AM I OBEYING MY “DIVINE” JOB DESCRIPTION?
1 Cor. 3:11-15; 2 Cor. 5:10; Romans 14:12
“EVERY MAN’S LIFE A PLAN OF GOD.” Such was the title of a famous sermon preached some 250 years ago. I call this plan God’s Job Description for every single saved person on earth, and it is a Divine Plan for which every single believer will one day give an account on the way he has fulfilled it in his stay on earth. Let us, therefore, seek to understand all the biblical truths about this time of accounting and to ask ourselves, “Am I Obeying My Personal Job Description?”
1. When Did God Assign to Us A Job Description? In eternity past before the world was created. “We are His workmanship (poiema – Masterpiece) created in Christ Jesus for good works (our job description) which God pre-ordained that we should walk (obey) in them.” (Ephesians 2:10). Paul further states in 2 Tim. 1:9 that God’s purpose for every saved person was given us in Christ “before the world began.” So even before we were saved or born again, God’s laid out what our work on this earth should be.
2. How Can I Know My Job Description? Revisit Romans 12:1-2
a. What is the relation of the job description and your spiritual gifts?
3. When And Where Will You And I Give An Accounting? At the “Judgment Seat of Christ”, which will follow our Rapture to heaven. “For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in our bodies..” (2 Cor. 5:10 LB)
a. Please note the fact of “no judgment” for the believer and a “sure judgment for him. 2 Cor. 5:10 LB; John 5:24.
4. Who Will Be Our Judge? Why Jesus and not the Father? (John 5:22)
5. What Is The Purpose of Our Judgment? For evaluation, not salvation. Salvation is the gracious gift of God, given by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9), but rewards will be given for faithful services rendered after salvation (Ephesians 2:8-9; Rev. 22:12).
6. What Will Be The Bases for Our Evaluation?
a. The motives of our hearts
b. The qualities of our works
7. Where Are These Two Areas Described in The Bible? They are described in 1 Cor. 3:11-15, “11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have—Jesus Christ.12 Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials—gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. 13 But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value. 14 If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. 15 But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.”
Please note the two criteria’s in our evaluation:
a. The motives of our hearts- “what sort it is.” (1 Cor. 3:13) – for His glory or our glory.
b. The value of our works: “gold, silver, precious stones”, works done out of love for Jesus and others and for His glory. These works endure forever and will gain great reward for all eternity; but there will be works of “wood, hay and stubble,” done for our glory and half-heartedness which will be burned in the judgment, depriving one of rewards.
8. What Are Some Areas of Our Lives Which Jesus Will Evaluate? Remember nothing will be hidden but stand naked before Jesus (Heb. 4:13)
a. Our Ways (attitude and spirit) “Attitude, not aptitude, determines our altitude.” (Zig Ziglar). “If any person have not the spirit of Christ, he is not of His” (Romans 8:9b).
b. Our Worship
(1) In Spirit and Truth or
(2) In the flesh – Phil. 3:3
c. Our Words – “Out of the abundance of our heart the mouth speaks.” “Man will give an account of every idle word in the judgment” (Matthew 12:36; Prov. 10:19; Ephesians 4:29).
d. Our Witnessing – Ezek. 33:7-9- Are our hands clean or do we have blood on our hands?
e. Our Whims – (thoughts) 1 Cor. 4:5, “…Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness.”
f. Our Wealth –
(1) Will give us a glorious welcome into heaven (Luke 16:9) or
(2) “Eat your flesh like fire in the judgment” (James 5:3).
g. “But up every opportunity” to serve God and man (Ephesians 5:14). We will be evaluated on what we should have done as well as what we have done. The greatest sins of believers are sins of omission more than commission. “I don’t drink and I don’t chew, and I don’t run around with girls who do.”
h. We are investing our lives in those things which are spiritual, valuable, and lasting, or things which are fleshly, eternally worthless, and non-existent.
9. What Are Some Examples of Works of Gold, Silver And Precious Stones? Keeping the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. Internalize the Word of God, Worship for the glory of His name, His Kingdom, loving one’s wife as Christ loved the Church, understand your wife in order to meet her need, praying with your wife, doing “both and, not either or”, sacrificing time and money, obeying the 10 “I’s” , presenting bodies a “living sacrifice.” (Romans 12:1), loving God through a transformed mind (Romans 12:2), discipling your body, being smart, not lazy (Amos 6:1; Romans 12:11, “Never be lazy in your work but serve the Lord enthusiastically,” “Rejoicing in times of persecution” (Matthew 5:11-12), lending to God by giving to the poor, (Prov. 17:17), being spirit filled.
10. What Are Some Examples of Works of “Wood, Hay, And Stubble?” Just playing church, singing to impress others, not Jesus, preaching-teaching to exalt self, or preaching and teaching in your flesh rather in the “demonstration of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:3ff), talking but not walking (1 Cor. 4:20), daily devotions as a routine but not unto Jesus, memorizing Scriptures to brag about, earning Doctor’s degree for political purposes, giving money grudgingly, CEO Christian, to please your grandmother but hating church, yo-yo religion, absenteeism, inconsistency, lukewarm, no time to pray, internalize the Bible, attend church, Morbus Sabbaticus, sleeping in, tipping God, disobeying the Great Commandment and Great Commission, ignoring the Beatitudes.
11. How Much Time Do You Have To Fulfill Your Job Description?
12. Will We Be Held Responsible for “Finishing The Race Set Before Me?” Who in the Bible said his foremost desire was “to finish the work God had given him? (Acts 20:24).
a. Did this man finish his job description?
13. Is it possible to lose our reward? (1 Cor. 3:11-15). If you had to give an account today, would you lose or gain rewards?
14. Be brutally honest: Based on the teaching of the Bible and your present life style, do you think you will receive rewards? Why? If not, Why?
15. At your present pace, do you think you will “finish the race set before you?” (Heb. 12:2).
16. According to Hebrews 12:2, what must you and I do to “finish the race?”
17. Can one ever retire if he would finish the race?
18. Five specific crowns are mentioned in the Bible which will be bestowed upon believers:
a. 2 Timothy 4:8
b. 1 Thess. 2:19
c. 1 Cor. 9:26
d. Rev. 2:10
e. 1 Peter 5:3
Can you identify one you will receive?
19. Why is it so very important that we have some crowns? See Rev. 4:10.
20. Why should we not gloat over our rewards? My life verse answers this question. Remember it?
21. If you are not fulfilling your job description right now, what should you do? What will you do?
22. Will this lesson today encourage you to be a faithful attendee of MMM, realizing that the 10 “I’s” are a vital part of God’s Job Description for you and me?
23. Can you make up for the years “the locust have eaten?” (Joel 2:25).
PLEASE NOTE QUOTES FORM SPIRITITUAL GIANTS CONCERNING OUR ACCOUNTIBLITY FOR OUR JOB DESCRIPTION:
1. Daniel Webster: “The greatest thought that has ever entered my mind is that one day I will have to stand before a Holy God and give an account of my life.”
2. Leonard Ravenhill: “God is not going to measure your intellect or ministry. He is going to try your life with fire.”
3. D.M. Paton: “That a crown my be lost by a believer is as certain as any truth in the Holy Scriptures.”
4. Leonard Ravenhill: “For my part what I have done in the past troubles me no more… but what I have not done troubles me.”
5. Wesley: “I value all things only by the price they shall gain in eternity.”
6. Alexander Maclauren: “The Judgment Seat is meant for us professing Christians, real and imperfect Christians; and it tells us that there are degrees in that future blessedness proportioned to present faithfulness.”
7. A. J. Gordon: “I cannot think of a final divine reckoning which shall assign the same rank in glory, the same degree of joy to a lazy, indolent and unfruitful Christian as to an ardent, devoted, self-denying Christian.”
8. Martin Luther: “I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all. But whatever I placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.”
9. Donald G. Barnhouse: “All will be in heaven, but the differences will be eternal. We may be sure that the consequences of our character will survive the grave and that we shall face those consequences at the judgment seat of Christ.”
10. John Bunyan: “Consider, to provoke you to good works, that you shall have from God, when you come to glory, a reward for everything you do for Him on earth.”
11. C.S. Lovett: “Blood washed believers will be spotless in God’s sight, but not all will have the same service record. God is after obedience. Salvation gets us to heaven, but works determine what we do after we get there.”
12. Matthew Henry: “It ought to be the business of every day to prepare for our last day.”
13. John Tilloston: “He who prepares for this life but takes no care for eternity is wise for a moment but a fool forever.”
14. Jonathan Edwards: “I live everyday as if I would answer to Jesus every night concerning my life that day.”