Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of the Millennial Kingdom, where saints will rule alongside Christ, highlighting that this theme is prevalent throughout the Bible yet often overlooked. He stresses the practical implications of understanding our current struggles in relation to our future roles in God's Kingdom, urging believers to strive for faithfulness in their lives. Bickle warns that not all believers will be rewarded equally, as only those deemed faithful will hold positions of authority in the Millennial reign. He encourages self-examination and repentance to avoid regret at the judgment seat of Christ, where our works will be evaluated. Ultimately, he calls for a life dedicated to pleasing God, as this will determine our eternal rewards.

Well, tonight we're going to talk about the saints ruling in the Millennial Kingdom. This is one of the most practical subjects in the Word of God. And believe it or not, the subject of the Millennial Kingdom, Jesus' earthly reign for a thousand years, is one of the most prominent themes in the whole Word of God. And yet it's often neglected, and most believers are pretty vague about it. But it is one of the most prominent themes in the Bible, if you talk Genesis to Revelation, that the Messiah would come and establish His kingdom on the earth. There's so much detail about it, particularly in the Old Testament. But it's not just prominent, it's practical. It's practical concerning our lives, because our lives don't make sense. Even as believers, our lives don't make sense, except we understand the relationship of our struggle in this age to what we're going to do in the age to come. And without that piece of information in our understanding, we are, well, we're significantly lacking in terms of perspective. And we're constantly trying to, you know, really rise up and press in and hang in there. But we don't quite know why. We know it's for God, in a vague sort of way. But we can't really relate the struggle and the sacrifices of our life to our life in the age to come in a really practical, in a practical earthly way. Because our life is going to have a practical earthly expression in the age to come, right here on the earth. We'll talk about that more in a moment. Roman numeral one, introduction to the Millennial Kingdom. John the Apostle said in Revelation 20, I saw thrones. So one of the great revelations. Imagine being John and he saw thrones. He saw thrones. And what he's seeing is saints on the earth after the Lord returns in places of government. What an incredible insight. Now, again, this is a biblical revelation in the Old Testament. So it wasn't a new idea to John. Daniel saw this in Daniel chapter seven. In verse 27, he, well, a number of places in Daniel seven. He saw thrones and he saw dominion and he saw human beings ruling on the earth in the glory of God back in Daniel chapter seven. And King David saw this a number of times. So this was not a new idea biblically to John. But what a startling revelation. Imagine you're the one and you're seeing human beings in positions of government on the earth in the glory of God. Now, of course, John is thinking undoubtedly somewhere in the in the process. Hey, Lord, where am I in this process? Now, you know, John's thinking that because back in Luke chapter nine, he's the one who said, Lord, can I be number one man in your kingdom? So, you know, John's got this in his spirit. When he asked the Lord if he could be a sit at the right hand, that's really what he's asking. Can I sit at your right hand forever in government, Jesus? And Jesus undoubtedly appreciated John's heart because John really took this stuff serious. And so what a what an excellent candidate for God to reveal this revelation to about earthly government in the glory of God of human beings who live in this age. They're going to have a role of government. Now, not everybody is going to have that. Only those that the Lord has counted worthy or he's considered them faithful in a way that God calls faithfulness. Many believers, the Lord counts them saved. They're in the family of God. They're loved, but not all. But the majority of them are not what I believe the Lord will call us, say to them when he meets them faithful in the way that the Lord means when he says faithful. He may say forgiven. He may say beloved, but I don't think he's going to say faithful to the majority of the people throughout history that have received the grace of God. It's something that we want to get a vision for. It's something that we want to really strive after. And the biblical word actually is strive. Jesus used the word striving to enter the narrow gate. He actually used the word striving. Of course, there's a negative connotation to that, but there's a positive one. Exerting energy, really pressing yourself to go the full measure. That you see to it that you're established in faithfulness in that day. I mean, that the Lord says that to you that day. Well, anyway, John saw government. He saw thrones and they sat upon them. He's talking about the saints and judgment or the ability to make decisions. That's what judgment is. The ability to evaluate situations and make decisions that count, that are real. Judgment was committed to them. Now, some of us have this idea that when the Lord returns and we're with him on the earth, we understand we're going to be on the earth when the Lord returns. We're not going away to heaven. Heaven's coming to the earth. And for those of you where that's a new idea, though that's a profoundly biblical idea from Genesis to Revelation. Jesus, with the most famous prayer, thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. It's talking about the kingdom on the earth. Now, for 2,000 years from the cross to the second coming, for approximately 2,000 years, when we die, our spirit goes away to a temporary holding pattern. Now, look at your neighbor and say temporary. You don't really have to do that, but I'm just having fun. I never like it when the preacher tells me what to do. Stand up, sit down, turn around, shake hands, hug, kiss, look in their eyes. I'd never liked all that stuff. It's a temporary holding pattern. It's for 2,000 years. When a believer dies, their spirit goes away to heaven far away. And we live before God in glory. It's glorious. It is not the fullness, but it is glorious. I want to say that again. It isn't the fullness of what God planned, but it is glorious. And then after 2,000 years or whatever, approximately when Jesus returns, he brings heaven to the earth. And when heaven and earth come together on the planet here, when the two realms come together, that is where fullness is. That is the fullness of God's will, of God's plan and God's intention. Now, we have this idea that when we're with the Lord, you know, most people are thinking they're on a cloud floating far away. And they love the Lord, but they hate to admit that seems a little boring. I mean, maybe for a thousand years, that could be cool, playing that harp on that cloud, kind of maybe the closest person near you is maybe, you know, just over the way you could kind of hear their song. But, hey, how are you doing over there? Fine, how are you doing? Oh, I love God, me too. And then we just play our worship songs again. That's not what heaven's like. That's not what this thing, that's not where we're going. We're going to be on the earth. We're going to have physical bodies. We're going to have material, physical bodies like you have now, except for a superior model, so to speak. A superior version of what you have now. You know, you think of computers and the new model is an upgrade. You're going to have a physical body, as physical and material as your body is now, but it's going to be a significant upgrade, but it will still be physical. You will still grab somebody and hug them and you'll feel their arms. Jesus said, after he came back in the resurrection, in Luke 24, he says, See, I have bones. He was resurrected and they felt he goes, I have bones and he ate food. They're going, wow, it's really you. Now, when we receive our new body and we come back to the earth with the Lord at the second coming, the whole body of Christ comes back. And those that are in the bodies that are buried in the ground, then they're raised from the dead and we get bodies at the second coming because we don't need a physical body in the 2000 years that the saints are in heaven, because the saints don't need a body to relate to the environment of heaven. We only need a spirit. But when we come to the earth, when heaven comes to the earth, we need a physical body to relate to the environment of the physical earth. We will need a body, but they don't need a body. King David's up there in his spirit. He doesn't need a body yet, but he's going to when he comes down on the earth and he'll touch the dirt. He's like, wow, I'm back. I'm back in Jerusalem again. And that's where this thing's going. But anyway, when it says here that judgment was committed to them, it means that real decisions, the saints are going to make real decisions that count and that last and that matter and that make change. Meaning some folks have this idea that they'll be there, they'll just be kind of hooked up to some kind of automatic, a Holy Spirit IV, and their personality will go away. And they'll just say the information that comes to them direct, and they'll just say it. And I have no personality. And there's some truth to that. The Holy Spirit will be in us and honest and around us. And we'll never have greater communication with the Holy Spirit than then. However, that will not replace our real personalities. It says that judgment is what a magnificent revelation. Judgment or decisions or evaluations were committed to the saints. The saints in the wisdom of God will make decisions that reflect their own personality in combination with the Holy Spirit's inspiration. But your own personality will come forth in it. And judgment will be committed. Now, those of you that are just new here, last couple of weeks, I'm not going to cover all this. So, you know, you're thinking, oh, my goodness, we're at point one, and we're still going on. And so these notes, I always give you a lot more notes as a rule than we'll ever cover. So I just take them and just kind of move around and do as I do. But I'm captivated by this sentence that judgment was committed. Judgment that the real decision making is given to real people on the earth that have resurrected bodies. Now, John looks at a subunit of this group that's on thrones. He's looking not at another group, but of a subunit of this, because the first group he sees is the saints in general. Those that are in government. Again, not all saints will be in government. All saints will be loved of God and all saints will love God. But I believe the majority of the saints through history will not be in a position of government. They'll love the kingdom. They'll have a great time. But I believe that when we stand before the Lord, we will long that we were faithful on the earth if we were not faithful to the Lord on the earth. The idea that when we meet the Lord, it just won't matter. It will matter. It will matter more than we can imagine. When we look into the eyes of the one that we love so dearly and face to face, and then we begin to grasp what he gave us and what he did on our behalf. Our hearts will be more alive as to the necessity and the reality of our faithfulness or the lack of it in that hour. Now, the verse, you know, someone says, what about the verse? We're all tears are wiped away and our sorrows gone. That is true, but that's a thousand years later. That's after the millennial kingdom. I believe there will be regret in believers hearts and they will know that they will carry that regret for years in this period of time. And the Lord will heal his people from regret. But there's a number of verses which I don't want to go into right now where the word of God makes clear. Jesus, like John said in 1 John 2, 28, he warned them. He said, obey the Lord. So you do not 1 John 2, 28. You don't shrink back in shame when he appears in the sky. Because it's possible that believers will go, oh, no, that that reality exists on the day when the Lord calls them. Oh, no, I am not ready. I don't want to meet the Lord right now. And it says that in their spirit, they will draw back. They'll shrink back in shame because the truth of how they squandered their life in the presence of indescribable love, that truth will be before them. I remember when I had a very, very powerful visitation of the Lord when I was 23 years old, a long time ago. I'm 50 now. It was October 1978. I lived in St. Louis. It was a life changing, radical, arresting experience, a trance. I was caught up and I experienced it in the spirit. And yet I was still on the earth. I don't want to go into all the details of that. But what happened is that I was kneeling before the Lord. And I didn't know what's going on. I mean, I didn't know where I was or what was going on. But I was kneeling before the Lord. I went to bed one night and I woke up in this experience. I'm kneeling before the Lord and I'm looking into his eyes. And Jesus is staring at me and he says one sentence to me. I'm kneeling like this. I'm looking at him. I see his face just like I see your face, like you could, you know, in the full sense of it felt. It was a complete natural experience is what it felt like. And I'm looking at him and I'm wondering why he's standing there. I'm looking at him and I am completely perplexed. I go, this is Jesus. I'm saying this to myself. This is Jesus. Where am I at? How is this happening? And I'm touching myself going, I don't know where I'm at. I don't know what's happening. And then Jesus made this startling statement to me. And this statement was showing me what he would say to me at the end of my life. If I did not choose the narrow road, this was an incredible grace of God. God would give me this feeling at age 23 with my whole life ahead of me. And the power of this experience has molded my thinking of my mind. It's not, it wouldn't be true to say I think of this every day, but I think of this experience many, many times every year. I don't even know if every week, but many, many times, you know, maybe a couple hundred times a year. This thing comes before me and I think about this. This experience in this last 25 plus years. And the Lord's looking at me right in the eyes. And he says this to me. He said, saved, but your life was wasted. I'm thinking, what? But I'm not thinking it like sarcastic. I am in pain. I am startled. I'm shocked. I can't fathom that he said this to me. And I said in my mind, and I started saying it out loud, I go, no, this can't be true. I've loved you because I was a real devoted believer when I was 23 years old. I'd been walking with a, you know, a certain amount of zeal for the Lord since I was about 16 years old. And I'm 23 and I, and I knew I was committed to him. And I was thinking, how could this be? And I said, Lord, I said, no, I love you. I love you. And he didn't say another word. He looked me right in the eyes. And the idea came to my mind, very clear by the Holy Spirit. It is impossible to manipulate the decision in this man's heart, in Jesus's heart. It is impossible to manipulate him. And I just said, you cannot, impossible to get him to move in one even percent of what he's thinking when he looks at you in that day. He will not change his evaluation of your life one percent on that day when we meet him face to face, eye to eye. And I was saying, Lord, this can't be, this can't be. And he just kept looking at me with a certain seriousness. It wasn't mean, but he wasn't smiling either. He was looking at me with a weightiness, a seriousness on his face. And it's that face that I can remember even this, what, 27, 28 years later, I can still remember this, this face looking at me. Because I don't want that to happen in a few minutes when I stand before the Lord. And beloved, we're all going to be there in a minute and a half. Maybe a few decades. Maybe 50, 60, 70 years for some of you, who knows if the Lord tarries. But I tell you, either way, it is a minute and a half. You're going to be standing there looking in those eyes in just a moment. And so I said, this can't be. And the idea by the Spirit came like an arrow. It is impossible to manipulate this man. Impossible to change his evaluation even 1%. Now, I'm adding that phrase. That didn't hit me there. It just said impossible to manipulate him. And I was in pain. And I looked at him and so I said, okay. I settled it because it was so powerful, that sentence, impossible to manipulate him. Then I said to him, can I have another chance? Now, I didn't realize that I really wasn't before him. That I really, this was my chance. It's like the Lord, when I meet him on that day, he'll say, there you have it. I gave you all of these years with this insight. Anyway, I said, can I have a chance, another chance? And the word came to me again by the Holy Spirit, crystal clear. Hebrews 9, verse 27. It said this, it is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment. That came like an arrow. It's appointed unto man once to die. He'll never get a second chance once he's died. And he stands before the Lord. And so then I just begin to sob and weep because I was so sorry that I did not live in the full energy of what the grace of God made available to me to be abandoned to him. And I'm on the ground on my knees like this and I'm sobbing and all of a sudden this thing lifts. And I'm right on my knees, wet my shirt, wet with tears. And I'm a few feet over from my bed. I went to bed there and I was kneeling down over here. I go, well, how did I get from there to here? I have no idea. And I was in the exact same posture of that vision and my shirt. I had tears coming down on my shirt. And that thing that was gone. And I sit there in absolute stunned. And I just said, what just happened to me? My spirit was trembling. And I remember feeling the weight and the pain of regret. I had the feeling of regret. Now, really what it was, was the grace of God. He was saying to me in that trance. I do not want this to happen to you many years from now when we meet. But what struck me is that it is possible for this to happen to a person who loves God. It is possible. There is a place of regret that can come. You know what? I'm just going to put those notes aside. I'm going to stay on this. Turn to 1 Corinthians. I'm going to show you some of these verses. 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Just for the record, these are good notes. I'm just totally kidding. I hope you know that. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Because what's striking my spirit right now is this issue. It's the issue that there is regret. Because the tears that are wiped away are after the thousand years. And there's a, what I consider to be, may be well-meaning, probably well-meaning. But there's a sloppy and careless exegesis or a, you know, interpreting the word. There's a sloppy exegesis of the word that makes it like it does not matter how we live as long as we blow the kiss. I love you. You love me. It doesn't matter. And that is an absolute lie. Nowhere in the Bible is that presented. But that is presented so powerfully in the Western culture in the church. And it's the idea that we live like we live. And the grace of God is bigger than anything that we do. And so there's never any sense of consequence. There's no regret. There's no sense of loss. Because the grace of God is bigger than our regret and our loss. And that is not an exactly accurate statement. There is truth to it. The grace of God is bigger than any of our sin when we repent. That is absolutely true. The grace of God is so huge that we can sin and come to God with genuine repentance. And He will not bring that up to us again and hold it against us and keep us out of His kingdom. It will not keep us out of His kingdom if we genuinely repent. The grace of God is that big. And that's power. That is true. That's the glorious truth in the midst of a lot of other confusion. That is true. But the next part is not true. It's not just the grace of God is big enough to forgive us. The grace of God is so big that our careless living and our life of compromise does not have any consequence or any regret when we meet the Lord. That is not true. There will be much regret even of born-again people. And the grace of God will not remove that regret immediately. And I don't know when. I don't know if or when or how it's removed. I don't even want to go there because there's nothing in the Bible about it. But the reality of the regret is clearly there. You can't spend 10 years in the Lord living for yourself. Kind of come to your senses 10 years later. Decide to repent. Push the delete button which I'm really big on. I love that delete button. You can't do that and somehow make that 10 years fruitful. When that 10 years is gone, it is gone forever. It will never ever be recovered as fruitful ever. It is lost forever. And again, people talk about where the Lord will restore all. And there's all kinds of confusion on how people present that because it's real popular and it's real cool because people feel guilty and they feel bad and they feel regret. And the preacher says everything will be restored. And that's not really a true statement. Not specifically. It is true that our relationship with God can be restored. That's for sure true. And that's the biggie. I mean, let's face it. That's the big thing. But you can't lose 10 years of a life of compromise as a believer. It cannot somehow be translated into fruitful. And it cannot somehow disappear as though it does not matter. It really will matter to you on that day. Really, it will matter to you. And it will matter to me. I don't want to lose 10 years. I don't want to lose one year. I do not want to lose one month. Beloved, I don't want to try to be melodramatic. I don't want to lose a day. I purposed in my heart many years ago. And I trust that most of you in this room, if not all of you, have purposed. I do not want to take a full day and determine I'm just going to kind of take my chances out on the edges. And then I'll repent tonight and come back. I trust by the grace of God I've never done that. And I certainly have purposed in my heart that would never be how I would live, let alone a week or a month. Now, my point isn't, aren't I cool and aren't I dedicated? That's not my point. My point is a day, a month, or a year, let alone 10 years of just throwing it to the wind, saying, well, I just want to live on the edges of grace or whatever that means. I'm going to live in some darkness for a while. And I'm going to repent at the end of the week. You don't want to take even a week of your life and do that. Now, I'm sure that a week of your life in a 40, 50, 60, 80, 100 year time frame isn't the weight of your life. For sure that's not. Sure, it's small compared to the whole of your life if you have those many decades. But beloved, I don't want to look in his eyes ever and tell him I consciously spent a day on purpose walking out there knowing at the end of the day or the end of the week, I'd repent and then try to make it up later. Because I assure you that the day when you meet him eye to eye, you will never, you will wish you never had one day like that. I have plenty of sins. I've committed just spontaneously that I didn't plan. They just are happening and I hate them. I don't want to take a day or a week or a month or a year and just kind of go and camp out for a while. And just have confidence in the grace of God. I can swim back to shore before it's too late. Kind of swim way out there for a while and just say, I know I can get back to shore in due time. Because our goal isn't to just make it to heaven. Our goal is to be found faithful in his presence, in his sight on that day. Isn't that our goal? Well, first Corinthians chapter three, look what it says here in verse 11. It says for no other foundation can be laid than the one which is laid. The one which is Christ Jesus. If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver and precious stones or wood, hay and straw, each person's work will become clear. For the day will declare it because it will be revealed by fire. And the fire will test each man's work, what sort it is. I'm reading from the New King James, verse 14. If anyone's work which he has built upon endures, if it endures. And all the works in the kingdom will not endure. But if it endures, this person, this man, this woman will receive a reward. And this reward will last forever. If the work endures, the reward is given and it lasts forever. If the work does not endure, verse 15, if the work is burned up, meaning wasted. That means a person's life has been wasted on the earth. He will suffer loss. Now, I want you to not, you know, have a wrong response to this, to where you become paranoid. But I want you to have a urgency called the fear of the Lord. I want you to look at the word suffer loss. And I want you to think of two words, loss. And the next word I want you to think of is suffer. Okay, because both of those words are biblical. There will be many people on the last day, they will lose, they will have loss. They will stand before the Lord and decades of their life will have been lost. There will be nothing to show, no fruit, nothing that lasts from a decade or a couple of decades or a month or a year. I don't know, you know, different for different people. And beloved, there is real loss, but that's not the end of it. It is suffering loss. And what I mean by suffering loss, there will be a real sting of regret, a real pain of regret. Now I won't be suffering like the unbelievers in the lake of fire suffer, not in that kind of suffer, but the pang, the pain of loss and regret is real. I remember that experience so well. I was in anguish in my spirit because I was face to face with the man who loved me more than I could imagine. And my answer to him was, I did not regard or esteem his commitment to me as something worthy of living different. That's that that was the feeling that I looked at his eyes. I was ashamed and and I realized there's no condemnation in the sense of we are forgiven and we will stand in this kingdom. We will stand in his kingdom forgiven and we will be secure in his kingdom. But I was ashamed of how I lived. Of course, I didn't even know what was going on, but I felt this feeling. I felt the emotion of it. It is biblical to have regret in the presence of God. Now, again, you just you don't hear this talked about. It's intensely unpopular. But beloved, pray the prayer. Shock me now, God. Don't shock me then. I've prayed that prayer for years. Shock me now. Don't shock me then. I don't want to be there where it's impossible to get another take on life again. And it was only a visionary experience. It was terrifying. I mean, it's what, 23, 27 years later. I was 23 then. I still feel the weight of that experience. 27 years later. Beloved, ask him to shock you now, not shock you then. What do I mean by shock you now? Tell him, ask him, what are you thinking, God, about my life right now? I want to know what you're thinking now. Where how am I measuring up to what you want? And I don't mean we earn our salvation. This is not about earning our salvation. This is about responding in gratitude that the Bible calls faithfulness. It's about responding in gratitude. I'm not talking about measuring up and earning anything. I'm talking about being grateful. It's called faithfulness. You know what the word faithfulness really means? At the end of the day, faithfulness means follow through. That's really what faithfulness means. I have good intentions. I don't always follow through on them. The intentions are well, but it isn't considered faithfulness. A substitute for the word faithfulness is the word follow through. Well, here it says, verse 15, if anyone's work, if their life work. Now, does it mean just quote their ministry? Does it just mean their ministry? Some people think with their ministry, I don't even have a ministry. So there's no work to get burned up because I don't have a ministry. No, no. Your work is your life work. It's how you spent your time and your money, your whole life after the kingdom, after you met the Lord. That's what your work is. It's after you've met the Lord. It's the way you have spent your time and your money. And there's ways to spend your time and the money that aren't all, quote, you know, preaching or praying. There's other ways to spend time and money in the grace of God that are valid. And they're a part of the natural cycles of life. There's recreation. There's entertainment. There is rest. Those are parts of the cycles of life in the grace of God. But I don't want to get you off the hook. You know, the whole body of Christ is ready to get you off the hook. You really need somebody that will faithfully get you on the hook. Because when you stand before the Lord, he's not going to listen to the preachers of our nation when he talks to you. He's going to listen to himself. And so actually you, I would do you better if I went a little more intense. I don't know, you know, exactly. I want to do it accurate. I don't want to do it, be more intense than the Word of God is. But the whole spirit of our culture is to get us off the hook as though Jesus is going to be manipulated because there's a momentum in the western church that doesn't like this. And somehow it's going to go away if we don't like it. Beloved, the most, and I say this in a holy, in a sacred way, the most outrageous thing happened. It is beyond, it's beyond an exaggeration. God, God, God of Genesis 1 became human. This is outrageous. God, second person in the church, he steps into the human race and the human experience. And when he became human, he will be human forever. It's not like Jesus returned back to the Father and the Father said, boy, that was a tough run, wasn't it? Oh my, let's change in. Let's cash in your humanity. Take the garments off and just be only deity. No, beloved, when he fully God became fully man, he will be fully man forever and a billion times a billion years. He will be, yes, fully God, but he will be fully a human. And for us, being human is cool. But when you're God, being human is a step down, a serious step down. I like being human. Because I consider where I came from, being human is cool. But where he came from, being human is a serious step down. That's not the end of it. This man, this God who became human was crushed by the wrath of God. God, the Father turned his wrath and smashed him and crushed him. Satan did not kill Jesus. God, the Father crushed him so that you and I, our debt could be paid. That's why when somebody says, you can get to heaven if, you know, anyway, all these, you know, the new kind of thing going on. It's this religious synchronism where all these Hindu, Buddha, Christianity, you know, Judaism, Islam, they're all kind of come together and they're going to end up with one big world religion and we all kind of get there together. There's a lot of Christians buying into that. Well, if we really help the AIDS victims and we do a lot of human, humanitarian aid and we really love people, somehow God will work it out. Absolutely, that is not true. That is a lie from hell. There is God became human. Beloved, this is outrageous. This is beyond comprehension. He became human forever and he got crushed by the wrath of God. And it was not for no effect. It's because it had to happen. It absolutely had to happen for you and I to be saved. You know, I hang around with some friends in Israel and some of them are, there's this thing going on over in Israel that, well, if they're real committed to the Old Testament, they fear God in their own way and they don't, they're offended by Jesus because church history is so mad. I go throw all of that away. There is no salvation. Jews in Israel, apart from being born again and calling on the name of Yeshua, the name of Jesus. There is no other way in because times were hard for the Jews for the last thousands of years. And it's not because God is is unkind. It's because it cost God so much. And God did not, God did not pay even one percent more than he had to to get the job done. It was required. It was necessary to get you and I forgiven. And in the light of that, the fact that we will stand before God and say, you know, I kind of like was mostly a Westerner and secondarily a Christian. We'll look in the eyes of Jesus and we will see divinity and humanity. And the mystery will strike us. Then we'll see his nail pierced hands and we'll see his longing. We'll say, I hate that I live that way. What was I doing? Why didn't somebody help wake me up? Of course, we all have the word of God. We can't blame it on anybody else. Let's look at this again. Verse 15, if anyone's work is burned up, if their life work is burned up, again, I'm gonna talk about your ministry. Your ministry is a part of it. It's a subunit. I've talked about the way you spent time and money. The way you spend time and money is the whole of your life. Actually, it really is. If you figure out, if you could, if you could accurately look at your calendar, what, you know, a daytime, or if you had one and you recorded it faithfully and you could look at your checkbook five years from now, it was perfectly accurate. I guarantee you, it shocks us. You know, we look like, ah, that can't be true. You know, the end of the year, you know, the tax season. This can't be true. I didn't spend that much money doing this and that. Anyway, what we do with time and money is really the whole of where our life is going. And everything else really falls into that. It says that the man's or the woman's life work is burned up. He will suffer. He will suffer. He will regret. He will have the pain of regret stinging his spirit. And it will be loss. It won't be where Jesus waves his hand and there's a full recovery of those 10 or 20 years. It is lost forever. There's really, it's lost. The word, the biblical word is the word loss. Now, again, somebody can get way out there on the edges and recover and their salvation is intact. And if people mean everything is restored, meaning their salvation is solid when they meet the Lord. Yes, they can surely recover, but they can't make up for those years. And it says this man, though he will be saved, he'll be saved as though through fire, which means the fire, the fire revealed, the fire revealed the temporary dimension of how he invested his life only in temporal things. He will be saved, although there will be a reality that he invested his life mostly in temporal things on the earth. 1 Corinthians, I mean, 2 Corinthians 4, there's a famous verse, most of you know, it's 2 Corinthians 4, 18. Paul the apostle said, he said, we don't want to look at things that are seen because they're temporal. We want to invest our life in the things that are unseen, the things you can't measure. 2 Corinthians 4, 18, we invest our life in the things we can't see, which means we can't measure. But it's not just that we invest our life in unseen angels or the unseen kingdom that's far away. There's an element of truth to that. But the point of it, it's unseen. I can't measure my life right now. It's unseen. What I do with my hands, I can measure. I can measure how much money I've have generated or how much something I've built. A person can look at their business. They can look at outward things. But the things that are unseen, humility, meekness, the heart of prayer, the abandonment to God, you can't get a handful of that and measure it. It's unseen. You can't, you're always kind of wondering, like, I really wonder where I'm at in all this. And Paul said, throw yourself into the unmeasurable, unseen realm. And it's eternal, it lasts forever. It's not just that the city of God is unseen and far away. That's true too. That, that's what that verse means a little bit. But the way that we spend our life can't be seen. The way that some of you are living in the most positive sense, the other guy, the guy next to you can't really see it and measure it and look at you and go, wow, and pat you on the back because it's your secret history in God. It can't be, it can't be measured. You can't get a handful of it, but it's eternal. It lasts forever. But here's what happens. When the fire comes, when it fire comes, it reveals that their life was invested mostly in that which was temporary. And the guy, and Paul said, the guy is saved, but he's saved with the reality, the awareness, the awareness that most of his life has been exposed as invested in temporal vanity. Now I want to be saved, but I don't want to be saved as though by fire. I don't want to be saved, but my life has been exposed mostly as being thrown into the temporary realm that doesn't last. I don't want that part. That's the part I don't want. Let's look at verse 13 or verse 12. Gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and stubble. Wood, hay, and straw. Now wood, hay, and straw are not sinful things. Wood, hay, and straw are not simple. Those things are, that's another category. Wood, hay, and straw are legitimate things in building, they're just not stable. A lot of people invest their life in wood, hay, and straw. And when they stand before God, it's opposite of humility. I don't mean it's blatant sin, but it's just a quality of life that isn't the Sermon on the Mount. It's not the things that God is going to esteem. When we stand before the Lord, He'll look at our servanthood. He'll look at our perseverance of our love and our steadiness towards Him. And that will be gold. That will shock us. That why I tell you that we'll be shocked. God will look at parts of our life that those around us looked at and wrote off as an utter waste of time. And God will give you gold and silver for you're going to say, are you kidding? I was kind of mumbling and fumbling along in that season. I couldn't hardly figure anything out. I was a little bit confused and seemed like I was a little bit in a fog. And I was trying to sort out my life, but I was serving people. And I was, you know, I was giving my heart to God. I was giving myself to Him. And some of you are going to be shocked when the Lord hands you a bag of gold for that season of your life. You're going, you're kidding. And some of the things that we're so impressed by that people were patting us on the back. The Lord says, you know, that wasn't wrong in itself. It's just not going to last. It didn't, it's not, I'm not, it doesn't, I don't esteem it as valuable in the eternal kingdom. But Lord, that was my biggest crowd. That was the biggest applaud. That was the book I got the most applause for. And the Lord says, well, you know, I appreciate it. The fact they appreciated it, but it doesn't make it in the library in heaven. It's gone. You're kidding. Well, I thought when everybody was so happy about it, it must've been the big one. He says, well, they were happy about it. And they pat you on the back and they gave you a paycheck. But it's straw and it's wood, it's hay. It means nothing to me right now. I don't know exactly, you know, there's so many applications for this. But wood, hay and straw is not sin. It's futility. It's not sin, it's futility. Because sin is overt and it's specifically disobeying the Holy Spirit. In an overt way, it's got an element of rebellion to it. This is just living unconcerned with obeying God in a real specific way. I don't want my life with lack of quality. I want my life, I don't want my life common. I want my life excellent. I don't mean excellent in the sight of men. I want it excellent in the sight of God. What God calls excellent is men just kind of think it's foolishness, what God calls excellent. Beloved, you can live with an excellent life and never, ever make any fanfare in the eyes of men. You may never be noticed by anybody, but your life can have an excellence in it before God. Verse 13, it says, each man's work will become clear. It will not only become clear to the people around you, it will become clear to you. Our life is not clear to us right now. I look at my life now and I say, Lord, there's so many in the church even, there's so many voices of how to measure what's right. Beloved, there's so many voices coming of what real ministry is and what's real and what's true and what's right, what's wrong. There's so many voices that most of us are not clear about what our life is about. We can't kind of, you know, we kind of live from one season to the next of whoever we respect. If they, if they validate us, we feel good about it. If they get mad at us, then we feel bad about it. You know what that is like? That's like living tossed to and fro like a, like a ship out at sea. Just if the, the most recent cool group of people are excited, then you're at peace, even if God's not excited. And if the most recent cool group of people in your life are mad, you're depressed, even if God is excited about what you're doing. My point is to so many of us, our life is not clear to us because there's only one standard of clarity. It's called the Word of God. And nobody can give it to you. You feed on it in your, I mean, people, I can like give you some thoughts like now and inspire you to go read it yourself. But nobody can tell you if what you're doing is right or wrong. At the end of the day, talking about in your ministry and your approach to God, the Word of God is the only judge. When I stand before God, God, none of you get to vote about my life when I stand before God. And I don't get to vote on your life when you stand before God. I don't stand before God and say, Lord, I hop grew so big and we had the biggest conference since we filled up Arrowhead Stadium. Lord says, that doesn't mean anything to me. I want to talk about you and how you responded to me in the secret place of your heart. That's where the gold comes or not. The crowds, that's not the point. I'm convinced we'll be at Arrowhead Stadium in the days ahead, just down the road with the glory of God before the Lord returns. But that's not what the Lord is going to talk to me or you about when that happens. He's going to talk to you and me about what we did on Monday afternoon and Saturday night and Tuesdays and Thursdays, not for a year at IHOP, for the whole of your life. It's serious. Our life will become clear because our life is not so clear right now. Our life is more clear if the word of God is giving us instruction. Paul was pretty clear about his life. He made some pretty bold statements towards the end that he was sure. He was real sure that his evaluation was right. I mean, I appreciate that boldness. I look at that these 2 Timothy 4 and Paul talks about his life. I go, wow. Would to God I could say those things facing death. I mean, he was saying I'm under the anointing of the spirit. He really knew that he knew that he got the highest marks. Wow. What a statement. But I can assure you this, your life will become clear one day. And nobody will change what Jesus says when he looks at your life. For that day, we'll declare it. The applause of men is not going to declare the success of your life. They could all open all the biggest doors for a year. That is not what is going to declare the truth of your life. But beloved, the other way works too. They might all write you off. And that doesn't declare the quality of your life either. Only one man declares. And it's on that day, the truth of your life. And it will be revealed by fire. Because what fire is, it's impartial. When fire touches hay, it burns it. When fire touches gold, it purifies it. The fire is impartial. The fire knows, does not know a double standard. The judgment seat of Christ is the great equalizer. You and Billy Graham and Paul the Apostle and all the famous and unfamous Christians, that's the great equalizer. Everybody is standing on equal bases on that day. So the fire is the great, I mean, the fire is the revealer. The temporary is revealed as temporary. It has to be. God's fire can't lie. You get up, say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, stop the fire. Stop the fire. Wait, let me tell you. I had a tough time when I was on the earth. And, and, and they didn't stop, stop the fire. Wait, wait. They didn't really appreciate me. So I kind of was a little bit more energetic about promoting myself. And just don't listen. Listen, the fire is coming. Fire won't listen to any of that. We can offer our stories and our arguments. I remember I was kneeling there and I looked at him. I said, no. The voice of the spirit came and said, it is impossible to manipulate this man. I went, oh, there's no other. He has this holy stubbornness about him. He has this clarity of truth that can't bend. And the fire, when the fire comes, the temporary becomes evident. But the eternal becomes evident too. But I tell you now, and you know it anyway, the eternal is the things of humility and obedience and pouring ourselves out in the presence of God and in servanthood to one another and taking the last place and locking into Him and finding our approval from Him. The fire will show that forth as eternal. Each man's, the fire will test. Look at the word test, each man's work, what sort it is. Every one of us will be tested by that fire. Now, look at, let's go to 2 Corinthians. Just one book over. 2 Corinthians chapter five. Just go a few more minutes here. Verse 10, verse nine, 2 Corinthians five, verse nine. Now, all of 2 Corinthians is about eternity. The first part of it is about receiving our resurrected body. Verses one to eight is about receiving our resurrected body. Verse nine, Paul says, therefore, we make it our aim whether we're present or absent. Meaning whether we're here present in our body or absent from our bodies, we saw that and with the Lord. He goes, in other words, whether we're alive or whether we're dead. He goes, our aim is to be pleasing to the Lord. And the therefore, what is it therefore? Paul is referring to the fact of the resurrection. He goes, because there's a real resurrection, therefore, we make it our ambition. We make it our goal, our clear focus to be pleasing to God. We're not trying to fake God out. We make it our clear goal because that's the only thing that's going to last. J. Hudson Taylor, the famous missionary to China in about 1850s, the medical doctor from England. He was my first hero when I was 17, 18. I read three of his biographies in my high school days. And I want to be J. Hudson Taylor. You know, when you're young and you read a biography, you want to be that guy. And I read another biography. I want to be the other guy, you know. But I want to be J. Hudson. I read all those three of them. And his famous quote was, only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. We'll say that again. I wrote that down. Of course, anybody who's ever studied J. Hudson Taylor's life. Again, he was an English doctor who went to China and led thousands of people to the Lord. And he lived the most abandoned life of sacrifice, serving the peasants in China. He was the first missionary to take on their clothing, their lifestyle, and lived in the throngs of poverty with them. And led thousands to the Lord. It was a great missionary move. And because he had this great medical career ahead of him in England. And they said, you lost it. You wasted it. And so he ended up with this life model. He goes, only one life. I love that. One life will soon be passed. He had this idea it would be gone in a moment. He goes, only what's done for Christ will last. That's what he told his friends back in England. Who beckoned him to come back home and, you know, seize the opportunity for the great medical career that he had back home. He goes, what? In a moment, I'm going to be dead. And only what I invested in that man and what was in his heart. That's the only thing that's going to last. The only thing. So therefore, because we're really going to die. Verse 9. Therefore, because there really is a resurrection. Therefore, because it really matters. Therefore, let's make it our ambition to be pleasing to him. Not to be pleasing to the church world or to the ministry opportunities. Let's be pleasing to one man. And what impresses him is so exciting because what impresses him doesn't cost time. Or I mean, doesn't you don't you? You don't have to be famous. You don't have great abilities. What impresses him? You can read it in Matthew chapter 5, 6 and 7. And you can be the most uneducated person in the world with no friends. No special gifting, no money. And you could still do Matthew 5, 6 and 7. And that impresses him. I love that. Everybody can do this. Verse 10. For we must underline the word must. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. That each one may receive the things done in the body. Now here's going to get heavy here in a moment. According to what he has done, whether good or whether bad. What? I thought, wait, can't be bad. Because if it's bad, that means I'm not forgiven. And I believe there's two applications to the word bad. Here's the two applications. This is in the Bible. You can't get rid of it. You can get your little razor blade out, but it's not going to do any good. Because when you open that page, you'll have a hole in it. You'll know something's wrong. You cannot get rid of that word. By the way, the same word, Solomon used it in Ecclesiastes chapter 12, verse 14. Ecclesiastes 12. I'll just give you the verse if you want to write it down. Verse 4. It's the last verse of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes says, know this. I mean, Solomon said, know this. You can do the this, that or the other. All these things. You have the whatever you do, know this. At the end of the at the end, God fear God because he's going to bring every act into judgment, good and bad. So he has this, you know, this, this dual good and bad, this bad, this word bad. When I first read that, because, you know, again, after I had that experience, I was 23, I went, I studied this stuff so in depth, I bought every book I could buy on it, which is almost none. There's very few books on the judgment seat of Christ, but I found more over the years. And I read, you know, maybe I got about that many of them, you know, about maybe 20 or 30 of them over the years. And maybe half of them are people that had experiences. And I always wanted to read somebody's experience to see what they saw. And there are lots of different things are emphasized, but almost nobody comments on the word bad. Beloved, that's not good that we don't mention the word bad. I mean, honestly, because it lulls us to sleep. Now, here's what I don't, I'm not saying I have the fullness of the meaning, but I believe I have two biblical clear insights on the word bad. Number one, if you do a certain act and you repent of it, it can get erased from the record. And we all know that. Here's the problem, though. Do you know how many sins and how much speech and how much bitterness and how much money and time we spend that we don't call wrong and we never repent of it? And the Lord says, if you've got the boldness not to repent of it, you will answer for it on that day. If you have the clarity to repent of it, it will never, ever be mentioned to you again. If you don't have the boldness, the clarity to repent of it. Matter of fact, because the nature of our heart is to justify ourselves all the time. That wasn't wrong. I don't that lady was off and it was my leadership responsibility to make it clear she's off. And actually, sometimes it really is that that actually is a biblical concept. But the Lord says, OK, so you'll take this one to the judgment seat, right? You're not going to call it slander. Nope, not pretty sure is right. Lord says, OK, good. We'll talk about it. And you know what? Sometimes it's really, really biblical to expose wrong things and wrong people. It really is. So as a leader, this verse just it's called the fear of God. It just troubles me. That's good to be troubled by the Bible. I look at I go now. Is that something I got to repent of? Because if you don't repent of it now, you don't lose your salvation. It's not like if but it goes into the it goes into the mix of when God evaluates your life. So we get into a way that we spend time, money, energy, especially our words. And we said, no, we get defensive. We self justified. No, I'm holding the line. That was good. No, it's not. That's good. Take it with you. You and I will talk about that. You know what? I think that was a wrong use of my words, my time, my energy, my passions. It was wrong this and wrong that versus now be clear. You're almost there. No, no, it was wrong. I'm going to officially repent of it. Delete. Now make it part of your testimony of your heart. Meaning when you do it again. When you do it again, you have to say in your conscience, if you really repented, I am now doing that which I repented of yesterday or a week ago or a month ago. Yes, I am doing it, Lord. I've done that plenty of times. I'm doing it again. But somehow it feels more righteous this time. Feels doesn't feel I don't feel quenched yet in my spirit. It's kind of got to get out there a little bit further out on the ice. You know, just I feel pretty good. You know, to get back to shore and go like, you know, it was probably sinful a month ago, but I'm not sure. Maybe I could find grace in it this way. Or it says, you want to take that one with you? I don't know. Maybe I better repent of that one too. But here's the point. I mean, there's a hundred applications. If you have the boldness to justify it, then you carry it with you. And there's many things we do we want to carry with us. But if we call it sin and repent of it, the Lord wipes it from the slate. But many, many believers say and do and invest their life in many things that they will not be happy about when they come back up again. Again, they won't lead to their loss of salvation, but it will go into the mix of how their life is evaluated. Because when we confess it, when we confess it and get cleansed of it, it marks our spirit. Even though we confess that we could do it again, you confess it the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth time. And if you're sinning with somebody, you look that person in the eye and you say, you know what I said just now? It was sinful what I said. You know, I was kind of complaining and I said, well, I'm just kind of complaining. It was sinful. You confess your sins to the people, specifically to the people you're sinning with. You know, when we went out to that situation and we drank that and we did a little bit too much and we said, hey, grace of God, I want to say that was sinful. The guy looks at you and goes, man, you're being awful religious. Say, well, you can say anything you want. I am not carrying this to the judgment seat. So beloved, the scripture talks about confessing our sin to one another. It's not just confessing your sin to God or to other people out there. It's confessing to the person you sinned with. The person you went to the party with, the person you had this slanderous dialogue with, the person you were proud in front of, the person that you sinned sexually with. And you look at him and say, that was sinful. That was not OK. And you look him in the eye and I tell you, it will mark your heart to call it sin to the person you did the event with. I'm not just talking about sexual. Most of more than anything is in our words and our time and our energy. So you know what? How we spent our life in these last years that I just know I don't like that. I want to give myself to God. I am calling that sinful. And I tell you, you confess your sins to the people, to the guy, the guy you got proud with. You go tell him you were proud. I don't mean you stand on the congregation. I was proud of it. Oh, you're so humble. No, you go to the guy, look him in the eye and say that conversation we had yesterday. I was proud. It's way heavy duty or heavy duty or do you follow that? Then just saying it to God or just making even a blanket statement. So it's good or bad. Says what we have done, whether good or bad. And so it gets into the mix. Another way that it's bad is that it's the feeling of regret. It's the wasted years. So that's a second application to how it can be something that we've done is bad. It's waste. It's wasted years. I'm going to take you to two more verses. First, no, three more verses. Second, John, they're all real quick ones. So I want you to see it with your eyes and we'll end with these. Second, John, right before the book of Revelation. There's first, second and third, John, second, John. Verse eight, second, John, eight. I've looked at this many times. Don't let somebody talk you out of this. Beloved, your goal isn't to feel comfortable. Your goal is to be right in the presence of God. Some people, their goal in life as a believer is just to feel good about today. I don't want to feel like I'm doing wrong. Beloved, it's not going to go away. Jesus is like really an intense person. It's not going to go away because you feel bad about it. Repent of it. Be serious about it. Don't cover it up. Don't candy coat it in your thinking. Be honest with God. Do business with God for real. Verse eight, the apostle John says, look to yourself. That we, the new King James says, we, and I wish he didn't have the word. We down in the, uh, in the margin, it says you and the new American standards says you, the NIV says you, the revised version says you almost every translation says you. And, uh, uh, new King James says, uh, we, and I believe it should be the word you almost every translation says it because it changes it. Look to yourself that you do not lose the things that you worked for. The word, the word that you would go, would go there again. And all these other translations. Let me say it again. Look to yourself, take stock, take inventory that you do not lose the things you worked for, but that you would receive a full reward. Beloved, you can be diligent in the Lord for 10 years. And then you can live another way. The next 10 years in the memory of your diligence in days past, and you can lose what you have gained in God and not end up with a full reward. It's real. This is real. I know more and more people, the older I get, you know, that just, that's how it works. When you get older, this, the numbers increase of people that were on fire for God in their twenties and thirties, but they're stalled out in their forties and fifties and they're losing the full reward of what God was of what they would have had previous years before. And their lives, this get corroded and dull beloved. I want to say this again, look to yourself because you can lose the things you have labored for in earlier days. And you can, it's very possible you will not receive a full reward unless you look to yourself. I don't want to be carried along by just kind of the, the sentiment of the body of Christ of the day of the kind of the positive outlook. I want this to, you and I are going to stand before God one day. We're right here. Okay. I told you I had three verses. Here's the second one. Take one book back. First John 2 28. I quoted earlier, but since it's so close, I'm going to just let you look at it. First John 2 28 verse 28 says now, then little children abide in him so that when he appears, we have confidence and that we don't, we're not ashamed. And one translation says we don't shrink back at his coming. Look at this. This is a stunning statement. Little children abide in him. In other words, abide in him means living in like fully, fully given to him. Why? So that when he appears second coming, you have confidence when he appears and you're not drawing back in shame when he appears. What an interesting statement. And this, this is, uh, as the second copy, but it also means the day of a person's death. How many believers on the day of their death, that final moments are going, oh, I wish I would've lived the last 10 years different. Oh, no. And I tell you, it's lost forever. That wasted 10 years and people have shame. And that word shame doesn't mean condemnation. It means they have regret about how they spent the last 10 years. It doesn't mean in the presence of God, they don't have confidence that they're saved. It means that when the day where they answer, they meet face to face, they are, they don't, they're, they, they have a negative feeling about answering for the way they spent their time and their years and their money and just their whole thing. I don't want to be ashamed. Again, it's not an issue of not being sure of my salvation because some folks, that's all they can think about is either shame has to do with salvation or not salvation. And there, there's no condemnation or salvation. We're sure we're saved, but that an entirely different matter is how we're evaluated in that day. And I'm going to look at him in the eye and I want to say, Lord, with the fullness of my strength and my weakness and brokenness, I gave myself to you is not to please this group or that group, or to get a reputation because I knew one day you and me would talk and beloved. That's the logic that you and I both want. Okay. The last verse, Matthew chapter 19, just one verse. We'll end with this. Matthew 19. Now I am very aware tonight. And I'm not carrying on with this, but because I sometimes preachers carry on, but, uh, I'm very aware that I was specifically redirected tonight because of people's lives, different people in this room. I don't know specifically who, but there's a handful of people in this room. This word is, is apt. You are at the crossroads. You may even be 22 years old. You're still at the crossroads because what you're going to do the next two, three, four months, it's going to determine what you're going to do. Your thirties and forties and fifties, you were at the crossroads. Some of you may be 1670, but I, I I've done, I've preached enough years to know. I was clearly redirected for the sake of mercy for some people in this room tonight. And I don't know who you are and it's none of my business. I'm not even curious about that, but I'm telling you, but here's what, here's why I'm saying it to you. I'm saying it to you because if this strikes you, I want you to take this serious. Because here, here's, here's the, here's the compound interest problem. You hear this, your heart gets stung. You forget it in a day or two. When you meet the Lord one day, he will say, I even gave a witness to you when you were 22 years old in that auditorium. I spoke face to face with you through that guy. And you said yes, but you threw it off. You cast it off. Even, even the witness that you're receiving tonight will be a part of the equation. Part of the accountability before the Lord. Beloved, I'm not talking about how much God loves you. That's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about how much he cares about you. That's, that's an entirely powerful, different subject. I'm talking about how we answer to him on that day. Anyway, here's what, here's verse 23. Jesus said to his disciples, assuredly, I say to you, it's hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom. And again, I say it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Verse 25, the disciples said, who can be saved? Verse 26, I'm looking for the verse. And Jesus looked at him and said, with man, all things are impossible. But with God, all things are possible. Verse 27, Peter said to him, see, we have left all and followed you. Therefore, what shall we have? No, I didn't find it. Hang on. Ah, it's verse 20. I love that passage, but it's verse 20. I started to, the rich young ruler came to him. Verse 20 and said to Jesus, all these things I've kept from my youth. In other words, I've obeyed you. Here's the, here's the question of the hour. What do I still lack? And then Jesus answered. But here's my point. This is a great question for you to ask a thousand, thousand times in your earthly life. It's a question I ask the Lord. I just use the phrase, what do I lack? In other words, not to be saved. What do I lack? What is lacking in my life that you and me are going to talk about one day on the last day? Tell me now, Lord, don't shock me then. And the Lord speaks to me and he says, the way that you speak. There's too much fleshliness in some of the things that you say. Some of the things you do here and there. I want you to deal with them. If you deal with them now, we won't talk about them then. But beloved, I encourage you to ask the question of verse 20. What do I lack, Lord? Not, not talking about salvation, not how to get saved, because salvation is a free gift. What do I lack? I want to stand perfect before you. And the word perfect means mature. I want to stand before you whenever that day comes. I want that day to be joyful. Like Paul the apostle had the assurance that he was complete, meaning he was, uh. It was clear to him that he did that, which was complete. I said that last verse here is the real last one. I'll just quote it to you. Colossians 4 verse 12. Paphroditus, just write that down. Colossians 4 verse 12. Paul said that Paphroditus labors earnestly for you in prayer, labors earnestly. What? That you would be perfect and complete in your obedience in the will of God. He's praying, oh God, I know that one day they're going to meet you and I know that they have a tendency to get off. Oh, I ask you to help them. If Colossians 4 verse 12. He prays fervently. There you go. Good PowerPoint. You would stand perfectly complete. Now that doesn't mean just the knowledge of the will of God, like you're supposed to go right verse left. There's elements of, you know, what am I supposed to do? But that's not what that verse means. Mostly it's not for direction. It is for completion of the will of God. He says he's praying. He's laboring that when it was that when he said, Lord, what is it that I lack? He's this, this man's praying and he's, uh, this guy's laboring to say for the grace of God so that when you and I stand before God, if somebody was praying this for us, that we would not lack anything. We would be perfect and complete in our obedience. That's the issue here. And that's what Paul prayed in second Thessalonians chapter one, verse 10 and 11. It's that famous verse that Paul prayed. They would be worthy. The Thessalonians, they'd be worthy of the things. In other words, they would be complete. They would fill up their obedience in the will of God.