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Show Notes

Episode Overview

In this honest and transformative episode, Ross shares the story of how his church came to be named Heaven Earth, digging into foundational questions of faith, judgment, and salvation. Through personal reflection and open conversation, the community navigates the complex terrain of Christian judgment, seeking a richer, more authentic understanding rooted in grace, restoration, and the vision of “new creation.”

Three Takeaways

1. Judgment Is About Bringing Everything into the Light—Not Condemnation

Much of the episode is devoted to reimagining the concept of judgment. Ross emphasizes that judgment, in the biblical sense, is less about condemnation and more about exposing all things to God’s light, where evil is addressed and good is revealed 32:15. The community notes how negative church experiences and cultural preconceptions can make “judgment” feel ominous or shameful, but in God’s purpose, it is a means for restoration, justice, and the making of all things new 37:01.

2. Salvation Is a Cosmic, Restorative Event—Not Just Individual Rescue

Ross challenges the common, transactional view of salvation as simply sorting people into heaven or hell. Instead, he draws on scriptural themes to show that salvation is God’s movement to bring heaven to earth: restoring all creation and making everything new, including individuals and the wider world 26:01. This up-down vision changes how we live “in the middle”—shifting the focus from personal escape to joining in God’s restorative work here and now 22:05.

3. Grace and Accountability Are Held Together in God’s Hands

While the conversation acknowledges the reality of sin, personal failings, and the need for accountability (“How did you treat the least of these?” 33:21), Ross stresses that none of us can “earn” restoration through works alone—grace is at the center. Ultimate justice and mercy are not human tasks, but God’s 37:08. This frees us to love others, let go of condemnation, and trust God with the mysteries we cannot solve 45:32.

Final Thoughts

This episode invites listeners to rethink what judgment and salvation really mean, urging a move beyond fear and shame toward a faith marked by honest light, restorative grace, and hopeful participation in God’s new creation.

Lord, we thank you for all the people who are here with us today. We thank you for how you've made them, for their gifts, their strengths, their story. I just pray that you would help everyone in this room today experience your grace, your extraordinary love, how you delight in them. Help us to see things that we can't see just on our own, but we can with your Spirit. Guide us in the name of Jesus. Amen. So, uh, I think this image is something like 8 years old, like this month. So I'm going to tell— I want to tell you a little bit about the story of our church and how we got our name.

Some of you are like, I know this story, Russ, I've heard it too many times. But when I first got here in July of 2018. So we had no people, we had no building, we had no programs. The church was me and Angela and our son Beau. And so every day was just a day of like, I need to go meet people and learn about the community. What's going on out here? Where is God at work? Where are the strengths? Where are the pain points? And so I started digging into research. I met a bunch of people, waitresses, stylists, anyone police officers introduced me to. In that time, I met Charlotte Fulkerson, September 2018.

You know what? I need to say this, Charlotte. God bless your heart. Can I tell you something? I met Charlotte on a ride-along with a police officer in 2018. And Charlotte, Charlotte's got some spunk, let me tell you. She called that police officer back, said, give me that guy's number. She said, I don't know what you're doing with your new church, but you need to do something about recovery. You need to do it now. So we started a little meeting on Wednesday nights.

It came from her heart. Praise God. So, a lot of cool things can happen when you just trust God with the next step of your life and let God send you to where God might. And so, I met a bunch of people, and here's the common theme that I heard from folks. Gather all these stories, I was starting to try to understand like the kind of church we maybe needed or whatever.

And what I heard from people was like, Jesus says the kingdom of the heavens has come near.

He says it in, uh, I think it's right— oh, right there.

Jesus says like repent, which is just—

I know it's a scary word, it just means to turn around. He says the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.

What I heard from people is that it doesn't seem near to me. It seems far. What I heard from a lot of young people, baristas I met—

I went to this Kroger over here on, what is it, 600 Smokey Row or whatever?

That was like my office.

And I got to know all the baristas there.

And they just described, like, I could tell, they could—

I might as well have told them I was starting a croquet club.

They didn't like— they're like, oh, a church, cool, what's that? Bless you.

You know, for them, the church was this distant, irrelevant, illegitimate thing that's not actually helping the real problems of our community. If the kingdom of heavens has drawn near, they were like, not for me. And so we voted on these names, me and a group of people. And we came up with this really weird name, which is the name of our church, Heaven Earth. And I came up with this picture and I sent it to an atheist I met at that Starbucks over there.

I was like, hey man, what do you think of this?

He was like, I love it. And he sent me a picture back. That told me we were on to something. If a guy who feels like God isn't out there get into this, then maybe we're along the right track. And then I went to the, uh, the barista, who— the guy who I felt like I may as well tell him I'm starting a croquet club. He was like, oh, I love the name because it has the word near in it. And I didn't even notice that. I didn't even know.

And so like God was showing me through the field like what we needed to do. Why am I telling you this? Because we've been in this series called Where's Jesus? I gotta find the picture for it. I think I got it in here. Let's see, right—

bam!

There.

Where's Jesus?

Finding and following Jesus when much of Christianity doesn't look like him. That's what I heard out there. They were like, hey, I can see Christians in every direction I look, but I don't see Jesus in the Christians.

And the reason that I want to bring up these stories is that what our church does day in and day out is a direct reflection of how we see the beginning and the end according to Jesus. Are you with me?

We said this last week, and I'll bring it up again. What we imagine or believe about the beginning and the end will greatly affect how we act in the middle. Remember that? We talked about that last week. What we imagine about the beginning and the end will affect how we act in the middle.

And so, like, What our church does has everything to do about what we believe about the beginning and the end according to God.

And so I want to talk with you a little bit about that today, but I want to ask you, I'm going to say a word.

Some of you are like, I came to this church for the first time and we're talking about this?

I hope it's actually energizing and hopeful to you today because I want to say a word and I want to hear from you.

Without censoring it, what you feel or think when you hear it.

Okay.

Uncensored time.

Ready? Judgment. Maybe it didn't help that I did it that way. Okay, let's do it over.

Start over. Start over.

Start over. Judgment. What do you think or feel? I saw one. Heard one.

Shame. Shame.

Okay.

Final.

Okay. Not my job. Okay. What else?

Intimidating.

Oh, Judgment Day. Yeah.

Yep.

What else? When you hear the word judgment? Accountability. Okay.

Law.

Okay. Jamin, what's up? Holler it out.

The end.

Yep. What we think about the beginning and the end will affect how we act in the middle. Christians, I've told you before, there was a book, like watershed book called On Christians, surveyed people 16 to 29 who were outside the church.

They were my age.

at that time. I'm now 39. But they said of those people, 97% saw Christians as judgmental.

97%.

Who— there's somebody else over here. Ellie, go ahead. Condemnation. Okay.

The need to defend.

Can you say more about that, Ashley? I know I said your first words, but could you go a little farther?

I think I know what you mean, but I want to know more.

I hate the judgment of others, and sometimes I feel the need to defend the judgment of myself or Christianity or others, whether they be in the minority or in a specific sense. But I feel like judgment definitely brings about the need to defend.

It puts you on the defensive. It experiences a threat almost.

Yeah.

Okay, go ahead, Shelby.

Hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy, the next category in that survey I just cited was hypocritical, 95%. What else? Amber, is it? Yep. God.

Okay.

Uh-huh.

What else? Belonging.

Transactional.

Transactional.

Could you say a little more about what that big fancy word means?

Go ahead. Yeah, to get a good judgment in the end, you need to say or think or believe a very certain thing, or else you're going to get a bad judgment.

And where—

what does the bad judgment look like? Certainty. Okay, and it looks like maybe a certain place that you go.

Yeah, I know you're supposed to say no, but I don't believe like that. I think it's like this certain rigidity.

Sure.

Yeah.

All right, go ahead, Shelby.

Consuming.

Consuming. Yeah, go ahead, Emily.

Fatigue.

Fatigue. You worn out by it?

Yeah.

Go ahead, sir.

I like what this lady says.

Judgment.

You feel like you have to fit in.

You need to get suitable.

Yeah. Yep. Judgment.

Again, if you're like, I came to this church for the first time and they're talking about judgment, you got to be kidding me. This is the first time I'm coming back to church. I didn't want to keep going to fire and brimstone church. I want some new life.

Can you hang with me, please?

Because I don't know if—

I probably won't convince you by the end, but this is what I want to share with you today in, in the few moments we have together. In the beginning God said—

will you read that with me?

In the beginning God said, Let there be light. So that's the beginning. Remember what I said? What you imagine or think or believe about the beginning and the end affects how you act in the middle. Right? In the beginning, God said—

Let there be light.

A little more enthusiasm. It's kind of exciting if you think about it. In the beginning, God said—

Let there be light.

While I was sick this week, I watched this Nova series on the formation of the 4 terrestrial planets, and it was like, this is so awesome!

Like how the— like the universe is such a mystery. It's so wonderful. And like that, in some mystery, I don't understand it, God in God's glory and grace and goodness said, I don't want my glory for myself. I want to extend it beyond myself and share it. And God said, let there be light. And maybe right then, Boom! Big bang!

Right when God said, in the beginning, what?

Light be.

That's how it begins.

That's also where it ends. I want to talk to you about that.

It begins with extraordinary, brilliant, glorious, life-giving light. And it ends with extraordinary, brilliant, life-giving light. That's how it begins.

That's how it ends. And this is what it's like, oh boy.

Judgment is a tool of that light.

Grace is too. Here's what we're talking about today.

Everything, and I mean everything, will be brought to the light.

Okay? I want to give you a chance to reimagine this whole concept of judgment. For example, like, what do we experience of, like, human judgment in our world, right?

I know for me, I'm frustrated all the time.

We work with a lot of folks who are criminal justice involved, and I get sick and tired, if I'm honest with you. I'm friends with some of our judges in this county. They're some of the best people I know. Sometimes I'm frustrated where it's like, this person did this level of crime and they spend this amount of jail time.

This person did this crime Did this amount of jail time.

What was the difference?

Person A, how much money did they have? What was their ability to procure a good lawyer who knows how to schmooze and work some connections? Listen, my wife's a lawyer.

I like lawyers.

This person over here, how much money and resource do you think they had? All right. Is that good judgment? So part of what we have to be aware of is like so much of our experience of judgment is bad judgment. And so we can't help but assume that when you hear the word judgment, it's gonna be like that. And what did we hear in church, right? We, we felt like, remember the story of Bob Goff with the bagel? Remember, I'm gonna tell it again. Bob Goff comes home to the kitchen, he gets, he's got a bagel, he goes to the fridge, He gets out some cream cheese. He puts some cream cheese on the bagel. He starts eating it. It tastes awful.

But he's like, I don't want to waste it. I just need to keep eating it, I guess, because this is all it is. Like, I got to eat it. And he keeps eating it. And his wife comes in and goes, why did you put lard on your bagel? So many people feel like that with judgment, particularly. They heard about how judgment works in Christianity, and they're like, you know what? That just is what it is, so I just got to eat it. Or I gotta throw it out. Either way, they think they're eating the real thing or throwing out the real thing, but in fact they're eating an artificial thing or throwing out an artificial thing.

Are you with me?

I want to give you like a new way to look at judgment today. Judgment is actually a tool with which God brings God's glorious light to the entire earth. Yes, I'll be honest with you, is it a little bit scary?

Maybe.

But here's what I'm talking about here. First of all, this: the beginning starts out with, let there be light, right? In the beginning God said...

Let there be light.

Well, guess what Jesus comes to do?

There's this prophecy back in Isaiah. So this is several hundred years before Jesus. Isaiah is a guy that's writing or representing a community when the poop has hit the fan. The Israelites have been conquered by the Assyrians, later on the Babylonians, utterly destroyed, and it's like, where is God?

And Isaiah is like, this land is totally cursed, these 2 regions here. But in the latter time, he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of nations. And so this fella Jesus shows up.

Oh, right here, I forgot this. Read this with me, will you?

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who lived in a land of deep darkness, of them light has shined. Jesus shows up and says— Jesus heard that John had been arrested.

Take that.

He withdrew to Galilee.

Jesus, the—

Galilee's a region. There's a Sea of Galilee in the north part of even modern-day Israel.

It's a freshwater lake. South of it, as the crow flies, maybe 80, 90 miles, something like that, is the Dead Sea. So Jesus shows up in this region where He's from. He left Nazareth and made His home Capernaum by the sea in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali. Hmm, that's what that prophecy was about. So that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. There it is again. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in a region and shadow of death, light has dawned.

And then Jesus says that here is what salvation is all about. If, if I have put you to sleep May you hear this again.

Okay. I hope to not mess with you too much, but if we're going to see judgment in a new light, we need to rethink this word salvation. Are you with me?

Salvation is not—

if you need to come have coffee with me to talk about it, let's do it. Salvation is not an individual thing. Okay? It's not like, again, we've talked about this, where Jesus is sitting on a throne and after we die, right, you're all lined up.

So let's all imagine, isn't this exciting?

Aren't you glad you came to church?

Let's all imagine that we've passed on.

Isn't that exciting? Aren't you glad you came to church today?

And we're lined up because now it's time. It's Judgment Day! And this is salvation for some people.

For other people, it's damnation.

And here's basically what it looks like.

We're lined up and it's— and Jesus is just going left, left, right, right, left.

Oh, you thought you were right.

That's funny. Left, right, right, left.

And on the left, you go to be punished.

for an infinite amount of time. That's damnation.

If you go to the right, you get to go to streets of gold. What's that?

Swipe right.

Swipe right, yeah.

And in that case, you are saved, right? So when you say, Jesus is—

I confess Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior, and you get baptized, you are now Saved. Sorry, I'm like Emily.

I have fatigue with that because it's cheapened the beauty of Jesus so much, and it's given us a picture of the end. So if that's your picture of the end, how's that going to affect how you act in the middle? If that's what salvation and judgment are to you, how does that affect how you act in the middle?

I want to hear from you now.

If you believe that God began the earth so that eventually— the beginning was all about that in the end God was going to either save individuals to heaven or some to hell, how does that affect how you act in the middle?

Go ahead. So even when you were interacting with people, you were doing it fearfully? Yeah. Okay. Alicia, go ahead.

Yeah.

Yes, thank you. What else? PT, go ahead. Religion is created in order to make my neighbors behave. So it's a control sort of tactic. Yeah, it's a control tactic. Yeah. What else? Bridget?

I feel like I've sinned so much.

Sure. Yeah, I've sinned so much.

The rap sheet's too long.

There's no way I can make it back to right.

Okay?

Yes. Once saved, always saved.

Death and heaven.

Yeah, or death. But yeah, you can act like a—

Yeah.

It takes away the mystery and the majesty and the light and the miracles. Okay. Go ahead, young man. Sure. It becomes a picture of, I can never be good enough. Okay. You already spoke once.

This is different. I struggle because— so I was raised American Baptist. I got saved when I was— that was hard for me to see.

How dare you disagree with me? No, I'm kidding. No, she said she grew up American Baptist. She was saved when she was 13, and that's still very meaningful to her. Listen to me, I've made a mistake in the past of very recklessly throwing out the baby with the bathwater, so hang with me to the end on this. There is a piece of that that's still true.

Okay.

Absolutely. Part of being saved is like, we can come up with all our schemes and strategies we want.

There are plenty of atheists, for the record, who are good, wonderful, kind people.

That nonsense that you can do no good unless— I see too much of that, like of great people who— but there is no doubt That there is a force of sin, so to speak, evil and darkness, that I do believe that is at work in our world. And we do need to be rescued into like a light, a love that is beyond what we can do for ourselves.

So that piece of like personal salvation, I still cling to.

That's still very biblical. Like, however, what I want to do now—

are you still with me, or have I put you to sleep?

Are we, are we good? I was sick this week, and so like, I can't— I'm not sure how much my thoughts are connecting right now. So if I'm going to be watching you— so what I want to do is connect that to a bigger, more beautiful picture of salvation just for a minute. Okay, it goes back to this.

And you're like, Ross, we talk about this all the time. We're going to need to talk about this at least as many times as you heard the other version of salvation. So we got like 948 sermons at least to go on this. At least.

Come on, stupid thing. Let's go.

See, I don't even know what I was going to talk about.

Huh.

Let's think. Oh yeah, it was this. Jesus says this line right here, okay? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.

Some of you're like, I know what Ross is talking about. No, we gotta keep hearing it cuz this is the end. How— what we think about the beginning and the end affects how we act in the middle. Okay? This is so much more beautiful. It's bigger. It's, it's, it's so awesome. It's such a glory to be a part of. He says the kingdom of the heavens has come near.

I keep making it plural.

In the original language, heavens is plural. It means like a realm that's beyond us, and it's come here, Jesus says.

And when he prays—

It's the second time that's happened. Not a good sign. Anyways, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. So what's the direction of salvation? Is it from here up, or is it from up down? The kingdom of the heavens has drawn near. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And then we got to go back here again, if I can find it real quick. library.

I know the scripture is in there. It's going to take me a minute to get to it. 1 Corinthians 15:24. Somebody tell a cool dad joke or something while I'm getting there. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!

Found it!

Bam! This is in the last book of the Bible, Revelation.

And the one who is seated on the throne said, see—

oh wait, we gotta back up, back up, back up. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying— You read it now.

Read with me.

See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

Keep going. He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more.

Mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. Okay, I'll take this from here. And the One who is seated on the throne said— no, I'm kidding. Let's read this too. Go ahead.

See, I am making all things new.

Also— Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're good on that part.

Actually, that matters a lot.

Like, in other words, you can trust this is going to happen. What's the direction of salvation? Is it down-up or up-down? Say it with me.

Up-down.

I didn't make it up. It's wire to wire in the New Testament.

Salvation is this big, awesome, beautiful picture of Jesus coming to bring the glory of heaven to earth. To restore all of creation. To make it all new. To make it all new, including each individual. Look at this. So Jesus has come.

We just talked about this in baptism, didn't we, Dave? Dave, do you want to come recite this? You good? You want to do this part? Okay, thanks, Dave. Appreciate it. But if you want to do it, man, you can. I believe in you. This right here, look.

No, that's not it.

No, that's not it. Not who you say I am. This part right here. Boom! Go ahead and read it too.

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away.

Look, new things have come into being.

So in other words, Jesus comes to earth to start this new creation. He has come to save the entire world. Think about John 3:16. We even distorted that one. For God so loved some individuals, so He gave His only begotten Son so that some individuals would believe in Him, blah, blah, blah. No, what does it say? For God so loved the...

The world.

And what does it say in the next verse, 3:17? We know 3:16. What about 3:17?

What was it, Debbie? He came to save the world.

He came to—

Charles, you know it. Did you hear that? He came to save the world, not condemn the world.

For God so loved the world. That means you too. Don't get me wrong, listen, I'm going to sound old-fashioned. Nothing has changed. I can try to change this all I want.

Listen, some of us, I'll tell you just a little side note. Can you follow me on a sidetrack for one minute?

A lot of—

I've hung out with progressive Christians, if you know what that means. It's like people who are more like liberal, you know? And I grew up very conservative Christianity. I went to some Southern Baptist Bible studies with my old lady back in the day. She's a year older than me.

So that— those studies made me very fearful. And it was very much like individuals—

it was Jesus going left, left, right, left, left.

Oh, you thought you were right? Left.

Get over there, you sinner. Right?

Here's what hasn't— when I went over to the progressive Christians, here's what they did.

They responded I told you I've only totaled one car in my life, and I totaled it by overcorrection. Okay, here's what a lot of progressive Christians did. They went from that distorted system and they went to systems with no accountability. So when I hung out with progressive Christians, how much did they care about, like, holiness, for example, personal holiness?

Wee!

Okay, it's because they hung out with all these fundamental legalists who— it was all about personal holiness so you could go to heaven in the end. It wasn't real. It was like a transaction, right? But here's what's still true.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna testify for a minute. For me, when it comes down to it, I'm still just a good old-fashioned sinner. That's true.

If I'm left to my own devices, man, I will like hang out in resentment. I will look out for myself. I am made supremely good by God. We talked about this in restoration week. I'm made supremely good by God, and I'm supremely good at sinning.

Both things are true.

Am I right, Alicia? Like, made supremely good, but like, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty good at doing some sinning, right? Absolutely. I can do all my strategies. I do go to therapy. You should go to therapy. It's great. Go to therapy.

Okay.

I have mentors in my life. I've read a lot of good, like, self-help things, but nothing, nothing will save me from my sinful ways except this, this man who—

this God who became flesh and died on a cross and rose from the dead. I need Jesus to restore me and transform my sinful inclinations. That's still true. But it is not so that I can just go to heaven and not go to hell.

Jesus is restoring me. Look at that. He's making me a new creation so that I join him in building the new creation. Are you with me? This whole thing is about the new creation. God comes to restore the whole earth, and he's making me a new creation. To join with Him building the new creation. He comes to save the— for God so loved the—

ultimately, judgment. We're almost done. This is it. Are you with me? Go ahead.

Say it again. You see this word too much. What do you mean by that?

Say that more, Jen. See, there it is. This is where— okay, let's talk about judgment, then we're done. We're done for today. Okay? We're covering a lot of ground. If you're new to us, other days are much more lighthearted. Okay? Angela just goes, are they? Get you a wife who keeps you honest. It's good for you.

Oh boy, what was I going to say? I was so rudely interrupted.

Judgment.

Judgment. Here's the point. It begins with light and it ends with light.

There is an—

oh, this is going to— oh, we're going to try to do it fast. There's an individual component for sure and a world component of salvation. It's both. Hang with me. So look, but judgment is about this. What did I say? It begins with light and it's all about light.

Habakkuk says—

there's a prophet, say that 10 times fast. Habakkuk. Habakkuk. Habakkuk. Yeah, see, it's hard. For surely knowledge of the Lord's glory will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

That's what it's about, is that this earth gets covered by the glory of God.

Okay. God's business is restoring this creation that is his baby and his children. Okay?

So part of that is God's like, first thing, one thing we got to do is we started with light.

We need to bring everything back into the light, which includes evil. So this is— this may sound scary. Okay? In the end, Jesus is very much on board with we will have to give account of how we've lived our lives.

I wish—

I'm not going to be the preacher just like, hey, let me tell you all the nice things you want to hear. Jesus is very much about like, what did you— what were you given and what did you do with it?

Hang on, some of you are like, see, it gets back to like scary judgment stuff.

Hang on.

Jesus very much says, how did you— especially, how did you treat the least of these? Did you give someone water to drink?

Did you give them clothes if they were naked?

Did you visit them in prison? When you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for me.

And he has strong language for that. I will cast you to the outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Jeez.

Okay.

Are some of you like, this sermon turned really dark and bad so quick.

I wish we could go back. But here's the deal.

Here's where we've been wrong. I don't know what that means. I can tell you this, it does not mean that if you received all these opportunities and invitations from Christ—

I'm stepping into stuff I don't know about. This is beyond me. Okay? Keep that in mind right now.

If I got all these things given to me by God and I squandered it by not treating the least of these as if Jesus is in their face, then someday I should expect, yeah, Jesus is going to be, hey, what were you doing?

And yeah, he might say— I don't mean to make it this light of it— you're going to timeout.

The Bible has this mysterious picture. It is not that you go to hell forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever.

That's not biblical.

There is some space for like that God does some restorative work from people, some judgment work, some reforming work after life. I know this is going to be really confusing, but I'll tell you one verse. In 2 Peter, there's this moment where Jesus goes to speak to the disobedient spirits who are in prison from the time of Noah. I told you, we are now beyond our limits. Do you feel confused right now? What was the tree we were never supposed to eat from?

The tree of knowledge of good and evil.

There's a reason why judgment is not in our hands.

Amen.

Okay.

In other words, it is not a simple like left, right, left, right. Like Travis goes right, I go left, and in left I'm in prison forever and ever and ever and tortured forever and ever and ever. And Travis gets pearly gates, gold roads. Good for you, man. You must have done something right. You said the sinner's prayer just right. So you gotta go in. No, there's some mysterious picture that Jesus is as much at work to reform people, bring them to justice beyond this life as he is in this life.

He tells a parable, like he says, like, you will not get out of prison, I tell you, until you've paid every penny.

But wait a minute, in that scenario, do you get out of prison?

Oh, you do, don't you? He says, first you got to pay your debt.

How confused are you right now?

We're beyond our limits.

So I close with these 2 things.

So I told you this, look, judgment is a tool of bringing God's light to the earth.

Look, there is nothing hidden except to be disclosed, nor anything secret except come to light. In the end, God's like, no evil will be hidden.

Amen.

It'll be brought out and it'll be dealt with. Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will become known.

Therefore, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms will be proclaimed from the housetops.

So on.

Okay, here's the point. Judgment is a tool of bringing evil to light, and Christ deals with it, reforms it, restores it. Okay, this is literally the last thing I'm saying today, and then I'll shut up and turn it over to you. Some of you might be ahead of me and go like, but Ross, where is grace in all this? Was anyone out ahead of me on that? Isn't this all about grace? He says in Paul, you are saved by, by grace through faith.

Ross, I thought you said last week we're not saved by faith alone. Are we saved by faith or works? Yes, in the end, even my rap sheet, Bridget, is covered in grace, covered in grace. So like all of us, none of us will be able to like, okay, if we spend our whole lives, I'm gonna go make up for every wrong thing I did and I'm gonna make it right.

Nope, that's not how it works. There's a personal component to this. I throw myself at the mercy of Christ and it's his grace that covers me, restores me.

It's his delight in me, his love for me. And with that, he transforms me so that I become a new creation, and I genuinely love other people. Not so I can go to heaven or I can get them to heaven and not hell. No, because I'm part of a new creation that's being built. That's what motivates me every day. I'm not trying to not go to hell. I'm trying to just like let Christ live in me and work through me every single day. And I don't have to go around judging like, okay, is this person—

I don't have to worry about that. You know why? Because it's in the good, capable hands of Jesus. And whatever he does— Debbie knows this.

I heard her write—

I saw her write it on the whiteboard. God's judgment will bring about perfect justice in the end.

In the end, like all things will be made new, partly by God's judgment. Okay, I'm shutting up. It's 10:41.

You get the last few comments. That was too heavy today, wasn't it? But we had to do it. Ralph, go ahead.

You deserve to know that your analogy of putting all the bad people on the left side is highly offensive to those of us who are left-handed.

Oh, sorry about that, Ralph.

I can, I can shut up, man, if you want.

You were talking about the people you met with who had no sense of the church, no experience, and were far from God. Unlike them, I do have rather extensive experience in the church, but when I first came here, was probably as far from the church and from God as they were. And I remember saying after 2 or 3 weeks that this is the first time in years that I have been spiritually and intellectually stimulated in church. So thank you for that. And having said that, a couple of weeks ago you extended the service because Misty had a question that absolutely needed and deserved to be answered right then.

I'm not going to ask you to do that today, but I do hope that you'll consider So what Ralph is saying is y'all just want to talk about judgment for like the next 8 weeks. No, I'm kidding. Joey, go ahead.

I'll add to that.

I mean, specifically, I'd like to hear your comment on disqualifier. If you are So like, what if you put it out as a religion?

What about the person who lives on the road?

So, okay, no, we'll do that. Hey, I'll, I'll— Emily and I'll talk and we'll figure it out.

It may—

Emily, maybe we got our next series. Maybe.

But notice how much— how quickly we go to—

we're asking a question that's connected to the old world picture of salvation. We're asking like, what about the remote person on a remote island who's never heard about Christ? What we're asking is, do they go to hell? In a way. But we're coming at this with a picture of judgment and salvation that's like an old world look at it. Like, I can say this. I say this pretty confidently. If someone's never heard of Christ, Our God is not some bad judge, okay?

We can know that.

God is not in the business of playing a game with human lives, which is what some of Christianity's made this to be.

God's not in the game like, let me play a game with some humans and see which one's going to go over there and over here.

God is in the restoration business. God's goal is to see everything restored in the end. And I believe that means every individual. Wait, did you just say universalist?

I don't know what that means.

I'm now out of my job description. I trust it to him. We'll talk about it more though. Go ahead, what else? Go ahead, Teresa.

I just love the point that God only wants good for us, so he's not going to put any bad things towards us. It's all going to direct for that light, because we all are attracted to the light. It fills our joy where darkness doesn't. So we look at saying that was his first purpose. That makes him happy and comfy and mean. Look at everything we had to learn.

So he hasn't changed his purpose.

He still wants good for all.

Every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Maker of the heavenly lights, in whose character there is no change at all. In that verse, they were like, where is the evil of this world coming from God too? And James is like, no way, only goodness comes from God. Go ahead. I saw a hand. Hi, Alicia. Yes, thank you, Alicia. Appreciate that. Go ahead, Jen.

Thank you for saying that. Yeah. Jen was talking about an experience she had in a former church where a charismatic person harmed her and a lot of people, used the message of Christianity to control and harm people. And she's like, I want to leave that up to God and let God bring that to the light. But she was like, honestly, too, I want to see him get punished, right? So I feel that. I feel that. And I appreciate you sharing that. And ultimately, I think you're right.

What we're praying to get to is like, let God, let God do the justice work there. Because other words, if I'm getting in that judgment seat, I'm going like, you're going to prison, pal, right? Because it, because it's like, but everything will be brought to light. And to Joey's question, I do think this: those of us who have heard about Christ, who have spent time with him, who have heard his teachings about, I came to preach good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind, release to the captives, and let the oppressed go free, who, who have heard Jesus say, like, when you haven't done it to the least of these, you haven't done it for me— if we've heard that and we have spent time with him and his grace is flowing to us and we're, we're not responding like he would, we're the ones who are going to be accountable.

Not the guy who's on the island who's never heard about Him.

Right? All right.

We better go, man. The kids are like chomping at the bit.

All right. This is your fault. You always want to talk so much. No, it's me. I'm just kidding. Love you all. Let's pray. Hi, guys.

Lord, all these things are a mystery.

It's beyond us.

Amen.

It really is.

And we just need Your help to stay in our lane, to trust in You, to trust in Your love, and to be a part of Your new creation, God, to be a part of this glorious vision of salvation for the whole earth. Help us to genuinely love people from the heart You give us. Help us to genuinely love ourselves, to see how You delight in us.

That's what motivates You. Bless each person in this room that they won't walk away from here with some gloomy vision of judgment and condemnation for themselves, but instead they believe that they are truly deeply loved by God. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.