The Judgment That Matters Most

Have you ever lain awake at three in the morning with a sentence running on a loop in your mind? Something somebody said about you. Maybe it was true and it cut. Maybe it was false and it cut worse. You rehearse it. You argue back in the dark with somebody who is not in the room. You tell yourself it does not matter, and then you keep right on thinking about it.

Every Christian in this room has had a night like that. Some of you had one this week.

The Apostle Paul knew those nights. He was slandered from inside the church and from outside it. He was judged by people who had never walked a mile in his sandals. He was compared unfavorably to preachers he had mentored. In 1 Corinthians 4, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he tells us what to do with the voices that will not go quiet.

Here is what I want you to see from this passage. The judgment of men is a small thing, because the judgment of God is the one that finally matters. And for the Christian, that judgment has already been settled at the cross.

What a Preacher Is

The church at Corinth was involved in evaluating and criticizing and judging preachers. They had elevated Paul and Cephas and Apollos up to be something to fight over, as if ministers of Christ were celebrities to be ranked. Paul refuses the whole game. He calls himself and his fellow preachers servants. The word he uses means the under rowers, the lowest of the low, the most despised slaves on the ship. Why would the church be squabbling over such men? Why make monuments out of them when they should be united around the One those men served?

Paul then calls himself a steward of the mysteries of God. The word translated steward means a house manager. A person put in charge of a household that belongs to somebody else. In Paul’s world, a steward was not the owner of anything. He did not buy the house. He did not stock the pantry. He did not set the menu. The master owned it all. The steward was simply trusted to manage what belonged to somebody else, and to manage it the way the master wanted it managed.

That is the picture Paul uses for the preacher. The preacher does not own the pulpit. He does not own the Book. He did not write a word of it. His job is to hand out what the Master has put into his hands, and to hand it out the way the Master wants it handed out. Not flavored to taste. Not trimmed to fit. Not softened for the sensitive ear or sharpened for the axe the preacher happens to be grinding. Just given, as it was given to him.

What a Preacher Owes

Verse 2 says what God requires of such a steward. Faithfulness. Not applause. Not agreement. Not a crowd. Faithfulness.

If Paul and Peter and Apollos together could not please the church at Corinth, no preacher on earth is going to please every ear in any congregation. That is not a flaw in the preacher. That is the nature of the pulpit. A faithful preacher will not please everyone because a faithful preacher is not trying to please everyone. He is trying to please One.

The pulpit cannot be intimidated by the pew. The preaching of God’s Word cannot be run by the wants and whims of the people. If it is, it is no longer the preaching of God’s Word. It is something else wearing a Bible as a costume.

Whose Verdict a Preacher Waits For

This is where Paul turns from what he owes the Corinthians to what they think they are owed from him.

It is a very small thing, he says, that I may be examined by you, or by any human court. Notice he did not say he ignored it completely. He simply put it in perspective. It was a very small thing. It did not keep him up at night because somebody disagreed with him. He did not obsess over what people thought of him. He did not measure his ministry by the verdict of the pew.

Why not? Look at the latter half of verse 4. The one who examines me is the Lord.

That is the ground of Paul’s confidence. Not his own conscience, which he admits is not the standard. Not the opinion of the Corinthians, which he has already dismissed. The Lord. Paul will stand before the Judge of heaven and earth, and that is the verdict he is waiting for. Everything else is a human courtroom that will close its doors one day and be forgotten.

This is true for every Christian, not just for preachers. Some of you in this room have felt the sting of being slandered, judged, misunderstood, or condemned by others, especially by brothers and sisters in Christ. Some of us know what that feels like in ways we wish we did not. When human judgment comes down, it is easy to get consumed by it, easy to get caught up in the court of human opinion. Those things can keep us up at night, distract us, or even keep us from doing what is right.

But the human courtroom of man’s opinion is temporary. It is a very small thing. Someday all God’s people will be judged by the Lord. That is the judgment that matters most.

If you have been a busybody this week doing the work of a talebearer, slandering the name of your pastor, your brothers and sisters, or this church, and you remain unrepentant, the thought that someday we will all stand before the Lord in judgment ought to scare you to death. Paul called your judgment small. God’s will not be.

Why Any of This Is Good News

One more thing, because it is the only reason any of this is good news instead of terrifying news.

If the judgment of God is the judgment that finally matters, then every one of us has a problem. The God who will bring to light the things hidden in the darkness, that God knows every hidden thing about you. He has heard every word you whispered about your brother. He has seen every motive behind every good deed you did to be noticed. He has watched the counsels of your own heart. And if the judgment of man is a small thing, the judgment of God is a great and terrible thing for a sinner to face.

So how can Paul sit in a Roman prison and say with peace, the one who examines me is the Lord? How can he sleep at night when the Corinthians are tearing him apart? How can any of us?

Because of what happened at a hill called Calvary.

On that hill, the only sinless Preacher this world has ever seen stood in the judgment we deserved. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, took the verdict that belonged to every one of His people. The hidden things of the darkness were laid on Him. The motives of the heart were answered for at His cross. When God the Father looked at His Son hanging there, He handed down the sentence that every one of us had earned, and He handed it down on Jesus instead.

That is why Paul says, the one who examines me is the Lord, and does not flinch. Not because Paul was a good man. Not because Paul did not sin. But because the Judge of all the earth is also the Savior who was judged in Paul’s place.

Christian, if you are in Christ, the verdict that matters has already been handed down over you. It reads: Not guilty. Beloved. Mine. That is the judgment that matters most. No slander in the church, no whisper in the town, no voice at three in the morning can undo what God the Father said over you when He raised His Son from the dead. Let the critics talk. Let the tongues wag. You answer to a higher court, and that court has already ruled in your favor in Christ.

And if you are not in Christ, if you have never trusted the Savior who was judged in the sinner’s place, hear me. The judgment is coming, and it will not be a small thing. Come to Christ. Come today. The same cross that silences the critic silences the law itself for every sinner who will flee to it.