If you'd like to join me in the scriptures this morning, we're going to begin our study together in the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 3. We're continuing this morning the study that we've been pursuing as an overall theme for nearly six months now and for just the last, this will actually be the ninth week, that in a particular portion of this study we've been studying the subject, the theme, of the broader picture of the last things, what is to come at the end of all of history, how God's plan and purpose for history is going to ultimately be concluded. We've been studying in just the last few weeks the subject of the last and final judgment of all people. Where we've come to in this study, is that God is concluding all of history with one great final event. That final event is the second coming of Christ, when the Lord Jesus will return to this earth for three primary purposes. He is coming to raise all people from the dead, He is coming to judge all people, and He is coming to make all things new. We've looked at each one of these in turn. We're just finishing up the study on the judgment we have this week, maybe two weeks after this, and then we will move on to the third and final aspect of the Lord's return. But in our study on the judgment, what we've seen so far is that when the Lord is going to judge all people, that every single person that has ever been born, that's ever lived, and ever will live on this planet, will stand before the Lord on that day and will give an account of their life. They'll give an account for every thought, every word and every deed. But while everyone is going to be standing before the Lord on that day, they're going to be separated or distinguished into two categories or into two groups. And they're going to be judged according to different books. And what we have come to is the study of now what is going to happen to the category of people on the Lord's hand, one hand that He identifies as His sheep. Those who are true believers, the judgment of us who name the name of Christ. who have confidence and faith that we belong to Him. And we saw very clearly in two recent weeks that the one thing that our judgment will not mean for us on that day is that we will not be evaluated on that day based upon whether or not we merit a place in God's kingdom, whether or not we've earned a place in God's eternal purposes. that our judgment is not going to be a judgment of considering whether or not we'll be condemned in the presence of God on that day, that because of the work that God has accomplished through His Son, our judgment is going to be a judgment based on entirely different things. We looked last study specifically at the picture, the image that we see from the temple and the tabernacle of Christ seated on His throne of glory on that day, which will be for the one category of unbelievers a throne of judgment, but will be considered to be for us a throne of mercy on that day. We saw that the mercy seat, that lid that covers the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament tabernacle and temple, is the very thing that is covered with the blood of the sacrifice. through which God looks at His law as He evaluates our lives. And so we saw and understood that because of the presence of Christ on the throne, on that day of judgment, when we look at the throne of God, we will be looking at a throne of mercy, a throne of graciousness. to our lives. But then I ask the question and kind of just left this hanging, then if that's the case, why are we to be judged? And we identify that there are two main purposes for the believer's judgment on that day. The first we've for the most part covered, and that is the Lord is going to judge believers for His own glory. In other words, His mercy and His grace is going to be magnified by the way that He judges us and evaluates our lives on that day. And so it will abound to God's own glory that He will be evaluating us, and our every thought, word and deed will be laid bare in His presence, And because of the cross and the work of the cross, there will be greater praise and greater honor that will accrue to God's account, to God's reputation, to His name on that day. But I also identified that there's a second purpose for our judgment, and that's what we're moving to this morning in 1 Corinthians 3, and that is that the Lord says that He is going to evaluate us and judge us for the purpose of reward. I'd like to read this entire section, starting in 1 Corinthians 3, Verse 1. Paul's teaching here to the Corinthian assembly. I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. The idea here is, of course, that Paul had a desire, and the Spirit of God through him, to be able to talk to, to address, to teach the Corinthian believers as spiritual adults. But because of their spiritual condition, because of the lack of spiritual growth that had occurred in their lives up to this point, he was required to speak to them at a more spiritually rudimentary level as to children or as to infants in Christ. And he goes on to say in verse 2, I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not yet able to receive it. Even now, indeed even now, you were not yet able, for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly and are you not walking like mere men? And one of the examples that he's about to give of their current level of fleshly expression is that they were divided as a congregation based upon their commitment to follow specific leaders in their midst, to set one leader against another leader. As he goes on to say, for when one says, I am of Paul and another, I am of Apollos, are you not mere men? What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything but God who causes the growth. Paul's point to the Corinthians is to lead them to look at even the service that goes on in the context of Christian life and church life, in the context of a bigger picture, a higher perspective. that when one person is doing a particular work in our midst, we're not to look at that person and then attach ourselves to that person as though somehow that person deserves credit, or we, along with them, because we're attached to them, deserve any kind of special credit in the presence of the Lord. Paul's point is, the work that he had done, the work that Apollos had done in their midst, this was all the work of God. It was all God's hand moving upon these men and through these men's lives. But there's real work that's being done by these men, spiritual work. And this work is leading to an even higher level perspective that Paul now wants to direct their attention to. Let's pick up in verse 9. For we, and he's speaking here about Apollos and himself, we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building, meaning the focus of the work that God is doing through Apollos and Paul. According to the grace of God, which was given to me like a wise master builder, I laid a foundation. The foundation, of course, that Paul laid was what? When Paul first journeyed to the city of Corinth, he was the very first person to bring the gospel to this city. And he was the very first person to, through the gospel being proclaimed in his life and through his life, to actually take those who were embracing the gospel, receiving it and accepting it and believing it, and forming them into a church. It was through Paul that God actually laid a foundation for the Corinthian church. And he goes on to say, I laid a foundation and another is building on it. Apollos, of course, in this context, is the one who came later and did further teaching, in a sense, built on top of the foundation that Paul had started. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no one or no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become evident. For the day, and when he refers to the day here, he's referring to the final day, what we're calling the day of judgment, the final day of judgment. For the day will show it, or cause it to be revealed openly, because it is to be revealed with fire. And the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss. But he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Now, we're going to spend the remainder of this week this week's teaching, and probably all of next week, trying to understand the fullness of what it is that Paul is describing in this section of Scripture. I'm not going to even address part of this today, and that is, what is the actual nature of the rewards that we will receive after our judgment? And if there are any rewards that God gives to us, what are those rewards going to be? What is that going to be like? And how will that affect our experience of eternity? I want to talk about all of that, but I hope to get to that next week. What I want to talk about today as an introduction to this whole concept of reward is I want to take more of an introduction approach to this whole theme of reward and consider it for a minute together. Paul very clearly states here in this one verse, and let's read this verse again. In verse 14, if any man's work which he has built on it, and that's on this foundation, If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. Now the work that he's talking about here is specifically in context the work that he had done in first laying a foundation for the Corinthian church, the work that Apollos later came and added to, and built on top of this foundation. And by extension, he's talking even beyond his own work and Apollos' work, because he's using this to now teach the Corinthians about any work that they will do in the service of God's kingdom, and in the context of church life and service. And the point is, is that he says on this day, this day in which all of our lives will be evaluated, God is going to be evaluating them for the purpose of determining whether or not After he's considered all that we've done, we will receive a reward, or as he describes in the next verse that follows, actually lose reward. We'll talk a little bit more about the detail of the possibility of the loss of reward next week. But what I want us to consider this morning is just the idea that God is going to assign rewards to us. I know some believers, I've talked to some believers who are actually kind of uncomfortable with the idea about even the possibility of receiving a reward on the day of judgment. And I think that discomfort is attached to what seems to be a spiritual perspective. It's kind of like the idea of this. I know that on the final day, I'm going to stand in the presence of the Lord and I'm going to have all of my life evaluated. all of my thoughts, all of my words, all of my deeds. And they're going to be evaluated not just from the standpoint of how I think they are, how good or bad I think my own thoughts, words, and deeds are, but they're going to be evaluated from God's perspective. They're going to be evaluated the way He looks at things. And I think there's built into each one of us a perspective, an understanding that even my best efforts are going to fall short of perfection. They're going to fall short of what they could have been, how good it could have been. I could, for instance, in my service to the Lord this morning, as I'm teaching God's word, that's this part of the work that God has graced me to do in serving His purposes in the kingdom. I could do the very best job I've ever done in my entire life of teaching God's word to you this morning, and it would fall short of what it really should be. what it really should be. The ability that I have, even with the grace of God, to communicate God's Word to you in the way that you need to hear it and understand it, is going to fall short of perfection. And so there's this built-in sense of discomfort of, well, if I do this work that God has given me to do, there's the possibility that God is going to reward me for an inherently imperfect thing. And that doesn't quite seem right, does it? In one sense. It doesn't quite seem right that God would give me a reward for something that I haven't really done all that great of a job. at to begin with, and yet there's an importance for us to see in this whole concept and theme of reward. The importance has to do with the Lord, of course, first and foremost, like all things on the Day of Judgment, and it has to do also with us and the impact and influence God wants that idea to have on the rest of our lives as we live out our lives before Him in this present time. Let's turn first from here to the book of Hebrews, chapter 11. Before we consider the idea of reward as it relates to us, I want to consider for a moment the idea of reward as it relates to the Lord Himself. And my goal this morning is to eliminate once and for all any hesitation or any measure of discomfort any one of you would ever have about the possibility and the consideration that God intends to evaluate your life for the purpose of giving you a reward on the Day of Judgment. We shouldn't be discomforted by that thought. We shouldn't be, even to a degree, uncomfortable with that thought. We should be, with great joy, anticipating that possibility and that reality that's to come. Hebrews chapter 11, we'll read from verse 1. This is, of course, the very well-known chapter in the book of Hebrews describing the testimony of different individuals that lived out lives of faith before God in different life circumstances. We'll read the first six verses here together. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith, we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. By faith, Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts. And through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks. By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death, And he was not found because God took him up. For he obtained the witness that before his being taken up, he was pleasing to God. And without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him. Now we all understand and I think are comfortable with and would readily ascribe to put our names you know, on the list of people that accept and believe this basic statement about our relationship to God. He who comes to God must believe that He is. It's almost a statement that's self-evident. In other words, it's very difficult to actually approach God in spiritual reality if in your heart you don't believe God even exists. So it's fundamental and foundational to a relationship with God to have a starting point of true faith that God has given birth to in your heart, that you believe in the existence of God. And because he exists, he's someone that should be sought out for his purposes and for relationship with him. But there's a second phrase in this formula, which is, it's really a statement of faith. face of a believer's heart in terms of what we believe about our relationship with God. And what I want us to see is this concept of reward is not just some add-on thing that God tacks on to the back end of our relationship with Him. What I want us to grasp out of this verse is that God communicates to us that the concept of reward, the possibility of future reward in His presence before His throne on the Day of Judgment is foundational to a healthy Christian life and relationship with God. Let's read verse 6 again. Without faith, it's impossible to please Him. And this is the nature of the faith that does please Him. He's about to describe it. He who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. Now, this is one of the little known names of God that's found in the Bible. I say little known because how many times have you consciously stopped and focused on or heard anyone else focus on the idea that foundational to God's nature is God is a rewarding God. God is a rewarder of those who seek Him. That means that this isn't just something that God does on the side after He takes care of the more important stuff that He does as God. This is fundamental to what God has in His heart in His relationship toward His people. So why is it important that on the Day of Judgment our lives will be evaluated for the purpose of reward? Because this gives opportunity, full and final fulfillment opportunity for God to express the fullness of His nature to us as a rewarder of those who through their lives diligently sought Him. And what will that lead us to? The idea that we'll see fully and finally on the Day of Judgment how much of a rewarder God really is. The glory of that is this, and I think all of us can readily say amen to this idea. On the Day of Judgment, it's going to be seen, and we're going to get it fully. We get it now, but we don't get it as fully as we will get it. We're going to see how important the cross really, really is to our lives on the Day of Judgment, when our every thought, word and deed is exposed in all of its ugliness on On that day, in His presence, under the gaze of His all-seeing eyes, when that's all brought to the light and exposed, we're going to be very, very, very thankful for the cross on that day. And when we see that, we'll have this understanding within us. And we get this now, but again, we'll get it even more then. We'll have this understanding that if all we receive from the Lord on that day is salvation, will that be enough? Will that be sufficient? Will we be happy? You know how it is on, you know, Christmas morning. You know, you have this anticipation of the possibility of what you might receive. Now, I know it's better to give than receive. That's a true biblical principle. But there's also the joy of receiving, isn't there? And if you have an anticipation of receiving a gift, and that gift is not quite up to the level of what your expectation was, have any of you ever experienced even a measure or a moment of disappointment in having received some inadequate gift on that day? Has anybody ever experienced that? Okay, on the Day of Judgment, when the Lord evaluates our lives and shows us our every thought, word, and deed, and then in that display highlights the significance of the cross as the Lamb of God who sits upon the mercy seat, the throne of mercy and grace. We're going to not even have a shred of a moment of a thought that, oh, you know what, Lord, that's a pretty nice gift, but that's not quite what I was hoping for. Right? We're going to be overwhelmed with the sense of appreciation for what we didn't deserve, which is salvation. But, God, in the display of His mercy and grace, isn't stopping there. He's going to pour out over and above the grace and glory of His grace of salvation by also rewarding us for our imperfect service and in rewarding us for our imperfect service, He is going to magnify His graciousness to us even more. And that's the importance of why we need to be evaluated for reward apart from us entirely, because it's ultimately on that day going to mean a greater display of God's glory in His generosity and in His undeserved graciousness to us in not just saving us and allowing us to squeak in by the skin of our teeth, but to, on top of that, to pour out upon us rewards, as we'll see next week, that are going to change our experience of all of eternity. And all of that being undeserved. All of that being undeserved. Now let's turn from this passage in Hebrews that identifies God as a rewarder, and let's go back to the Old Testament for a moment together. Deuteronomy 28. What I want us to see, I could take us through dozens of passages that will establish this, but I think one will be sufficient. What I want us to see is this concept of God being a rewarder is not just something that starts on the Day of Judgment. This is something like what Clint was describing about our spiritual heritage this morning. This is something that's part of how God has related to us as his people from the very beginning of all of history. This passage in Deuteronomy 28, we certainly won't read the whole chapter, I'm just going to highlight a couple of verses from it. It's a very long chapter. This is the famous chapter known as the Blessings and the Cursings. The context here is God has just delivered His children, Israel, out of Egypt. He's brought them out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, delivered them gloriously, saved them, He's led them with His mighty hand through the wilderness for 40 years. He's sustained them with bread from heaven. He's poured out water from the rock. He's dealt with enemies on their behalf. He has forgiven many, many rebellions and sins that have occurred during this 40-year period. And now he brings them to the edge of the promised land. He's brought them to the edge of the River Jordan and he's identified from here, his plan and purpose for them is to move them across the River Jordan into the land that he had promised back to Abraham generations before and now is going to fulfill under the leadership of Joshua. But before he brings them into the promised land, he wants them to see and to understand all that he's done for them. So the book of Deuteronomy is really a rehearsal of all that God has done for them, and it's a rehearsal of the salvation that God has accomplished for their lives. And like us on the Day of Judgment, the children of Israel should be more than happy that they've been delivered out of Egypt. If God never did another thing for them, they have so much to praise God for because they've been delivered from slavery, delivered out of Egypt, and carried this far. But now God is going to take them in, and before He takes them in, He wants them to understand that He's taking them in in the context of a new level of relationship with them as His people. He calls them now into a covenant relationship. And in rehearsing the responsibilities and obligations of the covenant, He's going to give them in chapter 28 here, a list of all of the ways that God is going to respond to their responses to Him. And I don't want to confuse you there, but basically God has said, this is the way I want you to live. And he said this to them 40 years prior, when he brought Moses to the mountaintop, gave him the tablets of stone with the commandments that represented God's standard of righteousness for their lives. And he called them to obedience. And all the people around that mountain in unison and with one voice that day said, yes, amen, Lord, we will keep these laws. And of course, they were breaking them before they even had the sentence completely out of their mouths. And there's a whole history that goes along with that, but the bottom line is God is now saying, that is my standard for your life, and what I want you to understand is this, to the degree that you keep my law, this is what I'm going to do, reading in Deuteronomy 28.1, Now it shall be, if you diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments which I command you today, The Lord, your God, will set you high above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the Lord, your God. And from there he goes on to give the specifics of what that's going to look like, and just to get a flavor. Blessed shall you be in the city. Blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the offspring of your body, and the produce of your ground, and the offspring of your beasts, the increase of your herd, and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. And on and on and on. God is saying, look, if you will obey me, if you'll keep my laws I've commanded you and called you to do, this is what I'm going to do for you. Now did God owe them the blessing for their obedience? No. Why? Why wouldn't He owe them blessing for their obedience? Well, because they are the servants of God. And it's their responsibility to serve, whether they're rewarded for their service or not. God calls them to serve. He appoints them to serve. They owe, as servants, their obedience. But God does not owe a reward of blessing for their response. He's free, though, if He chooses to do so, to pour out a blessing as a reward for their obedience. And that's exactly what He promises to do. If you will obey Me, I will give you this, not as something that's owed to you, but as something that's pleasing to Me to pour out upon your lives. And the question I would want to ask is, why does God, and this is in history, this isn't even looking yet in the fullness at the final day of judgment when God rewards us, But why do you think in history God rewards us with blessing when we obey His standards of what He says is right and wrong, the way that He wants us to live? Why would He reward us with blessing? Well, He wants to encourage us to do what? To presume upon His blessings and start ignoring His law at that point? The whole point of the reward of blessing is to encourage greater obedience. All right? Now, we can look at that, as some believers have and say, but isn't that kind of a fleshly thing that, you know, we're in a sense, aren't we kind of bribing? Isn't the Lord kind of bribing His people to keep doing what's right by, if they do one right thing, pouring out a blessing on them so that they'll do a second right thing? Shouldn't they just do the second right thing because it's right? And the answer is, yes, they should, but they're human, and so they don't. And so what God does is He accommodates their humanness and He pours out blessing in order to encourage greater and greater righteousness. God has, and this is something that is important for us to grasp, God has designed us as human beings to be motivated by the hope of reward. We're designed to be motivated by the hope of reward. And every single one of us lives our lives in our relationship with God, with that perspective, whether we're fully aware of it or not, and we live out our lives on a practical level in our relationship with each other and with other systems out here in this world in the same way. Those of you who go to work to earn a wage, what you're doing is you're working in hope of what? The wage. Would you continue in your present work responsibilities day after day after day if you never received the wage at the end of your work? You'd probably find other work that did have a wage attached to it. And that is designed as part of God's economy to be the way He wants us to think about our relationship with Him. Now, of course, the question is, should that be the first thought in our mind? No, of course, the first thought in our mind should be, Lord, I want to serve you, whether you ever bless me or not, I want to do what's right, whether you ever reward me or not, but I shouldn't take a step too far and say, but I don't want a reward for serving you. Because, you know, that's a fleshly thing. It's not a fleshly thing to be rewarded if God's the one that's giving the reward, if God's the one that's promising it, if God is the one that's placing it in front of your perspective and saying, Look at what you can have if you will simply obey me. God wants us to be motivated by that possibility, by the promise, the hope of being rewarded from Him. Let's look down in verse 15. The other side of the equation, of course, the curses. And it is a sad testimony, not of the Lord's nature and character and ways, but a sad testimony of our our tendency toward one category or the other that in this chapter, if you want to read the whole chapter in your own time, it's a total of 68 verses in chapter 28. 14 of them cover the blessings that God promises. 15 through 68 covers the curses. The curses far outweigh the blessings. Now, why is that? Well, in the same way, kind of like a parent who offers promise and hope of an allowance at the end of a week's worth of obedience, Versus if you disobey for the following week, this is what you can anticipate at the end of the week by way of punishment, by way of discipline. The Lord does the same thing for his people who have a tendency, and especially in the old covenant, an even greater tendency toward disobedience. But let's read verse 15. It shall come about if you do not obey the Lord your God to observe, to do all his commandments and his statutes with which I charge you today, that I'll bless you anyway, because I'm just such a giving God. Right? Know that I will. to do all His commandments and statutes, which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you." In both cases, there's an overtaking that happens. The idea of overtaking, it's pursuit terminology. It's like a hunt. It's like we're the one being pursued in relationship to God. And God has His purposes that He has in His heart to be worked out in our lives. And the idea here is that God, the whole reason God puts this language of overtaking in both of these sections, is that God is more committed to His purpose being worked out in our lives than we are to have His purpose worked out. And so He will pursue us and cause either the blessing or the curse. to overtake us, meaning we can't run away from it, we can't escape it. There's not any neutral territory here. You're either living under the blessing of God in your obedience, in your relationship with Him, or you're living under the curse of God because of your rebellion and disobedience. There's no neutral territory where I'm just glad I got away from His attention and nothing has overtaken me, nor will it, because I run faster than God. It just doesn't work that way, of course. And so we'll either be blessed or we'll be cursed according to some arbitrary decision on God's part on that day. We'll be blessed or we'll be cursed according to what we deserve. And that's the other aspect here. And let's dig into this just a little bit. But let's do this. Let's go from here back to the book of Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11, again, this is the chapter on faith and testimony of various individuals who lived lives of significance and notable faith. And this is from the example of Moses' life, the testimony of Moses, who responded in his relationship with God in a heart of faith in a specific testing circumstance. We'll read Hebrews 11, 24 through 26. By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Remember, Moses was, because of the unusual circumstance that was taking place in Egypt at that time, Moses was raised in Pharaoh's household as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. But when he grew up, there became a test for Moses, and that was he was tested as to whether he would ultimately identify with Pharaoh and his household, or whether he would ultimately identify himself as one of the people of God, the children of Israel. The test, of course, was that Moses choosing the children of Israel was choosing to be identified as a member of an enslaved nation. Whereas if he had simply remained in Pharaoh's household, he would be a prince over Egypt. And so he chose, in verse 25, after refusing to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, he chose rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. Considering the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures of Egypt for. In other words, this word for identifies this is how. Moses was able to pass this test that was placed before him. How was he able to give up the luxuries, the power, the privilege of being a prince in Egypt and choosing instead of that, the abuse and ill treatment and hardship of being identified as one of an enslaved nation in that same nation of Egypt? How did he do that? How did he give the one thing up in order to embrace what would normally and naturally be a much worse situation? He did it because in verse 26, he was looking to the reward. Now, what I want us to see here, and I think this is the Lord's emphasis for us. We talk about how we pass tests in our lives by looking to the Lord. And of course, we should always look to the Lord, especially when we're being tested. But I want us to see that Moses didn't pass this test just by the statement, he was looking to the Lord. And by looking to the Lord, he passed the test. What was his attention specifically focused on? The reward. What reward? It certainly wasn't an immediate reward of, hey, look what you get, Moses, you get to be abused with the rest of the children of Israel. That's no reward. There was no short-term reward for Moses. The whole concept here is that Moses gave up a short-term pleasure of avoiding abuse as part of the Israelites and enjoying the privileges of position as a member of Pharaoh's household. He gave up that short-term blessing in order to gain a longer-term blessing of the reward of God. The reward that's being talked about here is the reward that comes at the end of a life that's lived out according to the plan and purposes of God. By embracing God's call in his life to be who he was called to be, a servant of God, a member of the children of Israel, a prophet and a leader of those people, he was looking to what God would someday give him at the end of the whole story. And by looking to that reward, he found grace and faith to do what he had to do in his present life circumstance. How important is it for us to have a perspective on the future promise of God to reward our lives on the Day of Judgment? I'll say it this way. You will need to focus your attention on the rewards that are awaiting you on that day to get through what is ahead of you. Now, I don't know what is ahead of you individually any more than you know what's ahead of me individually. But I can guarantee you this, there are tests ahead of you. Tests that will be to you as great as this test was for Moses. And will require a spiritual perspective and faith to get through it that will need a perspective that's fixed, anchored, and focused on the promise of reward that God is making to your life if you will obey Him and make the hard choice now. so that on that day, he will give you what he promises to give you. Now, Moses is a great example, but he's not the ultimate one. Let's turn one chapter over. Hebrews chapter 12. Again, what I'm dealing with here is the importance of reward in God's economy for his people. Hebrews 12, we'll read from verse 1. The therefore is referring back to all of the testimonies, including Moses. that we just read about in this chapter of faithful servants of God. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses like Moses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of faith, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." The writer of Hebrews' point is that these believers that he's writing to were in a special testing circumstance. There was a circumstance that was going to influence them and even lead them to grow weary and even lose heart in their walk with the Lord, to give up, to turn back, to stop walking faithfully and diligently with the Lord. The test was going to be that severe upon them. And there will be sooner or later, inevitably, in each one of our lives, that level of test that we have to face. And there are the even lower level daily tests that we all face as to whether in the moment of truth we do what we know is right and what's pleasing to God or we do what we just feel like doing at that moment. And in that test, Jesus himself was tested. His test was And this is really in reference to the whole circumstance of God's call and purpose for His life. God gave, of course, to Jesus a special assignment above and beyond any assignment any of us will ever be given. And His assignment, ultimately, was to lead Him to the cross. And we see in the circumstance of the Garden of Gethsemane, the Lord Jesus anticipating the nearness of the cross, the very night that this was all supposed to unfold. And He full well knew what was coming. He was not, to any degree, in the dark about what he should expect. He was about to be arrested. He was about to be falsely accused. His reputation was going to be destroyed in the eyes of the community. He was going to be beaten. He was going to be whipped. He was going to be tortured in various means. His beard was going to be ripped out. He was going to be spat upon. And then he was going to be nailed to a cross that he did not, to any degree, deserve. And in all of that, there was one foundational, fundamental, motivating thing that drove him to endure all of that. What was it that drove him, motivated him to endure? Let's read again, verse 2. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, and the idea here is fixing our eyes on Him as an example, as a model for us to follow. the author and perfecter of faiths who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has reached the other side of the ultimate test by sitting down now at the right hand of the throne of God. But what was it that motivated him to be able to endure the cross and the shame that came with the cross? He did it all for reward. What was His reward? The joy that was set before Him. Now what that joy includes, of course, I'm sure it includes the Father's approval, which was the deepest, most fundamental motivator of His entire heart and life. But it also included the promise of us, the promise of what His work on the cross would accomplish in each one of our lives. The scripture teaches us that we were in his heart and mind before the foundation of the world, and I don't think he forgot about us on that night when he was considering whether it was worth the price that he had to pay in order to purchase us with his own sacrifice, his own blood. And in all of that, what motivated him to endure that pain, that suffering, that torment, that shame, was for the joy of the reward that was waiting him in the presence of God. And I don't know if you've ever really considered that before, but the primary motivation of Jesus's work of the cross for his own heart was the reward that was waiting for him in the presence of God after the assignment is accomplished. He describes for us in other places that in coming to be born as a human being, he left heaven on God's special assignment that could only be given to Him. He laid aside all of His privileges, all of His glory, all of His power, all of His authority, and He came and was born as a human being and endured life, which is, as we all know, hard enough. And then, on top of all of that, He endured the cross, which He didn't deserve. But all of it was endured, not just for the sake of to see if He could do it, It was endured for the joy that was set before him. He's our ultimate example. Jesus is motivated by reward. God has designed us and called us to follow his example and to be a people that are motivated by reward also, not for selfish purposes, but for understanding this is the plan of God. This is the purpose of God for us to live our lives with an eye and a perspective focus on what it's all going to mean on that day when we stand in his presence. And it's all evaluated. Now let's just stop and pray there. Father, we live out our lives motivated by such low things. And you call us to a much higher motivation. You promise us glorious reward that will mean something not just special on that day, but is going to change and affect the way we experience eternity. I pray, Father God, that you would cause that perspective to take root in each one of our hearts and change and transform the way we live out our lives. I ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.