? Well, Paul answers that question in our text today and he calls it the judgment seat of Christ. The thing that was the motivation and incentive for Paul was the judgment seat of Christ, which is the place where we will receive rewards in heaven for what is done on earth. Now, please don't misunderstand. We're not saved by works, as I'm going to underscore this morning, but though we are saved by faith, we are rewarded in heaven based on our works, what we do.

So you might look at it this way. You get into heaven by the finished work of Christ, but once you're in heaven, you will be rewarded based upon your works, what you do on earth for Christ. Let's look at our verses this morning, 2 Corinthians 5, three verses, verses 9 through 11. Therefore, we make it our aim, or our stated goal, we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.

But we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences. Those three verses, Paul addresses three things, three things that form his incentive. Ambition, motivation, and occupation. What his goal is, why he has that goal, and because of that, what he does in the meantime on the earth.

Let's consider those together. Let's think about what should be our God-ward ambition, what one thing should we live for. Verse 9, let's look at it again. Therefore, we make it our aim, whether present or absent, whether alive or dead, remember he said a few verses before that, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. So whether I live or die, my one goal is to be well pleasing to him. Now that verse gives to us Paul's purpose statement, his goal in life, and that was to please Christ.

I'm going to read it to you in the amplified version, it's even clearer. We are constantly ambitious and we strive earnestly to be well pleasing to him. So, pleasing Jesus Christ was Paul's lifelong and eternal ambition.

Question, is that common? Is that ambition to please Christ above everything else, is that commonplace or would you say that's the exception rather than the rule? I'd say it's the exception rather than the rule. I would say we live in a society that tells everybody to do whatever you feel is right for you, not to please Christ.

I'll even take it a step further. I would say that this is rare even among Christians. I would say it is the exception rather than the rule even among believers in Christ. I would say there are very few whose sole goal and ambition is to please Christ above all else.

And here's why I say that. When Paul was surveying the Christian landscape in his generation and he landed on young Timothy to be his right hand person. Paul writes in Philippians 2, for I have no one who is like-minded, who will sincerely care for your state, for all seek their own, not the things which are of Christ Jesus. That's quite a statement. Paul's saying, all the people that I know in the church he was writing about, everybody seems to have their own agenda except one guy.

And that's Timothy. He's like-minded. Sometimes a single word or phrase will sum up a person's passion.

I'll throw out a few words. Golf, cars, music, painting. There's a number of things that could sum that up. In fact, some people will even advertise that in form of a bumper sticker. I'd rather be fishing or boating or whatever it would be that they're not doing at the time. That's their bumper sticker. And sometimes people will freely and honestly admit what is their passion. I've had people say, my life is music or my life is art or painting or bicycling or running.

That's my life. What is your bumper sticker? What word or phrase would sum up what your main goal and passion is above all others? We know what Paul's is. He tells us in Philippians 1, verse 21, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Here's Paul going, my life is Christ. And he says in verse 9, that is his single passion and ambition to please him. Question. Do you know why you were made? Do you know the very purpose for which you exist on planet earth? The main purpose of your life that God intended for you? I ask the question because I hear people when they talk about their passion and ambition, they'll say, oh, I was made to do this. I was meant for that. I'd like to answer the question why you were made, what you were made for.

In Revelation 4, verse 11, the anthem that will be sung in heaven, among other things, is this. For you created everything and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created. So why were you made?

You were made to please God, which is the very antithesis, the very opposite of what you are told in this culture. Here's a sampling of advertising slogans by different companies that sort of sums up their philosophy. Ericsson Electronics, their slogan, make yourself heard. T-Mobile, a better world for you.

Airtel Cellular, express yourself when airline company embrace your dreams. A magazine says, there's their slogan, acquire what you desire. L'Oreal Cosmetics, because you're worth it.

Remember that one? Budweiser Beer, for all you do, this Bud's for you. And finally, Sprite, obey your thirst.

You get the point. Basically, everything in life is to be measured by personal pleasure, whatever is best for you. So you live in a world that tells you and I that we should live to please ourselves. But here's the real kick to that.

We discover something. The more you do as you please, the less you are pleased with what you do. The more you live to please Christ, the more satisfied you become. That's why Paul could go from one place to another place to another place throughout all of that suffering.

Keep doing it. Because he was pleased and satisfied making his goal and aim in life to please Jesus Christ. Now we have a follow-up question to that. Okay, there's Paul's goal. That's his God-word ambition.

Why? What is it that made him that way? What fueled that passion? Or put it this way, what was the motivation for that passion?

There has to be something behind that to fuel that kind of ambition. Well, the answer is, there were two things. Both of them were yet future to Paul. Number one was the future glory. That's verses one through eight of chapter five. And the second was future judgment. That's nine, ten, and eleven. Future glory he writes about in the previous verses.

We've covered that in another study on this series. You know, Paul said, I know that when this earthly body, this tabernacle is dissolved, we have a building from God not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. We groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed, etc. That's the glory part. The other part is the future judgment. What he calls the judgment seat of Christ. So, let's look at that in verse ten.

Here's the motivation. For we, or because, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Now this verse describes a scene that will take place in your future. It is a scene that you will be at.

You and I will all be present for this. For notice it says we must all appear. Furthermore, when you appear there, it's a time of evaluation and verdict, a conclusion. Because it says the judgment seat of Christ. Furthermore, as the verdict is rendered at that event, you will receive a reward or the loss of a reward, for it says that each one may receive. So, it's a place of revelation, it's a place of reckoning, and it's a place of receiving this judgment seat of Christ.

Now I want to unpack that for us in the remainder of the time that we have. First of all, look at the term. Two words, judgment seat, judgment seat. Now, in the Greek language, it's only one word, not two words. The judgment seat is from the Greek word, bemitos, bemitos, which means a raised platform. Let me tell you about the word itself. The root word, bemitos, the root word, means the distance covered by a step of the foot.

That's the root word. Eventually, it sort of morphed into the meaning of a raised platform or a raised step, and eventually it came to mean the elevated position of somebody in authority, and then it later on became to describe the judgment seat, the bemitos, in every single Greek city of the empire. You could go to any Greek town and there would be a bema seat or a bemitos. It was a place in town central where speeches were given, laws were passed, verdicts were rendered.

In fact, it was before the bema seat or the bemitos in Corinth that Paul, four years before the writing of this letter, appeared. In Acts chapter 18, verse 12, we're told, they rose up against Paul and brought him to the judgment seat. Furthermore, every Greek citizen at some point had to serve as a judge on the bemitos. We would call it, in our modern jurisprudence, part of the jury. And every member of the jury was given two bronze disks.

One was hollow, one was solid. Either it was a brass or a bronze urn up on that raised platform, and you would vote if you thought the person was guilty or innocent. If the person was guilty, you'd put in the hollow disk.

If he was guilty, you'd put in the solid disk. And all of those were tallied up and judgment was rendered at the bemitos. But as time went on, the term bema seat referred to the Olympic Games, where rewards were given based upon the performance at the Olympics. Now, the first Olympics started back in 776 B.C. Men only competed. Very few sports were engaged in the original Olympics.

The foot race, the chariot race, the javelin throw, boxing and wrestling. And whoever competed in the original Olympics were brought before the judges, the bemitos, and they were rewarded. If they won, they were given rewards, a crown.

Today it's a gold medal or a silver medal or a bronze medal, but not back then. They gave something really special, a little leaf crown, a crown of laurel leafs. That's all you got, called a Stefanos. If your name is Steve or Steven, your name comes from that little laurel crown called the Stefanos.

And so all of that labor and work and training for a little leaf crown, that's going to fade away in about a week. Paul has this in mind in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 25. I'll read it to you. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we do it for an imperishable crown. Now here the Olympic athlete trains and trains to stand before the judge at the Bema Seat to receive a reward of a leaf.

It's going to fade away in a couple weeks or a few days. We do it. We serve Christ wholeheartedly because we're going to get an imperishable crown. Probably the most grueling of all bike races is the Tour de France. Have you ever watched that on television? I had always thought it would be great to be there, not to participate, but to watch, though I like to bicycle. We're talking 2,000 miles of bicycling through the mountains of France.

Grueling. One of the participants called it the annual madness. When it's all said and done, you know what you get if you win the Tour de France? You think, what, $100,000? Maybe $10,000?

Nope. You get a nice little bicycle jersey. Isn't that great? 2,000 miles, working, working, working. A little bicycle jersey.

And the ability to say, I finished and won the Tour de France. That's marvelous. But it's short-lived.

That's Paul's point in that text I just read. It's a short-lived, imperishable crown. We work for an imperishable one.

All right. Back to this judgment seat of Christ. What kind of judgment will this be?

Let me first say what it will not be. When we're talking about standing before the judgment seat of Christ, this is not referring to the great white throne judgment in Revelation 20. That's for unbelievers only. That's where Christ judges the wicked and they're banished forever.

It's not speaking about that. You and I will never face judgment for our sins, ever. That's already settled. Romans 8, verse 1, There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, period. And Jesus said in John, chapter 5, Whoever believes in me, or hears my word and believes in him who sent me, has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. So this is not a judgment for our eternal fate.

That's already settled. And by the way, we're not saved by any works, right? We're saved, the Bible says, Ephesians 2, By grace you have been saved through faith, that not of yourselves, not by works, lest any man should boast. That's Skip Heitzig with a message from the series From the Edge of Eternity. Now, here's Skip to tell you how you can help keep these teachings coming your way as you help connect others to the good news of Jesus.

As the end times gets closer, we as believers in Jesus need to be watching and waiting for his return and telling others about him with every opportunity we get. When you give today, you make it possible through your generous gift to reach even more people around the world with the life-giving gospel of Christ. Here's how. Call 800-922-1888 to give. That's 800-922-1888. You can also give online at connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate.

As always, thank you for your partnership. Did you know there's an exciting biblical resource available right at your fingertips through your mobile device? Skip has several Bible reading plans available in the YouVersion Bible app.

Simply search Skip Heitzig in the app. Be sure to come back tomorrow as Skip Heitzig examines what's in it for you when you choose to follow Christ. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on his word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.