Are you looking for a word from God today? If so, First Baptist Dallas is glad to present this dynamic message by Dr. Robert Jeffress. Dr. Jeffress is a premier Bible teacher, pastor, and author whose practical applications of God's truth help guide and encourage those who seek to know and follow the Lord Jesus. I know you'll be blessed.
And now, the message by Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our friend Erwin Lutzer, who was just here a couple of weeks ago, has written in his book, Five Minutes After You Die. Five minutes after you die, you will either have had your first glimpse of heaven with its euphoria and bliss or your first genuine experience of unrelenting horror or regret.
Either way, your future will be irrevocably fixed and eternally unchangeable. In those first few moments after you die, you will be more alive than you've ever been. Vivid memories of your friends and of your life on planet earth will be mingled with the daunting anticipation of eternity.
You will either have had your first glimpse of Christ or your first encounter with evil like you've never known before, and it will be too late to change your address. Let me ask you honestly, how does the thought of dying and facing God, how does that make you feel? Are you thrilled at the prospect of meeting God, or does the thought terrify you? If we were honest today, I think many of us would say, we're terrified at that thought, that prospect. Many Christians are fearful of ever standing before God.
Why is that? I think if you get down to the essence of it, that fear is part of the nagging sensation that they've not done enough to be obedient to God. Yes, they know they're saved by grace, but they still know there are some lacking areas in their life. For most Christians, their prayer lives are sporadic. They can count on one finger the number or one hand the number of people they've led their faith in Christ with plenty of fingers left over.
The only thing they're more ashamed of than their lack of knowledge about their Bible is about their lack of desire to even read the Bible. Most Christians have some secret sin in their life that they're terrified will be exposed and judged by God. No wonder people are fearful of meeting God. Now the easy pad answer to that is, oh well, they just need to understand grace because grace means God's going to treat all Christians just alike when they get to heaven. But common sense and more importantly biblical truth tells us otherwise.
Heaven isn't going to be the same for everybody. We are going to have our lives evaluated by God, even as Christians. One of the core passages we've looked at before that deals with that truth is 1 Corinthians 12 verses 12 through 15. Paul writes about our evaluation as Christians by God. Now if any man builds on the foundation, the foundation of his life with gold, silver, precious stones, or wood, hay, and straw, each man's work will become evident for the day the judgment will show it because it will be revealed with fire and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work.
If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he receives a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss even though he himself will be saved, yet so is through fire. You know that passage tells us three things about our inevitable evaluation by God. Number one, every Christian's life will be evaluated by Christ. No, we don't have to fear, and let me be clear about this, we don't have to fear God's condemnation.
We don't have to fear going to hell if we're a Christian, but we do face a different judgment, the bema, the judgment seat of Christ. 2 Corinthians 5, 10 says, for we must all appear. He's talking to Christians before the judgment seat of Christ that each one of us may be rewarded for what we have done, whether it's good or worthless. Secondly, the passage reminds us that some Christians will experience greater rewards than others in heaven.
Some will have special privileges, special positions of authority, special praise from the master. There are rewards, real rewards awaiting those who are faithful. And third, this passage reminds us that many Christians will experience real, measurable loss because of their lack of faithfulness, obedience.
You say, well, where is that? Again, look at verse 15 of 1 Corinthians 3, if any man's work is burned up, he will suffer what? Loss.
But he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Those residents of Maui saw their homes go up in flames. They lost everything. The fire destroyed it all.
Only that which was of stone remained. It's the same thing at the judgment seat of Christ. If our lives are spent pursuing temporal goals, it's all going to be burned up. And we will experience loss.
What kind of loss? I think you could substitute the word regret there. We will suffer regret as we realize all of the rewards that could have been ours had we been not more faithful to Jesus Christ.
Now, we have to be careful here. To overdo the reality of regret in heaven, in heaven one day is to turn heaven into hell, and we don't want to do that. But to deny the fact that there will be regret in heaven is to make our obedience to Christ irrelevant in this life. No, there is going to be a loss, a regret by some in heaven.
What are those regrets? You know, there was a popular question we used to use in evangelism explosion. Remember the question you're supposed to ask an unbeliever? If you were to stand before God and he were to ask you, why should I let you into heaven, what would you say? Well, let me change that question for Christians. If you were to stand, no, when you stand before God one day, and he is to ask you, what do you regret most about your relationship with me? What would you say? Most of us don't have to wait until we die to come up with those regrets.
We know exactly what they are. And today for the few minutes we have, we're going to look at the most common regrets Christians have about their spiritual life and how to avoid them and how to reverse their effects in our life. Number one, and I hear this so often, I wish I had become a Christian or I wish I had become more serious about my walk with God earlier in my life.
Both of these regrets have to do with wasted time. Now again, it would be easy to say it doesn't matter how long you've been a Christian or how short of time you have the same reward. In fact, some people actually use Jesus' own words to try to prove that point. They teach the story. They go to the story Jesus told in Matthew 20, the parable about the landowner who had a large vineyard and he needed some workers to help him harvest the crops. And so it was the custom, a group gathered and he hired them at six o'clock in the morning, a group of workers at the beginning of the work day made an agreement what he would pay them. A few hours later, he realized he needed more workers.
So he went out and hired some more. And then finally at five p.m., one hour before quitting time, he hired another group of workers just for an hour. When six o'clock rolled around, at the end of the day, it was time to give everybody their wages. And so they lined up to receive their wages. And they started with the ones who had been hired most recently at five o'clock and then went back to those who had been hired at the beginning of the day. So the landowner meets that first worker who was hired at five and to his surprise, the landowner gives him a full day's wage.
Well, word spreads quickly in the line about what had happened. And people started thinking, gosh, if he gave a whole day's wage to a guy who only worked an hour, do the math. I mean, I've been here for several hours. I've been here for 12 hours.
I'm going to make a fortune. But to their disappointment, those who had worked 12 hours or six hours, they all received the same wage. The people who had worked for 12 hours, they were ready to riot.
I mean, they were upset. They said, this isn't fair that you would give us all the same wage. And remember what the landowner said? Jesus said, he said, first of all, didn't I give you what I promised?
I gave you exactly what I promised. And secondly, and more importantly, isn't it my money to do whatever I want to with? I'm the one who determines. If I want to give everybody the same amount, that's my business. Now, a lot of people take that story and say, see, everybody in heaven gets the same thing. That's not what this passage is teaching.
You say, how do you know that, Robert? Again, from Jesus' own words. The context for this parable was actually found in Matthew 19, 27. Then Peter said to the Lord, Lord, behold, we have left everything and followed you. What's in it for us? Actually, he said, and what will there be for us? That's one of the reasons I love Peter.
He always speaks what everybody else is thinking. Lord, what's in it for us? Now, Jesus could have said, well, you're going to get the same thing everybody else does, Peter, but he doesn't. He affirms the concept of rewards in verse 28. And Jesus said to them, truly I say to you, those of you who have followed me in the regeneration, that is in the millennium, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you shall sit upon 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.
Everybody's not going to have a throne, but there are going to be 12 thrones, and Peter, you're going to sit on one of those thrones. In fact, he says in verse 29, and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for my name's sake, will receive what? Many times as much as those who don't, and shall inherit eternal life. I have no doubt there are Christians around the world who are suffering right now who are going to receive a far greater reward than I do, because what we do on earth matters to God.
The fact is, he's not negating the concept of rewards. Well, what is this parable about? Remember the Jews were upset that Gentiles, Johnny come lately so to speak, were going to be a part of the kingdom of God?
They hated the idea that the Jewish people who had been serving God for hundreds of years or so they thought would be treated the same way as these Gentiles, these dogs. And Jesus was saying, no, grace means everyone who trusts in me can be forgiven. No, there are going to be rewards in heaven.
Make no mistake about it. Well, pastor, you're piling up a lot of guilt on me because I haven't been faithful. I came to Christ just recently, and I wasted so many years. Or I became a Christian when I was little, but I spent years in disobedience to God.
What words of encouragement do you have for me if I have that regret in my life? Two words I want you to write down. First of all, the word justification. The word justification, remember is a legal term that means not guilty. And the Bible says the moment you trust in Christ as your savior, God declares you not guilty. He forgives you of not just some of your sins, but all of your sins. You are perfect in God's eyes. You are forgiven. You never have to worry about hell because of some unforgiven sin. God has declared you not guilty.
How did he do that? Well, 2 Corinthians 5 21 tells us, the Bible says God made him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Imagine I have two books here. One book is titled The Life and Times of Jesus Christ. It's a book that records the perfect life of Jesus, his teachings, his good deeds, his miracles, his death on the cross, his resurrection from the dead.
This is the story of Jesus. But there's another book entitled The Life and Times of Robert Jeffress. And this book is a real page turner because it not only includes some of the good things I've done, but all of the bad things I've done. Every wrong thought, every wrong action, every wrong attitude is written in this book. Some of you would run to a bookstore right now and get it if you knew such a book existed.
You'd love to know. Thank goodness you'll never know what's in this book. Two books, The Life and Times of Jesus and The Life and Times of Robert Jeffress. Now, when Jesus died on the cross, it's as if God took the cover of this book about Jesus and wrapped it around my story. The Life and Times of Jesus is really the life and times of Robert Jeffress. When God looked on Jesus on the cross, he didn't see his perfect son. He saw all of my sins, all of my transgressions, and Jesus experienced hell for me. But interestingly, God took the cover of my life story, The Life and Times of Robert Jeffress, and wrapped it around the life of Jesus Christ so that when God looks at me as a Christian, he no longer sees my sin, my shortcomings, he sees the perfection of his own son, Jesus Christ. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
Doesn't that thrill your heart to know that we are perfect in God's eyes, and we never have to worry about our sin being dredged up again? But a second word to remember is the word sovereignty. You know, the word sovereignty refers to God's rule over the earth. God is sovereign. He is in control. There is nothing that happens in the universe apart from his permission, and he is sovereign over your life as well.
He is in control of your steps, your missteps, and your stumbles. There's nothing you do that surprises God. You know, one of the great verses about that is Psalm 139 verse 16. David said, and in your book, O God, were written all the days of my life before there was one of them. Do you realize before the foundation of the world, God planned your life, not just how many days they were or what those days would be, but the activities and the actions that would fill every page. Now, Pastor, are you saying God wills our disobedience to him?
God wills our rebellion? No, I'm not saying that, but what I'm saying is God is so powerful that he can take every part of our life, even our mistakes, and use them for our good and his eternal glory. You say, where do you find that in Scripture? All I have to do is look at the example of the Apostle Paul. Remember in 1 Timothy 1, the passage I had you read a few minutes ago, he gives us his spiritual autobiography. He said, beginning in verse 12, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has strengthened me because he considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor, yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief. And yet for this reason, now get this, for this reason I found mercy so that in me as the foremost of sinners, Jesus Christ might demonstrate his perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in him for eternal life. Paul said, I'm exhibit A of God's ability to forgive anyone.
Now think about it. If the Apostle Paul had had my story, if he had become a Christian when he was five years old, growing up in the First Baptist Church of Dallas, and the worst thing he had ever done before his conversion was stealing somebody's crayons, could Paul have written, oh, if God can forgive me who stole crayons, he can forgive anybody. That wouldn't be much of a testimony, wouldn't it? It should be, but it just wouldn't.
It kind of falls flat. But Paul was guilty of much more. He was a blasphemer. Before he was a Christian, he blasphemed, spoke out against the name of Jesus Christ. He was a persecutor of Christians. He was a violent aggressor. That word refers to violence he committed against Christians. He would torture Christians, men, women, and children. He would put them to death to try to make them recant their faith in Jesus Christ. Is there anybody here guilty of that?
I doubt it. And yet, Paul said, God saved me is exhibit A of his mercy and grace. If God could save me, he can save anyone. What I'm trying to say to you is God used the mistakes Paul made for Paul's good, but for God's eternal glory. And that's the marvelous thing about the sovereignty of God. God causes all things to work together for good. Not just the good things in your life, but the horrible, unspeakable things in your life.
God causes all things to work together for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose. If you have regrets about your past, either as a non-Christian or as a disobedient Christian, remember those two words. Justification, God has forgiven you. You are perfect.
You can't do anything to make him love you anymore. Justification and sovereignty, he can work all things in your past together for good. A second regret many people have is, I wish I had spent more time praying and reading the Bible. Sometimes Christians look back with all the wasted time in their life. The hundreds of hours they've spent over the years watching inane television programs they can't even remember, or hours scrolling through social media, their Twitter account or Facebook or Instagram, and they think, if only I had spent those hours praying and reading my Bible, I'd be a spiritual giant by now.
If only. Well, the fact is, you didn't spend those hours doing those things. And even more depressing news is you probably won't spend hours doing them in the future. I know that seems kind of pessimistic, but it's just the truth.
Let me illustrate what I mean by that. Just imagine you awaken, you're 45 years old, man or woman, and you awaken one day and you say, I've never exercised a day in my life. I am tired of living like this. Tomorrow morning I'm going to begin exercising. I'm going to run six miles every day. I don't care if it's 107 outside. I'm going to run six miles every day starting tomorrow morning for the rest of my life.
Now, such a resolution would be unwise and certainly short-lived. You can't go from zero to six miles a day. You do it incrementally. And so, instead of saying, gee, I'm going to spend hours a day reading my Bible and praying, you're not going to do it.
So, quit thinking that way. Instead, start small. I read a booklet years ago that made such an impression on me. It was by a guy named Robert Foster, and it was titled Seven Minutes with God. And Robert Foster said if you're not used to spending time with God praying and reading the Bible, just make a commitment that you're going to spend seven minutes a day. In fact, he gave an outline that I reprinted in your outline about what you should do during those seven minutes. He said, first of all, start with the first 30 seconds being devoted to prayer.
Just thank God for giving you a safe night and giving you another day of life and service for Him. And then secondly, spend four minutes reading Scripture, not for the purpose of studying the Bible or acquiring knowledge about the Bible, but to allow God to speak to you through His Word. Don't try to read your three chapters through the Bible in a year plan.
That isn't the place for this. This is praying not for knowledge, but for application. Lord, speak to me.
What do you want me to change in my life as a result of your Word? You know, a good place to start might be the book of Ephesians. We're going to do a study of the book of Ephesians in a couple of months. Or Philippians or the Psalms. Find a short section of Scripture, maybe a chapter or maybe a paragraph to read.
Four minutes. And then the final two and a half minutes, use for prayer. A prayer that is balanced. You know, the old acrostic acts, A-C-T-E-S. A stands for adoration. Praise God for who He is, His attributes. The C stands for confession. Take time to confess your sins to God. The T stands for thanksgiving. Thank God for what He's already done for you. And then the S in that acts acrostic stands for supplication. That's the time you ask for God for not what you think should be in your heart, but what is really in your heart.
Asking for your most pressing desires. Here's what Robert Foster says, very soon you will discover that it is impossible to spend only seven minutes with the Lord. An amazing thing happens. Seven minutes becomes 20 and it's not long before you're spending 30 precious minutes with Him. Again, it's not the length of your devotional time that matters, but the consistency of it. And this is a great way to erase the regret of not spending time with God. A third regret many Christians have is this, I wish I had done more to serve God in my life. I wish I had done more to serve God in my life. Honestly, this was one of the regrets that my dad had.
I told you about my dad in the first message. He was an inspiration to do this series, Say Goodbye to Regrets. He became a Christian as a young man. He led my mom to Christ. He led his children to Christ.
He tithed. He went to church. But one of the things I heard him say before he died was he wished he had found a ministry to serve in.
He never did. I think personally he felt inadequate to do that even though he was a very intelligent man. He just didn't feel like he was adequate to serve the Lord. The fact is we all need a place in the body of Christ to serve. Now again, some people say, well, God's not interested in what you do for him.
You should have just told your dad, Dad, it doesn't matter what you do. God only cares about who you are and the inside. But that's not what the Bible says. Second Corinthians 5, 10 says we must all appear before the judgment seat that each one of us may be rewarded for what we have done. D-O-N-E. Not who we are, what we have done for Christ, whether it is good or worthless.
We all need a place of service. We may not be able to spend 10 or 20 or 40 hours a week, but we can spend some time. I don't agree with everything theologian and pastor Tony Campolo has said through the years, but one thing I do agree with is something he said to a group of college students in Washington, D.C. Speaking to thousands of college students, he was trying to persuade them to get involved with ministry.
And he said this, the average person spends 20 hours a week watching television. Will you commit to spend just 3 hours a month visiting the elderly in the nursing home, teaching a Bible study or working in some other form of ministry? Thousands responded yes to that.
I think the reason they responded is because it was a reasonable request. Most of you don't work for a church. You have real jobs. And I know some people think that, but I realize you don't have 10 hours a week or 20 hours a week between your family and work responsibilities, but everybody has an hour a week they could devote. You know, we have a saying here at First Baptist, no one can do everything, but everybody can do something. And I would just encourage you, when we leave here on our concourse, we've got our volunteer booth set up, all kinds of ministries that you can connect with and be a part of.
Find that one thing that utilizes your gifts and do it. We all need a place in service in the body of Christ. And then the final spiritual regret. I hear from so many Christians, I regret not doing more to encourage my children's spiritual growth. I regret not doing more to encourage my children's spiritual growth. One of the saddest funerals I ever conducted was years ago. It was for a six-year-old boy who had run out into the street to retrieve a soccer ball and was struck by a car, killed immediately. And the family was overcome with grief, obviously, but the father especially so because of his lack of spiritual leadership in the home.
He was a successful salesman for an up-and-coming company. His schedule required him to leave home early Monday morning and fly out, be gone all week, and not come home until Friday evenings. And because of that schedule, the family decided to buy a lake home nearby their primary residence. And so every Friday night when he would get home, they would all pile in the car and go to the lake house for the weekend.
And they would enjoy camping and fishing and boating together, then come back late Sunday night. This little six-year-old boy had an insatiable spiritual appetite. He loved to hear Bible stories. He loved to read the Bible. He loved singing Christian songs.
He had a prayer list a mile long. And every weekend he would say to his dad, Dad, can't we just stay home and go to church? Can we go to church? Can we go to church?
The father would say no. It's not because the father didn't like the church. He loved the church. But in his mind, he needed to be with his family. And he thought, we'll do this for a few years, then I'll have enough money and I can retire and we can live a normal life and go to church.
He didn't realize how little time he really had. And he had and has that continuing regret of listening to his child plead to come to church, a request he said no to. Now, most of us, fortunately, will never have to watch our children die. But what we will see, it's inevitable, is our children go through a difficult time in their life. It may be a wrong relationship they get involved in. It might be a questioning or even departure from their Christian faith.
It might be a destructive habit they become entangled in. But if that time occurs with your children, will you be able to say with confidence, I did everything I could to encourage my child's relationship with God? Ladies and gentlemen, what we do now matters for eternity. We can't erase the mistakes we've made in the past, but we can make decisions today that will change our tomorrow and our eternity.
Do you need to trust in Jesus as your Savior and have your sins forgiven? Do it today. Do you need to reconnect with God through prayer and reading His Word? Do it today.
Do you need to find a place of ministry in God's kingdom's work? Do it today. Is there more you can do to encourage your children's relationship with God?
Do it today. On behalf of Dr. Robert Jeffress and everyone at First Baptist Dallas, thank you for joining us today. Our hope and prayer is that the biblical truth of this message will continue to be a blessing to you as you apply it to your life. For more information about First Baptist Dallas, we invite you to visit our website, firstdallas.org. May God bless you richly today.
