Judgment Seat of Christ, Attempted not Achieved, by Adrian Rogers

All right, let me give you another thing. Not only is the emphasis going to be upon quality, not only is the emphasis going to be upon motivation, but let me give you another thing: the Lord is going to look at, when He judges you, not only what you achieve, but you attempted—what you attempted.

Let me show you an interesting passage. Turn to 1 Kings chapter 8, all right, over here in the Old Testament. Let’s get it—1 Kings chapter 8. Are you ready? Now, David wanted to build a temple—a beautiful, glorious house that he could praise God in; a house for God to dwell in. And, David had been saving his money and building up the treasury to build this temple. And, he talked to the Lord about it, and the Lord said, “David, you can’t build my temple” and, “You’ve been a man of war. Your hands are bloody. Your son is going to build my temple.” (1 Chronicles 22:8–10)

And then, later on, David’s son, Solomon, is talking about it, and he says here in 1 Kings chapter 8, verse 17: “And it was in the heart of David my father to build an house for the name of the Lord God of Israel”—it was in David’s heart. It never got to David’s hands. He never got to build it, but he had it in his heart. Now, watch the next verse—“And the Lord said unto David my father, Whereas it was in thine heart to build an house unto my name, thou didst well that it was in thine heart.” (1 Kings 8:17–18) Isn’t that beautiful?

Did you know, some of you say, “Oh, I wish I could, but you just can’t …” God knows what you would do; God knows what it … You see, it’s not just, primarily, what we achieve; it’s what we would like to achieve, what we would attempt to achieve.

Do you know the worst thing wrong with some of the members of our church? It is not that they don’t win souls; it is that they don’t try and they don’t even care. It’s not even in their heart.

You see, God did not call you to be successful, but He did call you to be faithful. I’m not asking you, primarily, this morning, are you a soul winner? I want to know, do you have a soul winner’s heart?

I’m not asking you this morning how much money you give to this church. I want to know, do you have a generous heart? What would you do with a million dollars if you had it? Do you want me to tell you what you’d do with it? You’d do with it proportionately what you do with that ten dollars that you do have ’cause the Bible says, “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in [that which is] much.” (Luke 16:10) And, if you wouldn’t be faithful with ten dollars, you wouldn’t be faithful with one million dollars. And, God knows what’s in your heart, and God knows if you have a generous heart. God looks at the heart.

Adrian Rogers, “Taking Inventory,” in Adrian Rogers Sermon Archive (Signal Hill, CA: Rogers Family Trust, 2017), 2 Co 5:8–10.