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Most of the biblical images of the coming day of the Lord suggest a belief that it will be a day of judgment, a day when everyone will appear before the judgment seat of God and be judged and sent either to heaven or to hell. That is probably the most unattractive feature of Christian tradition for believers and the thing most likely to "turn off" outsiders. It calls to mind images of preachers thundering judgmental messages from their pulpits, trying to generate guilty feelings and to scare people into making a profession of faith with the threat of hellfire. Almost as unattractive are those neighbors, coworkers, or family members who are always measuring everyone by their own standards of righteousness and criticizing or rejecting those who do not measure up. Judgment, understood in these ways, is certainly not very attractive.

Yet, the Bible does have much to say about judgment. What can we believe about the judgment of God? You may want to ask, "Do we have to believe anything about it?" The answer is "yes." Judgment does play a role in the Christian faith. But it is very important for us to understand what judgment is and what role it plays.

First, we need to understand that there is a difference between judgment and condemnation. It is hard to see the difference when we are talking about a last judgment. But we are going to see that judgment takes place in some other contexts too. In those situations, the difference is significant.

Condemnation is a death sentence. It is usually thought of as final. But judgment is a wake up call. It is something done by someone who loves you to help you recognize that you are in trouble, and you need to make some changes.

Let me import a little bit of John's teaching into this study of Paul's letter. John wrote, "Indeed, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:17). A little later, he wrote, "And this is judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil" (John 3:19). This is an example of John taking things written about the last days and letting them interpret the meaning of things that are happening every day. In John's gospel, we read many stories about Jesus confronting people, pushing them to recognize all that was wrong in their lives, offering them a better possibility, and inviting them to make needed changes. That is judgment. It is not condemnation. It is something done by someone who loves you and who wants something better for you.

There is a practice that is sometimes used to help problem drinkers break the hold of alcoholism on their lives that is a lot like that kind of judgment. Quite often, an alcoholic is able to convince himself that he doesn't really have a drinking problem, even though everyone around him may see that his life is falling apart. That is called denial. Some alcoholics are really good at it. They may construct elaborate explanations for everything that is going wrong and even persuade some people who are close to them that everything is all right.

To break that pattern of denial, some people who really care about the alcoholic person may stage a meeting between the alcoholic and certain important other people, family members, employer, friends, and people injured by his alcoholism. They may have to trick the alcoholic into coming to the meeting. The people may be assembled in the alcoholic's living room when he comes home. Then, one by one, they will lovingly but without equivocation, confront the alcoholic with the evidence that there is a serious problem and with the consequences that will follow if he does not change. His daughter may tell him very plainly how embarrassed she was when her friends saw him drunk and tell him that she does not ever want him to be around her friends again. An employer may catalog the times when his drinking has interfered with his work and then tell him that he will lose his job if there is not a change. His wife may list the ways in which his drinking has injured her and the family and tell him that she will definitely leave him if he does not change. The people who stage the confrontation will have already made arrangements for him to leave immediately to get therapy. Then the alcoholic will see that he has a decision to make, and he will understand clearly what is at stake. That is judgment. It cannot be a pleasant experience. But it is something done in love and it may save the life of the person for whom it is done.

Paul must have been very familiar with that kind of judgment. He always remembered the day when he was a zealous young Pharisee, full of ambition and hatred, who was traveling to Damascus to persecute the early Christians. On the way, he was confronted by the risen Christ who said, "Saul, what are you doing? Why are you persecuting me?" That brought him up short and forced him to reckon with his own wrongness. It is important to recognize what happened next. God did not pack him off to hell. Instead, God sent a brave little man named Ananius around to tell him about God's forgiving love and to inform him that God had something important for him to do. That is judgment.

Judgment can sneak up on us and surprise us. Paul spoke of judgment day coming at a time when no one expects it. He was talking about the last judgment. But we can have individual experiences of judgment like Paul's at any time.

Any day can be the day of the Lord, the day of our ultimate reckoning with God.

Judgment day may come to you when some situation in life calls you to live up to your highest possibility as a person. Some crisis arises that calls for decisive action. Some neighbor has a need that you could meet. Some great issue of truth or justice needs an advocate and you know you could step up and say what needs to be said. You are the one -- or one of the ones -- who could act and make a difference. But doing what needs to be done may be dangerous or costly. The risen Christ often comes to us in situations like that and calls us to make a loving and courageous response. You have a decision to make.

Paul suggests that if you are wide awake and "living in the light," you will be ready to make the right response. If you have drifted off into the kind of complacency that often overtakes us, you may not. If you find that you did not have the love or the courage needed to make the response that your humanity requires, you may find yourself under judgment. You may have to reckon with the knowledge that you did not live up to your best possibility.

Things can get even more complicated. If you do try to make the loving and courageous response that life calls for, you may find yourself involved in conflict. You may find yourself having to make some kind of compromise to act decisively. A good example of the kind of situation in which that can happen is when you feel called to become involved in politics. Even if you try hard to do what you believe is right, you may come out feeling compromised and beaten and not good.

What happens then? Are you condemned to go to hell for your shortcomings? No, it is interesting to notice that neither Paul nor John ever says anything about hell. Some of the other Bible writers do. The fact that neither Paul nor John ever say anything about it suggests that hell is not nearly as important a part of the Christian understanding of things as we have sometimes thought. So, if hell is not the next stop, what is? Paul tells us. "God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him" (vv. 9-10). Any real serious engagement with life is likely to bring us into the experience of judgment. And that experience will make us aware that we stand in need of the saving grace of God. It makes us realize that we are made able to stand in the presence of God, our judge, not by our own goodness, but by the forgiving love of God. We are helped to realize who we really are. We are sinners accepted by God because of his forgiving love for us. The sooner we learn to know ourselves in that way, the sooner we will be ready to move on to the next step.

Yes, there is another step. If we are honest with God about what needs to be fixed in our lives, and open to the loving work of God in our lives, God will work with us to help us become all that we can be.

Paul urged the Thessalonians to equip themselves to meet the times of trial by "staying awake and sober" and by putting on the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet of the hope of salvation. He told the members of the church to "encourage each one another and build up each other" (vv. 6-11). Judgment is an important part of the process that can lead us to fullness of life and that can lead the world to salvation.

In fact, the experience of living under judgment can become a part of the self-understanding of a truly mature person. Sometimes we put much too much emphasis on innocence. When we seek someone to trust with a responsibility or with leadership, we tend to look for someone who has never done anything wrong. The problem with that is most of the people who have never done anything wrong are people who have never done anything. In a world where so much needs to be done, never doing anything is doing something wrong. Don't misunderstand. There is no virtue in doing wrong. We should always try as hard as we can to do what is right. Anyone who tries to live decisively in this world of ambiguities will inevitably wind up doing some things that are at least partially wrong. In that situation, it is important to be aware of the judgment that rests upon even our best actions. That will keep us realistic about ourselves and about the things we are trying to do.

Many of the great leaders in the Bible were people who had been through the experience of judgment, repentance, and renewal so often that it became a part of their understanding of who they were and how they stood in the presence of God. Indeed, it seems that experience can equip a person for leadership. Think of Jacob, Moses, and David.

The same is true of many of the great people in history. People who are familiar with the history of the state of Texas will know the name Sam Houston. Sam Houston was the general who led a rag-tag group of pioneers in a battle that defeated the Mexican army and won the independence of Texas and several other states. He was the first president of the Republic of Texas and, after Texas became one of the United States, he served both as governor and as United States senator. He was truly a hero. He demonstrated the depth of his heroism by sacrificing all he had gained by courageously taking a stand for something he believed. He spoke out opposing the secession of Texas during the Civil War.

Sam Houston was not an innocent person. He was a maverick. In his youth, he withdrew for a while from his prominent Southern family to live among the Cherokees. Later, after becoming a hero in the war against the Creek Indians, he was elected governor of Tennessee at a very young age. Then he made the devastating discovery that his young bride loved another man. He resigned his office and withdrew again to live among the Cherokees. There he earned another Cherokee name that meant "The big drunk."

He eventually moved to the frontier territory of Texas, got his life together, and became the heroic person he is remembered to be. In the process, he was baptized. For him, that must have represented a real experience of repentance and renewal. He always remained a maverick. Having come through the experiences of judgment and renewal must have actually equipped him to give the leadership he eventually gave. How many other heroes of history can you think of for whom the experience of judgment was a part of their preparation? Of how many of your own heroes is that true?

I am tempted to sign off by wishing you a happy judgment day. But that would be foolish. No one can enjoy the experience of standing under judgment. It is like having surgery -- or like having a bad tooth extracted. But I can wish you a happy day after judgment day. That is a real possibility. And you can believe that. Amen.