Finally, verse 10, he notes for us that we have an appointment that we mustn’t miss. If we want to be prepared for the judgment seat of Christ, Paul said, have one ambition that consumes your hearts, and minds, and lives, and time, and energy, and resources. Verse 9, we have an ambition that is consuming. Just two facets for us to consider this morning.
There’s a day coming, and I wish for you to join me briefly as Paul introduces us to the judgment seat of Christ. I think of what Paul says in this 10th verse, that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good,” or if you want to put that last word instead of bad, good for nothing. mists I thought of those rising miss 25 years ago, vividly etched in my mind, as I saw a whole city before my eyes evaporate to nothing because of the heat. As I was studying this week, and as I looked into the various translations of this word, bad, one of the commentators and also one of the lexicons said, this word is the word used for the rising mist of a cool lake on a warm summer morning. The apostle uses a very similar word in the 10th verse of 2 Corinthians 5. Just when I had it all figured out, it evaporated as the warmth caused the condensation and the swirling mist to settle back down into the lake. I could see that mist rising from the lake and making all those forms. For a while I forgot that I was supposed to be quiet. As I watched dawn breaking, a dream world of castles and mountains and valleys as the wisps of vapor were rising, swirling, and making all different forms.įor a while I forgot I was cold. In that moment of heat and cold meeting, there is a little turbulence. In that moment, and for the next five or 10 minutes, I saw an imaginary world, which every morning occurs on a cold lake as those warm rays cross the cold water, and as the mist rises up. Those rays of light pierced through the darkness of that lake and came all the way to our canoe. That little red disk of the sun began rising up across the horizon. As I looked across that black water and as the moments passed, finally the first light of dawn came. What happened in the moments that followed are so deeply etched in my mind. I remember very coldly putting my chin on the edge of that canoe and looking off across the black water and waiting. I couldn’t move in the canoe because it would scare the fish away. We were finally on a great northern Canadian lake at 4:00 AM to catch Muskie’s, Walleyes, and Pike. We had walked there having backpacked in, as a young lad, with my intrepid exploring father. I remember climbing into this cold canoe. It was dark, it was damp, you know how heavy the dews are up there in the early summer, late spring. I remember getting up, having slept in my clothes. I remember my father dragging me out of my sleeping bag somewhere in northern Canada, about 3:45 in the morning. As you’re opening there, I want to share with you that even studying this week brings back to me one of the most vivid memories I have of an event that took place 25 years ago as a young boy. If you’ll open your Bibles to 2 Corinthians, the 5th chapter.
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