Eyes on Him

Audio Transcript

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Kevin Hodge. I’m one of the elders here. I think I know most everybody in here, but there may be a few that have made it through that I’ve never had a chance to introduce myself to. But I have the privilege today of filling in for Phil. Y’all know he always takes—we give him a week or two off here and there just to give him time to get away, study, and prepare. And David usually fills in on those weeks. And David’s at the beach this week with his whole family. So a much-needed vacation for them. So we miss having them here, but glad they were able to get some time away.

So that leaves you with third string today. So that’s who you got. Fourth string. Someone said fourth string. I’m not that bad. Alright. So you get your third string.

And you know, it has been—I don’t think I’ve been up here—I know I haven’t been up here since December of ’24. So that’s been almost a year and a half. Yeah. And for just the way the worked out. And I don’t know, y’all probably don’t remember all the way back then, but you will remember I had that big shaggy beard that time. Y’all remember that thing? For those of you that weren’t here at that time, consider yourself blessed that you didn’t have to look at it. That was an experiment as I changed jobs, decided I wasn’t going to shave until my wife gave me the ultimatum. It was like, “Okay, that is enough. That is enough. It’s time for it to come off.” And so, so it is off. But what was funny is a while back, a lady who had not seen me, probably since then, came through, and she said, “Oh, you look so much better without that beard.”

I told the group on Wednesday night that. Unfortunately, somebody said, “Well, at least she didn’t say you look better with that beard.” So that was a positive thing. So someone was actually kind in my Wednesday prayer group, so that was nice. They made me feel good. But it was good. So anyway, so you don’t have to look at that. All that to be said, it’s just been a long time since I’ve been up here. But I’m so happy to be here teaching you all this morning.

I think it’s just going to be a special time. God has just got a neat word, I think, for us. And, you know, my goal here is to just not sink the boat until Phil gets back next week. But I think it’s going to be a good time together. So I tell you what, I know Jaron prayed. Let me just pray for us before we dive in this morning.

Lord, this is Your time, and we give it completely to You. Lord, would You just align our hearts with You, Holy Spirit, for what You desire. And whatever or wherever You lead, we say yes to that right now. We love You. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

All right, let’s dive in. September, I guess, of 2023, Lisa and I, we had the privilege of going to a conference out in Houston, Texas. First time I’d ever been to Houston. There was a conference called Healing Strong. It is a cancer support group that was started down somewhere in Georgia, I believe, by a lady named Susie Griswold. Is that her name? And so they had the 10th anniversary conference out in Houston at this church. And so we went to it, just an amazing, amazing time. And it’s a group that focuses not so much on the physical side, the spiritual and emotional healing that comes involved in situations like that.

And so on Friday night, they had this amazing time of praise and worship. And then on Saturday morning, same thing, just an amazing time. And there was something about that worship that night and that morning that just, I don’t know, I had not experienced anything like that since years ago. I was at a Promise Keepers event and heard 65,000 men singing “How Great Thou Art” in the Georgia Dome. And just hearing that echo just made me long for the day when we have all those voices in heaven singing. Got a little glimpse of that there.

But standing there in Houston, I don’t know if you had people that were, you know, obviously who had just been diagnosed with cancer. You had those that had cancer and been living with it for years. And then you had some that tomorrow may have been their last day. And they were all in that room.

And watching them worship, hands raised, many of them, they may be in front of Jesus worshiping Him that same way in a few weeks. Watching them do that just amazed me. It just amazed me. And there was this joy in the room, and then I watched them all weekend, the way they served each other, and it just reminded me that their future—they were believers clinging to the hope and the promise of heaven—that future was impacting what they did in the present. It was impacting what they did in the present, in their worship, in their praise. And as I’m sitting there, I’m just like, as a believer, you’re just like, “Man, I want some of that. I want to love my God like it looks like they’re loving their God.” It was just amazing. But the whole thing was, they’re focused on the future, and it was impacting their present. But the main thing was their eyes were on Him. Eyes were on Him, not their situation. And I’m sure there was some on their situation, some, that’s why they were there. But there was this beautiful thing with their eyes on Him, focused on Him, clinging to His promises, just worshiping Him no matter where they were. And that just, I don’t know, that just hit me.

And, you know, we sit here or we pray on Wednesday night for a lot of things here in this church. And I hear about it as an elder, a lot of the struggles that are happening here in this room. And so many of you, I look around your faces and there’s things that I know we’ve been praying for for a long, long time. And it’s so, so easy. It’s so difficult in the battle and in the struggle just to take that next step, that next day. And I know we get weary of that.

But today, there’s a passage we’re going to look at. And I think as we look at it, we’re going to be reminded of God’s promises that we cling to. And I believe He’s going to take those promises and encourage us with three things that we’re going to leave this room with that we can cling to, no matter what we’re going through or what may come our way in the future. It’s going to be a wonderful time, and I’m just trusting God to take control of this and just minister all our hearts as we work through this, and I hope it’ll be a blessing to you. Go ahead and turn your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 5, or your tablets or your phones or whatever you have there.

And let’s go ahead and stand. I like when Phil does that. Let’s just stand as we read His Word. If you’ll just stand up once you find it.

2nd Corinthians chapter 5, verses 1 through 10.

I’m going to be reading from the ESV, and it’s titled “Our Heavenly Dwelling.” In the ESV says, “For we know if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” Amen. “For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened, not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God.” Amen. “Who has given us the Spirit as His guarantee.” And so, in light of all that, “so we are always of good courage. We know that while we were at home in the body, we were away from the Lord, for we walk by faith and not by sight. Yes, we are always of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are home or away, we make it our aim to please Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” Amen. You can be seated.

So what I’m going to do today, I’m going to touch on just the first five verses pretty quickly. We’re going to hit those real quick, and then I’m going to spend the rest of the time focused on verses 6 through 10. And that’s where we’ll send the bulk of our message and pull the points out of. So I’ve got some slides here that I will work through. Let’s make sure I can make them happen here. All right. Hopefully that’s a little bit small, but hopefully everybody can see that as we work through it. Or I can just read there in your Bible.

2 Corinthians 5:1. And I love how Paul’s taking tent. If y’all remember, Paul’s a tent maker. If you look over there in Acts, when he was actually in Corinth, he stayed with Priscilla and Aquila because they were the same trade. They were tent makers. So Paul knows about tents—flimsy, flapping in the wind, all that good stuff. He says, “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God.” Talking about the resurrected body. We have a resurrected body coming. We have a building from God, a house not made with hands, not made with human hands, but it’s eternal in the heavens. Permanent. Eternal. Made by God. When you really just kind of take a step back and think about that, that’s pretty impressive. Pretty impressive what we have in store for us one day. That new body, that new resurrected body.

Moving on down to verses 2 through 4. “For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened. Not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” And you could probably break that down, these three verses, and do an entire sermon on it. I’m just going to sum it up for us here for the sake of time and just say Paul is longing for that resurrected body. He is longing for that day. That’s his motivation. He is longing for that new body one day before Jesus. Away from all this pain and everything else. He’s longing for that. And then we head down to verse 5.

“He who has prepared us for this very thing is God.” God’s hand all in that. He’s prepared it. He’s prepared that body for us and then has given us His Spirit as a guarantee. The Holy Spirit that convicts us, moves us, speaks to us, leads us—for the believer, that is our guarantee of this new resurrected body. He’s given us His Spirit for that.

And if you just kind of couch that just for a second, those first five verses, just kind of hold those for me a little bit. And I’m going to go back in 2 Corinthians 4. And let me read verses 7 through 10. And then I’m going to come forward and we’re going to come right back to 2 Corinthians 5 because I want to make sure we’re all on the same page around what he is instructing these believers here in Corinth.

So if you go to verse 7, very popular verse: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” Verse 8, “We are afflicted in every way, but we’re not crushed. We’re perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” I love—you take that verse right there—and then Paul after that starts laying out all these promises of what we have to look forward to.

I think I’ve got these on the screen, yeah. So you go to verse 14. “Knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will also will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into His presence.” What a promise. “Knowing that He who has raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and bring you into His presence.”

Verse 16, “So we did not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” That constant renewal, everything that’s going on in our lives, He’s using that to renew us day by day, even the most difficult things, being renewed day by day. Verse 17, “For this light momentary affliction”—even though it feels heavy at times, he calls it light—”is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” This light affliction is going to give us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. I mean, those are three solid promises right there. Boom, boom, boom.

And then what we looked at in verse 1 there. So you take those three and then you throw where we are in chapter 5, verse 1. “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God”—a resurrected body—”a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” And then that last verse we just looked at. “And He who prepared us for this very thing is God.” God’s hand is in all our struggles, all our difficulties. He has all our promises here that He has laid out for us. His hand is in it, and He’s given us His Spirit as that guarantee.

I tell you what, when I sit there, and if I just not read the words, but I just sit there and really think about those words, those promises, whew, that is some big stuff right there. I mean, that is big, big stuff that He’s given us. And wow, it’s just, but yet, you know, you sit here, and I’m like you all, you know, I’ve got my issues. I’ve got my struggles, I’ve got my battles. And so over here I’ve got all this stuff that just kind of consumes my attention. Wake up in the morning, right there on my shoulders. And then you’ve got over here all God’s promises. “Kevin, look to Me. Look to Me with all these promises.”

And sometimes it’s like that struggle is like, “God, yes, that’s what I need to do. How do I get there? How do I get there some days? How do I get my eyes on You and off my situation?” Because our situation is going to be tough, and boy, they can be all consuming. But to see these and see these promises and say, “God, can I get my eyes on You today so that I can do what You tell me to do?” And so Paul in verses 6 through 10 just gives us three practical steps on how to do that. And not that these—you could probably come up with a whole lot of others through Scripture—but I just love these three that he lays out for us right here.

Let’s go to verse 6 and look at the first one.

“So we are always of good courage, and we know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. For we walk by faith and not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” So Paul right here should say, “So whether I’m here on the earth or I’m with Jesus in heaven, no matter what, I am always of good courage.”

I’m always of good courage, especially while I’m still here. I’m always of good courage. So we are always, now you think about always of good courage. Some of your versions may say something like “always confident.” “We are always confident.” You may have “always full of hope” or “of good cheer.” Some of the commentary said that’s how the words could be translated. So “always full of hope,” “always a good cheer.” And you’re like, “Wow, am I always a good courage? Am I always a good cheer with everything that goes on in my life?” And I go back and think about those promises of being raised with Jesus, being renewed, preparing eternal weight of glory, a new resurrected body. God’s given His Spirit as a guarantee. To be able to take those promises and allow those to just permeate in my mind, in my body, just to focus me on Him.

You know, when I think about it, those promises, they really should be able to move my mind off my situation to Him. They should. And I should be of good courage. I should be of good courage because of that. And I was, as I was reading, as I was preparing for this, the question that just came up was, “Well, Kevin, does this describe you? Are you always full of hope? Are you always of good cheer? Does that come out in your conversations and your demeanor?”

And not that it always is going to come out that way. I get that. We’re not all going to walk around every day with a big old smile on our face. You know, everything is just all good. We’re always going to have—there’s going to be days where it’s just kind of tough. But we don’t, we’re reminded here, we don’t need to be walking around like—what is it? Phil does, he does a little Eeyore thing sometimes. We’re not looking like Eeyore or Winnie the Pooh, you know. I’m not going to do the sounds that Phil does, but we do the—but we’re not going to be like Eeyore, you know, just doom and gloom.

And now we always have a little tendency to get a little Eeyore in us, you know, that does happen when we get focused on our situation. But you know, the weight of the world just gets on us, and first thing you realize, your mind, your mind’s a battlefield, your mind goes on that situation, and it’s off of Jesus. The mind is on the battlefield. It’s right there. You’re not focused on Jesus. And it’s hard to be of good courage when we’re focused on ourselves in light of everything we’ve got going on. It’s almost impossible, really. Real confidence, real courage comes from focusing on Jesus and Him alone.

And this for me, and I don’t know about you all, maybe this is just for me to learn, this is just a daily, daily battle for me. There are many mornings I just wake up and just it hits me. All the struggles, the things that have to be done, the decisions need to be made. They’re just, boom! They’re there. And I love why Paul gives—I know why he gives us Philippians 4:6 and 7 about our minds. He tells us to come before the Lord and says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, and with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts.” I love that part. But then it also says, “will guard your minds.” “Will guard your minds too in Christ Jesus.” And that’s just an amazing promise that when we come before Him, “Here’s my stuff. Guard my mind.” Because He’s the only one that can protect our mind from getting focused on our stuff instead of being on Him. He can do that.

It’s just so easy for Kevin not to be focused on heaven. That actually rhymes. Y’all like that, did he? From an accountant? Not too bad, was it? So it’s so easy for that to have Kevin gets his mind focused on himself and not on heaven. And maybe some of you find yourself in that situation many times with whatever you’ve got going on. The focus, man, you’re trying, you’re trying, but it just gets so consuming with yourself. The next thing you know, you’ve just gone through days and weeks, and you’ve lost focus on who holds your future, and who’s in control, and who’s got your next step.

And this hit me. Lisa and I were down at the beach a couple weeks ago, and I got up one morning, and I was seeking the Lord, and I wanted answers on a couple things we had coming up. And I just was really, I was like, “Well, I won’t have any distractions. I can just go down on the beach. I can just pray and allow Him to speak.” And so I make my way down there, and as I start to pray, He didn’t give me answers. He just said, “Kevin, worship Me.” And I’m like, “I like answers.” But, “Worship Me. Worship Me, Kevin.” And I was like, “Okay, I’ll worship You.”

And we had a book that I had brought. I don’t know if y’all are like me, but when I go to the beach, I take a bunch of books, and I end up reading about half of one of them. I got this stack, and I get through a little fist. But this one was one that had been given to us by Chris and April when they were here before they left to go to Virginia. And it was a book on worship. And so I started reading it. And it was just neat how God used that to just challenge me about how I was approaching Him each day in my quiet time. And one of the things it said in this book, it quoted C.S. Lewis, and it said, “It is in the process of being worshiped that God communicates His presence to men.” “It’s in the process of being worshiped that God communicates His presence to men.” And yeah, we want answers to our situations. We want solutions. We don’t like being in many of the things we’re in. But really, our heart’s desire is really His presence. Because in His presence, all that stuff just kind of goes to the side. In His presence. And God just taught me that.

And so my quiet times, it had been very regimented around, “I’m going to read this much of the Bible. I’m going to look over my Scripture memory verses. I’m going to pray,” you know, turned into, “I’m just going to worship Him. I’m going to play a song, and I’m just going to get on my knees and read a psalm that focuses me on Him and praise Him.”

And I’ve only been doing this now for about three weeks, but it has just transformed the way I approach the morning for me. And I don’t know if that would help any of y’all here or not, but it just transformed for me to just start my day just in worship. Worship Him. And Lisa will tell you there’s things that some mornings I’ll get up and the way the world goes on your shoulders, but then some mornings there’s a song in my heart, and I’ll just start singing it. And it’s like as I’ve been worshiping, it’s like God’s replaced a lot of those worries in the morning with a song. And so I just come downstairs and play that song. It’s early in the morning. No one’s up. They can’t hear me singing it. So I just do that. But it’s just been a blessing. It has just been a blessing.

But it’s all from, I just shared that to say, God just said, “Don’t worry about getting answers to your situation. Just worship Me. I’ll take care of all that in My timing. Focus on Me. Eyes on Me.” And I love one of my favorite hymns, “Turn Your Eyes on Jesus.” I just love those words. “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of this earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” And that is so true. That is good news. That is just so true. When our eyes are focused on Him, and not on everything around us, He gives us peace, and we can be of good courage. Which leads us to the second thing.

“So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him.”

So whether heaven, earth, we make it our aim to please Him. And I’m sure we have a lot—I’m sure we have some Greek scholars in here that will be able to, could pronounce this word better than me—but you’re going to get the Spartanburg Roebuck attempt to this. So the Greek word for pleasing is called euaristos. And so when I saw that, I was like, “Aim to please Him.” And I know throughout Scripture there’s just tons of verses about pleasing Him. And I was like, “I wonder where that verse, that word, pleasing, where that’s used in Scripture.” And so I actually found it’s used eight times. And I was like, “Let’s go look at it and see what connotation it’s in. What does it tell us about pleasing Him? Where is that word used?” So if y’all just bear with me, I’m going to kind of go through these verses. And you’ll see the pattern here in a second that will try to carry us here on the next point.

First time it’s used there, Romans 12:1. “I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.” So “acceptable” is the word “pleasing.” That’s another way to translate it. “Which is your spiritual worship.” Worship Him. Aim to please Him. You worship Him. Offer your bodies a living sacrifice, acceptable to God.

Two more here. Right after Romans 12:1. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by the testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” And then in Ephesians 5. “Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true. And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.” Discernment, seeking Him in both of those verses kind of emerges.

And then over to Romans 14:18. “Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.” This is in the connotation or the Scripture part about don’t cause another to stumble. Philippians 4:18. “I have received full payment and more. I am well supplied having received from Aphrodite the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.” The gifts from the Philippian church, to Paul was pleasing. “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” It’s always a good one. And then “bond servants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything. They are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative.” And this is like the relations and how you relate to other people, other believers. You love others because of Him.

And so when you take these verses, and again, there’s lots of other verses that talk about pleasing God, but it’s like what emerges out of him? Worship, seeking, and loving others because of Him. Even in the most difficult situations or challenges that we go through, worship Him, seek Him, love others because of Him.

And I will tell you that watching so many of you here in this room, many of you, I know you and know your situation, you do such a really tremendous job of doing this stuff. Even in the difficulties that you’re going through, you’re suffering, you’re praying for people, you’re giving of yourself sacrificially, you’re giving of your money, your time, you’re serving, you’re encouraging, you’re doing what Jesus tells us to do, what Paul laid out here, to aim to please Him. You are doing that, and I’m so proud of y’all and how y’all do that. It’s just an amazing thing to sit there and watch. So keep it up, keep it up.

But I think it’s also a good challenge for all of us: Is this our daily aim to please Him? Is that our daily aim? Do we start each day, “I want to please You today. I want to worship You, seek You. I want to love others, want You to love others through me.” Is that what we start our day with, a prayer focused on Him despite whatever’s going on? “I want to please You, Jesus. I want to please You today.” And you may be thinking, “Man, that’s tough to do sometimes. That’s tough to do. How can I do that each day?” And here’s the cool thing: You, you don’t do it. He does. He does, for those of you that are Type A.

And notice, I only showed seven verses. You’re probably driving. “Where’s the eighth verse, Kevin?” Yeah, I didn’t show you the eighth verse. Here’s the eighth verse. Where pleasing’s used. “Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead, our Lord Jesus, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight. Through Jesus Christ, to Him be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

He equips us with everything good that you may do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight. You allow God via the Holy Spirit to work in you what pleases Him. You allow Him to enable you to worship Him. You allow Him to enable you to serve Him. You allow Him to enable you to serve others. All of that, it’s His work. His work He’s doing in us so that we can aim to please Him. I just love how His hand, the Father’s hand, is in all of that. Our loving, loving Father that we just sung about, He’s involved in that whole, whole thing. He’s the one that gives us the strength and courage to love, to worship, to serve. It’s just an amazing, amazing thing. And so Paul’s just saying right here, “Be of good courage. All these promises that I just laid out for you there, be of good courage and aim to please Him.”

And then it takes us to what I like to call the icing on the cake, or the white cream inside the chocolate-filled Krispy Kreme donut. You know, that’s not the yellow stuff, not the custard, but the white cream. The custard stuff’s of the enemy. So the white stuff, it’s the white cream. Right, Jason? He’s like, “Yeah,” he’s nodding. All right, it’s good. So it is. So that’s what we’re, this is just really cool how God just brings us all together here in this last verse.

2 Corinthians 5:10. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” Now, you read that on the surface, you’re like, “Hmm, that’s more like a healthy fear kind of deal here.” This is not—I don’t know about the icing on the cake—it’s more like, “Whew, got to be careful with that.” And there is that side of it. That is one side of the coin.

Let’s talk about just real briefly what he’s talking about here. He’s talking about the Bema seat, the judgment seat of Christ, also called the Bema. So that was like a platform, a stage, if you will, back in the Roman times where the judge would sit up there and render the verdicts. In fact, here’s a picture. I’m thinking it pops up pretty good. This was actually the Bema in Corinth, which in I think Acts 18, Paul stood before a Bema, and they think that may have been the actual place where he stood. I’m sure that’s debatable, but that kind of gives you an idea. It’s kind of a raised platform where judgment was made. That’s what Paul’s laying out here. He says, “We’re all going to appear before a judgment seat of Christ.”

Now, this judgment seat of Christ, just to clarify, that is not the great white throne judgment in Revelation 20. That is judgment: unbelievers will be cast into the lake of fire. So he’s not referring to that particular judgment there. But we do need to just take a pause because we don’t want to just discount the great white throne judgment because that is a real deal. The lake of fire is real. And so I can’t go through this sermon and just pause here and say, “Anyone who hasn’t made Jesus Lord of their life, that is your reality one day.” And that is scary.

But the beautiful thing is God sent His Son, He died on the cross, shed His blood for all of us. God raised Him from the grave three days later. And because of that, if we put our faith and trust and turn our life over to Jesus, one day when we die, that lake of fire we don’t have to worry about. We’ll have eternity with Him. And the most beautiful thing is when they lay out, “Man, how do I be saved?” And Paul just said in Romans, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the grave, you shall be saved.” Simple as that. “Lord, here’s my sins. I give it over to You. Come into my life now. I surrender my life to You.” And when you do that, one day, you’re going to see heaven. It’s going to be beautiful. It’s going to be beautiful.

So let me come back to this. So that was, I wanted to go there, come back to this judgment seat of Christ. So what he’s—this is called the judgment of works or the judgment seat of Christ, however you want to say it. And it’s found, you can find more verses on it in Romans 14 that says all believers will stand before this judgment seat, and we’ll be judged for our works. Some works will pass, some, as 1 Corinthians say, will get burned up, done with the wrong motives or whatever. So there is that. We want to be careful as we work to aim to please God that we’re doing in the right motives.

But here’s the cool thing, and the other side of the coin, I think, for this Scripture, is that the Bema seat was also a seat at the Olympic events and things like that where the ruler over the event would sit on this platform, and then after the activity or the event, they would come up, the one that won, the athlete or whatever, they would come before that Bema seat, and that judge over the event or the overseer would put the crown on them. And I just think that just when you kind of look at it that way and you think about what Paul is saying, you know, aim to please Him, be of good courage, and to think one day when you do those things, you’ll stand before the behemoth seat of Christ and get that crown put on you.

And, you know, I know in our day and time, we don’t, you don’t really see a platform like that for athletic events. I guess it does happen. I think, Speedy, I saw, you may know this, I saw a World Cup back in, I think, 2014 where they had all the FIFA guys up top, and the Germans, the winning team, walked up in the stands and walked across, and they put the medals on top of them. And I just thought, to be able to walk up one day before the judgment seat of Christ and Him look at me and look at us and say, “Well done, well done, Kevin. You were of good courage. You aimed to please Me. You didn’t understand everything was going on in your life. Here’s your reward. You sought Me and obeyed Me. You gave sacrificially even when times were tough. You suffered and didn’t know why. But you still aimed to please Me. Here’s your reward.”

What motivation? When you just take a step back and just think about that, one day standing before Him in all our works that we do, no matter what we have going on in our lives, that we do for His glory, we’ll be rewarded with those rewards. And wow, it’s just like, I don’t know, it just blows me away. I just think of a cash register. “Cha-ching!” You know, every time, “You did a good job here. Cha-ching! I’ll give you the crown. Cha-ching!” You know, just over and over.

And so I say all that jokingly, but it’s like, this should be an exciting motivation for us to one day be before Jesus and have Him give us these rewards for things that He’s doing in us. And that’s what I want to come back to, because this is very key, just to kind of put all this together. This blew me away. So if you go back to Hebrews 13:21, remember it said, “God does the work.” He’s the one that’s doing the work, equipping us to aim to please Him. Everybody with me on that? He was the one that does the work. So He does that work to make us, move us to please Him. And then because we please Him, He rewards us.

God works in us so we can aim to please Him, to empower us to do that. And as a result of us doing that, He rewards us. When I just think about that, it’s just, it’s all God. Not me. It’s just all God. My only thing in that is just be obedient. Our only thing in that is just to be obedient. It is all God. It’s all God doing that. That just wows me. I just think, “God, You’re working in me to make that happen, and then one day You’re going to reward me for the work You did in me.” Awesome. “See what kind of love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God. And so we are.” What kind of love He has given us, He has. The Father is loving. He’s loving, so loving. And for those of us, as we aim to be of good courage and aim to please Him, the Bema is going to be a beautiful, beautiful time. And what motivation for us? What motivation? Be of good courage, aim to please Him, and remember the reward that’s coming. Be of good courage, aim to please Him, and remember the reward that’s coming. The simple three things that Paul laid out there for us.

As we conclude, I want to take you back to that conference in Houston, where everyone praising the Lord, hands raised, pure of worship, a reminder that their future impacted their present. Their future, where they were headed, was impacting what they did right now. Their eyes were on Him. And Warren Wiersbe, in his commentary on this passage, he made a comment. He said, “Heaven was not simply a destination for Paul. It was his motivation.” It wasn’t simply a destination. It was his motivation. His motivation. And the same can be said of all of us, no matter what path God has us on, no matter what. Heaven can be our motivation. Heaven should be our motivation. It can be our motivation because of God, His work in our life. We surrender to Him. “God, would You work into me? They want me to be of good courage. They want me to please You.” Focus on that heavenly reward. It will be our motivation. Remember His promises. He will raise us to be with Jesus one day. Amen. He is renewing us day by day. Amen. He is preparing an eternal way to glory for us. Amen. He has prepared us a new body. Amen. And He has guaranteed all of this by His Spirit. Amen. Be of good courage. Aim to please Him. And remember the reward. Eyes on Him.

Eyes on Him, LifePoint Church. Eyes on Him. Love you all. Thank you for all you do for our church. Thank you for how you serve. Thank you for sharing your lives with us. Thank you for giving us opportunities to pray with you, to weep with you, and to rejoice with you. And we look forward to hearing how God works in all your lives here in the days ahead and the testimonies that will be proclaimed for what He has done as He’s worked in you these things. Love you all. Let’s pray.

Father, You are so good. And just working through this and just amazed at Your love. And just, Lord, You just tell us just to surrender, to just be obedient. And then You just do all this stuff. And God, it just makes, I think, all of us just stand in wonder of You and in amazement of You, knowing You hold our future, knowing those promises You’ve given us, they’re real. And one day we’re going to see those, Lord, and experience those. And so I just want to say thank You. Thank You so much for that. And I just pray, Holy Spirit, as You have Your way of working in all our lives, each of us is unique, and You know how to speak to us. You know what we need. You know how to lead us. I just pray You would just, however You see fit, burn that into us, Lord, that we would just cling to those promises and just allow You to do Your thing in us. Lord, we just yield to You now. Holy Spirit, thank You for being so good to us. Thank You so much for how You lead us. Thank You for Your Word. Thank You for how You encourage us in the battle. And Lord, yeah, just have Your way. Thank You for this time to be together. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.