Skip to main content

Our Judge and Advocate

We will all stand before the Judge at the end. He will weigh our life and sentence us accordingly. He holds the standard of righteousness in his hands, and we must live up to it.

The thought of being judged is not a pleasant one for most people. Most don't want to have to stand before a judge in a court of law. We don't like handing control over our lives to someone else. It's unsettling and most of us would rather imagine that we are in control.

People really don't like the idea of being judged by Christ at the end of all things, testing the contents of their life. This is probably the most hated aspect of Christianity. People don't like that there is a moral standard and that they will be held accountable to it by God.

What we must never forget is that Christ is not only our Judge, but he is also our Advocate. He stands as our intercessor, bringing our prayers to the Father as our great High Priest. He works on our behalf, offering grace and mercy at every turn. He has sent us the Holy Spirit to edify, convict, and remind us of our calling.

Our Judge is the one who has died for our sake. He was beaten for our sins. He bore the burden of our transgressions. He fulfilled humanity and is restoring us to our intended place: as images of God. This is the one who will Judge us. Jesus, the one who loves us more than we can comprehend, is the Judge.

So let us take comfort in the fact that the one who will Judge us is the one who has redeemed us. He is the one who has pulled us from our sin and now stands before the Father on our behalf. He is our Advocate.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thankful

Today is Thanksgiving, the day that we are supposed to celebrate all the things we are thankful for. It is a time of family reunions, football, and turkey eating. I sincerely pray that each and every one of you has a good day today. I'll admit that being thankful has not been easy for me this year. As pretty much all of you know, my mother passed away December of last year. Though she had been in the hospital for months, we were not expecting it. In fact I was sure she would be finally able to come home within a matter of weeks. Instead she peacefully passed on into the arms of Jesus, whom she loved more dearly than anyone else. As you can imagine, the entire family was heart broken. After what can easily be described as the worst Christmas ever, I returned to home to Illinois. It was here that I finally broke down. I spent the next months doing everything except being thankful. I cursed God, wept, screamed, begged to have her back, and was generally not the nicest person to be...

We Need More Images

What is your favorite way to describe God? Is there a particular name of God in scripture that you are drawn to? What images and pictures come to mind when you think of God? These are questions I don't think we ask often enough. We all have an image of God in our heads that we work with. It may not be a literal picture, though it might be, but ideas and concepts we tend to associate with who God is. Some of those images and associations may come from the Bible, but some may not. These things are influenced by our upbringing, Bible reading habits, personalities, relationships, culture, and more. The way we picture God has a dramatic impact on the way we live our lives. For example, if the primary idea you have of God is "Healer," when you hear or read that you are made in God's image you will likely feel called to heal, be it physical ailments or spiritual wounds. But, if your primary image of God is "Judge," that changes things. You very likely might tend to...

Christ is Risen

This is the manuscript of a sermon I preached on Easter Sunday, 2021. All around the world people of every tribe, nation, and tongue gather to celebrate the pinnacle of history. Almost two thousand years ago to the day everything changed for the human race and indeed the cosmos. The word went out that death had been broken because Christ is Risen. Blessed by Providence we gather here today to celebrate the triumph of life over the powers of death and darkness. We gather to participate in the Resurrection Body of our Lord. We gather to behold the beauty of God displayed in the trampling of death by death on the cross, a victory of which we can be assured because Christ is Risen. Glory to the Father, glory to the Son, and glory to the Holy Spirit. May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts overflow with adoration and praise for our Almighty God. We can rest assured in the comfort of his grace because Christ is Risen. Dear brothers and sisters if Easter Sunday is about ...