We know we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ (1 Cor 3:13; Rom 14:10). Paul said saints will judge the world (1 Cor 6:2). This obviously includes judging situations in the church (1 Cor 5:12; 6:3-4). Also, ministers will be judged for their work (1 Cor 3;12ff). Obviously we will be judged by our King.
Our danger is we want to judges our service for God to make sure our service is successful and right. How often does the church hang on to statistics and trust in demographics? How many Christian parents are at the edge of their seats waiting to assess whether they have been good parents or not by how their kids turn out? How many preachers judge using preaching as a marker for their personal happiness? How many Christians think they are either good or bad Christians because of the good or bad they do? To judge ourselves is an attempt to save ourselves.
Paul said, "I will not judge myself. It is the Lord who judges me" (1 Cor 4:3-4). In context he is referring to his ministry as an apostle, but all Christians should take his theme to their lives. It is dangerous to judge our service for God because we can rely on it rather than Jesus Christ. Karl Barth had it right when dealing with this subject. He calls Christians to remember that Jesus Christ is the judge. He is our hope. He calls us to again remember God's grace and our limits. Let me quote him.
"Here again we have a limit which the Christian can neither overlook nor overleap. He cannot overlook it because not even he can conceal from himself the fact that even his most loyal concern and strenuous effort to maintain his existence as a witness of Jesus Christ is always a human work like that of his fellows, so that, although he is charged to fulfil it, it cannot be his business to decide whether this fulfilment is good or bad, valuable or worthless, meaningful or meaningless. Nor can he overleap it, because he could do so only by grasping at that which does not belong to him, seating himself on the throne of Lord, judging both himself and the servants of another (Rom. 14:4), and thus trying to anticipate what the Lord has reserved for Himself. Again, it is an intolerably bitter thing for him to be confronted by this limit. For what courage or confidence can he have in the execution of his service when, even though he has the best possible conscience, he can have no knowledge whether even that which he has done with the best intentions and in exercise of his finest powers will finally be approved as serviceable or rejected as worthless, whether he will be accepted or repudiated in that which makes him a Christian? The severity of the question is to be considered. For the issue is quite simply whether the Christian has any option but in his own most proper concern to be like the poor heathen who optimistically or pessimistically can proceed only with uncertainty into a neutral, ambivalent and therefore obscure future. If he could not hope as a Christian, it would be all up with him. But since he may, all is not lost but won. He must not hope in himself. He must not hope that as a worker in the Lord’s vineyard he will finally do enough at least to assure his promotion, not perhaps cum laude, but at any rate rite. He must not hope in a friendly or not too exacting world which might finally hold out the prospect of a magna or insigni or even summa cum laude. He must not be distracted by such illusory possibilities. The Christian hopes in Jesus Christ, in Him alone, but in Him confidently. For He alone, but dependably, is the origin, theme and content of his hope, as of his faith and love. Can it hope in Him as the coming Judge? Yes, in Him as such, since as Judge He is the same as the One who then came in His resurrection and who is now present in the enlightening power of His Spirit. Not an unknown judge of fable, but He who is well-known to the Christian comes as Judge of the quick and the dead and therefore as his Judge. Not the Christian himself, nor the contemporary world, nor posterity, but He will judge and decide concerning his Christian witness, whether it is good or bad, valuable or worthless, meaningful or meaningless, gold, silver, precious stones, or wood, hay, stubble. He will judge and decide concerning the sincerity of heart and integrity of mind with which he has discharged it. There can be no doubt that His judgment is the future of the whole world and therefore of the Christian too."
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