Get ready for your eternal date

As always, the Lord is perfect in all things and we just prayed for a man who just lost his son, and we will continue to pray for Tom and his son. But, look, the Lord gave me a word this morning that is about the fragility of life and how long eternity is. And no one... who wants to lose a child? And, part of the shock of losing a child is the fact that, at least we think, no one should die of such a thing. And I imagine, I don't know Tom and I don't know his son, but I imagine a young man in the prime of his life with his whole life ahead of him, with plans and purposes. But now with a long eternity ahead.

And God invites us, let's think about that, about the promise that God has given us, and the preparation for that day. And I invite you to open the Book of Acts, chapter 24. Acts, chapter 24, we begin to read from verse 14, 15 and 16 of Acts, chapter 24. Here the Apostle Paul is appearing before… he is detained, he has He has been detained in Caesarea for two years or he will be detained, excuse me, in Caesarea for two years after appearing before this king – before this governor, Felix. The leaders of the Sanhedrin came from Jerusalem to bring certain charges against Paul, and look at his defense – by the way, as someone who was a lawyer, Paul was a tremendous lawyer, indeed! The man knew how to defend his rights in court, he knew his rights as a Roman citizen and as a Jew and a Pharisee, and he was able to deny all the charges against him and prove them false, except one.

He openly admitted this charge, it is the only charge he admitted before this court and before this governor and he says, "But this I confess to you that according to the Way..." They had accused him of being a Christian and a leader among Christians . "... that according to the Path that they call heresy, thus I serve the God of my fathers, believing all things that are written in the Law and the Prophets, having hope in God which they also cherish: that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both the just and the unjust. Then he adds, and for this reason I try to always have a conscience without offense before God and before men.”

Now, brothers, first, two things that we can see about him, this event, called by different names, the Tribunal of Christ, the Tribunal of the Great White Throne, I am not here to go into theological details but two things we can take away immediately from verse 15 and verse 16, about this event.

First of all, my brothers, I can tell you with certainty, this is an incontrovertible truth biblically. Throughout the word of God it is stated that sooner or later the human being will have a confrontation with his Creator. The Creation will know its Creator, we will pity before the throne of God, this is in the Old Testament, we see this in the Book of Genesis, we see this in the Psalms and in the Proverbs, in Ecclesiastes write about this, the Prophets wrote about this. In the New Testament he is more declamatory about this, it is scattered throughout the New Testament.

Jesus was perhaps the one who preached more than all about the fact that we will be before a king, that the Lord was going to evaluate, he in an instant spoke of a separation into sheep and goats, of separating some to his left, others to his right, he was very explicit in the four gospels about this. The Book of Acts, we already have here the Apostle Paul speaking about this. It appears in Romans, it appears in both books – both Letters to the Corinthians, it appears in the Book of Hebrews, it appears in the Book of Jude, it appears in both books of the Apostle Peter… Revelation.

My brothers, if you shuddered when you saw Avatar, you have seen nothing. The Apocalypse is this in three dimensions. It is about this nothing more, it's coming, it is inevitable. Good to know this in advance!

Well, number one, my brothers, we are going to see our king and we will be before him, now this is what we believe and what we teach, the just and the unjust will have two very different days. The unjust will perhaps meet this king for the first time and the only thing that will happen between them and this king is that they are inevitably forced to recognize him, this is my king. And this is the point, every knee will bow before him, every tongue will confess that he is king, that is it. And that was as far as his relationship with this king. We the righteous will have another type of day, and if you have taken your discipleship class, and if you have reached level three, you well remember that we will be evaluated. That's more of an evaluation and you know, nothing is evaluated that has no value.

The Lord who values so much, that He stops all the operation of heaven to stop with you and your life, and evaluate it. Interestingly, Pastor Omar, at one point in prayer, interceding for this town, he asked before the Lord Father, let us confess, we confess that we have offended you... and I say it automatically, with our thoughts, with our actions, with what we say, we have offended you with our words, with our deeds and with our thoughts and brothers, this is… if you want to know what will be evaluated, know that. Cover yourself in those things, and you're good. That's it.

It's all about our words, our thoughts and our deeds. What we do, what we say and what we think. That is what will be evaluated. Now, brethren, if this is so obvious and if the Lord is so emphatic about it, don't you think we would be constantly preparing for this?

And this is the sad thing, because the second thing we see, the second thing I can see from this writing and in our experience is that most of us don't think about this. Frankly, if we were honest, the Apostle Paul says in verse 16, “and for this…” Knowing that this day is coming. Knowing that that day will come, how do you end that phrase "and for this..."? "And for that…"

There will come a day when our thoughts, our deeds, our words will be evaluated by our creator, so what? And this is why the Apostle Paul says, imprisoned, look at this symbol of a man in chains before this governor. He was the only free and calm man in this entire court. And he says, "for this reason I try to always have a conscience without offense before God and before men."

Brothers, I hope I do not scandalize you, and we see that in our daily lives, and that is why the Lord in his mercy brings us this, I cover myself under this tent. If we were constantly thinking about this, would we give ourselves the freedoms that we sometimes give ourselves?

Would we dare to think what we sometimes think? Would we dare to say what we sometimes say? Would we dare? And, my brothers, that is perhaps the most negative angle in which this can be seen. The other angle is this, there is a very positive angle and it is this: I share with my discipleship class when we get to this point, it is even more so when we get to this point, when we get to a class about stewardship of time. Why do we care about measuring our time, distinguishing what is important from what is urgent? What an irony that in the discipleship materials, that's the class that follows the class on vision, Omar. And I tell these men, you know what? The distance between the man you are and the man God has called you to be is measured in time.

God has given us all a certain time – an example, a few years ago a brother, maybe a year ago, a brother taking the discipleship class, that time came… There is a section where we write our own funeral and what are they going to say? of us at our own funeral. What would we like to be said about us at our funeral? How many did that, remember that exercise? How many still have it? How many are getting close to having your people say that about you? I'm still in that project, thank God, and God has been merciful to us.

Because it is not what they would say about us, it is what we would like them to say about us and after they share what we would like them to say about us, then I dare to ask them this question, my brothers, now… between us, really, what would your neighbor say about you? Really, what would I say, that's... No, as you can imagine, we don't dwell on that point for a long time but they get scared at this, they immediately, it's obvious that to become that man you have to cross a journey measured by time.

The detail is that we do not know what time we have. And one of these brothers beginning this journey, almost halfway through the discipleship course, discovered that he had a very aggressive cancer, Terminal and with a few weeks left -a few weeks- before the final exam of discipleship, in December of that year, he passed away. But God gave him a few weeks and in that time that the Lord gave him, if you see this man working, what's more, that proclamation he made was his map, he immediately… in the hospital he married his wife, he wanted to do he did that a long time ago, he reconciled with his children... because when we reached that journey, look what... in our old age, it's not as if we were coming to an end, it's as if we were walking a long journey and At the moment we reached the coast, and it's not that you got to nothing, it's quite the opposite.

We have reached a great sea, a great ocean in front of us, we hear its waves and see its wind and there is no horizon and the Lord is calling us there, that is what awaits us in front of us, the true journey, everything The rest has been pure training.

Now, knowing this my brothers, what do we do? Good news, I have the exam questions already. We already have the questions for that exam… that exam that we will have before the Lord you already have the questions, there are only two more, see if this is easy: First, who were you? Or if I were to ask you today, who are you? Second, what did you do?

Who you were? What did you do?

Why did we start with who you were? You know, the people who don't think well about this, who don't prepare, who don't know hope in the face of this… the crazy things we do to leave a legacy, how many…? There is not a building in a university that does not have the name of someone, a donor. Because? Because that person desperately wanted to ensure that his name was honored and remembered and loved. Hospitals, monuments, streets, we want to leave a farm to our children and their grandchildren... You know, we worry so much about that, without thinking that if you care... if we care about God's work in us, participate in God's redemptive work in us... Look, brother, if there is a good tree it will bear good fruit. If there is a good tree, it will bear good fruit... If we care about the tree that we are, we don't have to worry about the fruit.

What happened to Samuel, that day I worry because I know that I am not perfect, I have not been perfect... I have not been the perfect mother, the perfect father, the perfect worker, the perfect boss, the perfect friend, the perfect son, no. I have been. Do you know what the word of God celebrates, what the word of God says about the path of the righteous?

Interestingly, the path of the just is not half a day, all day with a constancy. The word says that the path of the just... "but the path of the just is like the light of dawn that increases until the day is perfect." What honors God is that we are increasing, that we are participating in the redemptive and sanctifying work and perfection in our lives.

Brothers, this is true, the most radical changes in our lives sometimes begin with the simplest gestures. Last week I had the privilege of being in a prayer group. Wednesday night with a group of American brothers, not charismatic or anything but a group of a handful of men seeking the face of God; and one of these young men that met there, in one of the prayers, even in that sense it was one of the most sincere prayers that I ever heard.

And his prayer was something like this: God, I prefer the Red Sox to you, I prefer so many crazy things, I prefer, oh God, I confess I love the Red Sox more than you, I love – I love my gameboy more than you, also silly things… I prefer my electronic games but I want… Listen to this: I want to give you more than that, more than that. Start with that. Master, I wish to wish you. I want to want you, I'm hungry to be hungry for you. In pursuit of God. I hunger the hunger for you.

Tonight, in the presence of the Lord, as the preacher declared last Sunday while preaching the book of Ezekiel, ask the Lord for a heart of flesh. Start with that! Lord, I want your heart, I want your heart, I want to wish you, I want to learn to love like you, love your presence, I see that others do it, I see that others have grown it, and you have promised to give it to me. A prayer like this my brothers, melts the heart of God.

And a miraculous work begins and when we come to the question, what did you do? If you are armed, if the Lord is working in our hearts, and already the Lord is outlining, softening, pardon, our harshness. Maybe that little word you said every day, you only say once a week. Perhaps that little thing that offended the Lord, you don't even remember how you stopped doing it, but for God's sake it has grown so much in you and your search for Him has become so much the goal of your life.

You are not even realizing when or how you gave up this habit or this way of thinking, or this way of speaking but since the Christ in you has grown so much and you identify so much with his heart and He with yours, well… you start mimicking it, you start mimicking it, and when we got to the part, what did you do? You know, the sky is very different from the Earth, by the way, the sky is very different from the Earth and the things that we count as significant: “Oh, Master, I had a wing of the hospital named after me… Sir, I I had a wing of the hospital that they named…”

My brothers, litter or gold... we are going to be surprised. The word says that there will be surprises in heaven, and the first ones that will be surprised are us of what God celebrates and what he stops celebrating.

You know, a few years ago when I said goodbye to my last job and some of my colleagues were saying different things about how we interact, the things that meant the most to these people… I didn't even realize that when my mom died, Samuel gave me He left a card, I forgot all about that. I hadn't even thought about that, but you know what I thought of the hundreds of opportunities I had to do more things like that, take more moments like that, just… what did you do? It will be followed by the questions, who did you love? who did you serve?

Who did you love? Who did you serve?

You will be surprised, while you are growing in love with God and by pure obedience of the Holy Spirit, you love. Take your moment and love and the Lord will direct you how, when and who and to what end to love. Whatever the word says, the Lord celebrates the one who gives a glass of water to a visitor because He celebrates insignificant and utterly forgettable acts of love, invisible to all but Him.

Brothers, we are evaluated because you are worth a lot, hey. Nobody takes us more seriously, the Lord takes our thoughts seriously because he values you and values you, your life is what will be celebrated before his throne that day.

Let's stand up. Please. Enrique, I want more of you... Let's take a moment, my brothers, and I'm going to invite you, if you haven't done it, at least this week, to close your eyes for a moment and transport yourself, you are in front of the presence of the Lord… now I am going to tell you something, that will be precious. That's what we were made for, that's your home, that's home. We are finally home, God in all his light and majesty, Jesus Christ seated on his throne, ruling, finally, everything as it had to be... Total justice, straight, for all eternity, everything is as should be.

Jesus enthroned, ruling, you his son before his presence where you belong by invitation. Now in your presence, thank God we can do this here, we are going to take this opportunity and tell you, Lord, this is precisely what we want, we want to wish you above all. We want Lord, that at the end of the day, bring our books before you, balance them tonight. Balance our books.

Lord, we don't want an account with you, we don't want an account with our brothers. Father, we want Lord, to give us your heart, to instruct us in love and to be, Master, beacons, pointing out that precious day that awaits us, Master. We love you.

We keep praying for Tom, Father, that when he gets to the seashore, when his day comes, he'll see you and that he'll know what's ahead of him, and that it's good and worth waiting for in the name of of Jesus.