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me if you would to Colossians
chapter 3. We're going to begin our study
where we left off last week. We're continuing one final week
on this theme of the rewards for the believers on the Day
of Judgment. We've been studying for some
weeks now about what is to come at the end of all of history
for all people. We've seen that the Lord is going
to return, the Lord Jesus Christ is going to return to this world,
and He is going to have what the Bible describes as a Day
of Judgment in which He will, from His throne of glory and
authority, He will evaluate the lives of every single person
that's ever lived. And he will separate them into two distinct
categories. The categories are what are called
sheep and goats. And the sheep are those that belong to him,
those that he identifies as worthy of reward. They are the believers. And we've been studying for just
the last few weeks what that day is going to be experienced
like, what it's going to be like for the sheep. the judgment of
the believers. And we've seen that the Lord
is going to judge all of us as believers for two main purposes,
and that is ultimately for Him to be glorified in our lives
in the greatest and most ultimate sense on that day. And then beyond
that, He is also going to evaluate us for the purpose of actually
rewarding us, giving something to us as a recompense and a return
for our faithfulness and our service to Him. But we've also
identified it's not just that any service is worthy of being
rewarded by the Lord on that day, only the service that the
Lord says is valuable to Him. It's not a matter of our own
evaluation, it's what the Lord says is worthy of being rewarded. And He is going to inspect all
of our lives, He's going to inspect in particular those things that
we've done since the day that we were saved, and He is going
to determine where those activities belong. We've been talking in
terms of these two piles of activities as the Lord looks out over the
whole course of our Christian life. And we've seen that some
of those things the Lord is going to look at and identify as being
valuable to Him. He's calling them gold, silver,
and precious stone type of activity. Activity that has lasting value,
that has significance to Him. And He's going to reward us for
that. Other activity, He calls more wood, hay, and straw kind
of activity. It's going to be burned up in
the evaluation process. And really, it's only going to
matter what all of the activity, all the work that we do, it's
only going to matter what lasts or survives His inspection. It
wasn't long ago that Sammy and I had the blessing of getting
a new roof put on our house. And we've, you know, we've needed
a new roof, and so we were saving up for that purpose, and we're
finally able to get a roof on the house. And once we got, I
mean, it's a beautiful job. The work, to my eye, looks awesome. And it certainly is functioning.
We've had several rains since then. We had leaks before, no
leaks anymore. And so I'm totally and completely
happy. And you know what? All that matters
about my new roof is what I think about it, right? Wrong. Because there's this little detail
in the city government known as the roof inspector. And the
roof inspector has to come out and he has to evaluate the work
himself. And of course, he's going to
be looking at the roof in a different perspective than I am. And he's going to
examine that roof. And if he finds that it passes
his standards, meets his his standard that he has to work
according to, then the roof gets his stamp of approval and it
really becomes a good roof. What happens if the roof inspector
though happens to come to my house and looks at the roof that
I think is just great and he says, I'm sorry, this isn't going
to do. You're going to have to start
all over again. Will I look at him and say, ha
ha ha, this is a wonderful roof. No, of course not. What I'm going
to say is, oh, you're kidding me. I've got to tear the roof
off and start all over again? He says, well, either that or,
you know, you just have to pay the penalties. You know, in other
words, the whole idea is the standard of judgment is not based
upon how I feel, how I think. The standard of judgment is outside
myself. And that's going to certainly
be the case on this day of judgment where the Lord is going to look
at all of our labors. And what we've identified and
what is most significant about this concept is that What the
Lord is looking for is how faithful we were to fulfill our assignments
that were received from Him. And the whole concept here is
that the Lord has given assignment to each one of us, life assignments,
and that those are what He's going to be evaluating on that
day. So I might fill my life with all kinds of even Christian
activity, But if I haven't fulfilled my life assignment, I'm going
to find a surprise on that day when he sits down and asks me,
what have you done with what I gave you to do? And how did
you go about carrying that out? So we've looked at that in some
detail, but I want to shift focus in this final week as we look
at rewards. And I've been promising to spend a week just on this
one question, and that is, You know, what are our rewards? But
before we go there, I want to read this passage from Colossians
3 because we've been on this theme now for a number of weeks.
I look back in my outline, in terms of this last days, last
things study focus, we've actually been studying this, and this
hasn't been all consecutive weeks because we've had some other
weeks in between on other themes, but we've been studying this,
just this theme for 29 weeks now. So that's actually over
half of a year's time. And have you ever heard the saying
before, a person can be so heavenly minded they're no earthly good?
Yeah. Is that a true statement? No,
it's not. That's as wrong of a statement
as you can ever believe in your entire life. All right. Read
with me in Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3, verse 1.
This is Paul's practical exhortation. shifting of gears in the book
of Colossians. What Paul does, and you're mostly familiar with
this, I think, in all of his letters, he starts out his letters
with high-level doctrinal instruction. And then somewhere in each one
of his letters, he shifts gears toward the end of the letter,
and he starts talking about how this affects the way you actually
really live out your lives. Very practical, very hands-on,
rubber-meets-the-road kind of stuff. Colossians chapter three
is that shifting of gears. First two chapters, he's been
dealing with only high level doctrinal stuff. Now he's going
to talk about how this should affect our lives. But before
he does, this is how he transitions. Verse one. Therefore, if you
have been raised up with Christ and the implication is for all
believers, we all have been raised up with Christ. Keep seeking
the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of
God. Set your mind on the things above. Not on the things that are on
earth. So heavenly minded, you're no
earthly good, right? Set your mind on the things above. This
is not a word of encouragement. Sometimes the Lord will inspire
one of the apostles to speak in a very encouraging way. This
is not a word of encouragement. This is a word beyond even of
exhortation. This is a word of command. And
the verb tense that Paul uses in the original here is communicating
a commandment of the Lord. This is what the Lord wants from
his people. He wants us as his people to
do this with our focus, our mental focus. Set your mind on the things
above. And that'd be fine if he just
stopped there and put a period after the word above, because
what we would do with that concept is, okay, we've got to think
about all these things here on earth, but what we also need
to do is add to that setting our minds on things above. But
he doesn't stop at above, he continues on and says, not on
the things that are on the earth. Now what does that mean? He's
saying, now let me flip the traditional saying, he's saying, you can
be so earthly minded that you're no heavenly good. As a believer,
as a Christian, you can be so focused on the things on this
earth that you miss out the bigger picture perspective of what God
is planning to accomplish in your life now, but for the sake
of eternity. See, I think the whole goal here,
the concept here is that the Lord is gearing all of our lives
for eternity. Everything that we're doing,
every moment of our lives is geared in the Lord's perspective
for the sake of eternity. And ultimately, when we get there,
only eternity is going to matter. Our lives now are just the preparation
for that moment, which will last forever. So, why have I spent
29... This is an apologetic for why,
and you understand the difference between an apology and an apologetic.
An apology is, I'm sorry that I've spent 29 weeks doing this. I'm not sorry I spent 29 weeks
doing this. This is an apologetic, which means to make a defense.
I'm making a defense of why I've spent so much time on heavenly
things. on things that are in the future,
things that apparently, at first glance, don't have a whole lot
to do with how we're living out our lives today. What I'm wanting
us to see is that by setting our minds on the things above,
not on the things on the earth, what we're doing is we're actually
equipping ourselves practically to live out the rest of our lives
in a way that we would not otherwise. So with that, turn with me, if
you would, from there to the book of Revelation, chapter 22,
last chapter in the Bible. And I said, what we would focus
on in this last study on our reward is what actually are our
rewards. What are the rewards that will
be given on that day? We've talked all around the concept.
We've identified that... that there is a day of judgment.
We've identified that on that day, the Lord is going to evaluate
us for the purpose of a potential reward and potential loss of
reward. And the reality is that we are
going to be rewarded on that day. That's a fact. But what
our actual reward is, is not as clear in Scripture. Now, I
think there's what I would consider to be enough healthy and holy
hints in scripture about that future reward, that we can study
it and we can look at it together. But it's not as clear as some
of the material we've covered up till now. But in Revelation
22, let's just start with this description by the Lord Jesus
himself. And we're going to read a single verse, verse 12, quoting
the Lord Jesus speaking. He says, Behold, I am coming
quickly. And my reward is with me, to
render to every man according to what he has done. Behold,
I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me, to render to every
man according to what he has done." Okay, so we're anticipating
the coming of the Lord. We're anticipating that when
He comes, He's bringing something with Him. And what He's bringing
with Him is what He calls, my reward. My reward is with me. So the question I'm asking this
morning is, what is it He's bringing? What is it we're going to be
given? What is our reward? And before we look at our own
perspectives and before we look at what the Bible actually has
to say about this, what little there is said about it, I want
to talk for just a moment about why I think this is worthy of
our consideration. and why I'm a little bit hesitant,
actually, in this study today, more than I normally am in Bible
study. I'm going to be speculating a
little bit this morning with you in Scripture. And I usually
don't like to speculate about what the Bible teaches in particular
areas. I'm more comfortable to say,
this much is clear, and the rest is open, and it's possible, and
go and take a look at this yourself. But I don't want to focus a lot
of my attention on possibilities, on speculations. But in this
one area, I think we're forced to do that because this is an
area when we're considering our reward that none of us... What
we're talking about is an undiscovered country. None of us have ever
been there before. None of us have ever experienced it. And
not just none of us, even the saints who have passed on and
are in the presence of the Lord themselves, Paul who wrote these
things, John who wrote these things, they themselves have
not experienced this yet. because that day of judgment
has not occurred. None of them have received the
reward that was promised yet. They're patiently waiting, just
like we are, for that day. And what little we have to understand
about this is strictly what the Lord reveals, because He's the
only one, of course, that knows what He's going to give on that
day. But I do think it's worthwhile
to talk about what is revealed so that we can avoid the kind
of errors that human beings throughout all of history have fallen into.
And this certainly extends beyond the Christian faith and beyond
Christian perspective. I'll use one. It's a fairly easy
target, but it's familiar to all of us, and it's something
that we've heard in the news in recent months, of course.
And that is, you know, Muslims, faithful Muslims, godly Muslims,
and I say godly in their perspective, of course, Faithful and committed
Muslims. They live out their lives for
the sake of eternity. They live out their lives with
a concept, like the Christian religion, that there's going
to be a day of judgment. They believe that. And they believe
that on that day of judgment, their lives are going to be evaluated
and either given reward or have reward withheld from them. To
that degree, that's a very biblical concept that they hold in their
own religion. And as you know, all false religions are more
or less a mixture of truth and error. And there is some truth
even in the Muslim religion. That much that I've described
is true. The problem is, of course, what they anticipate is going
to be their reward on that final day when they have their lives
evaluated. Why do you think these young,
like I saw a news program recently where they were interviewing
a Palestinian family and there was a young teenage boy who was
thrilled because his older brother had given to him a vest, a special
vest that was lined with explosives. And he was going to be, he hadn't
done it yet by the time of the interview, but his plan was to
take this vest, to put it on and to go find a target somewhere
in Israel and to blow himself up. And this was a young man
of probably 16 years old. And as they were interviewing
him, he was actually with great anticipation looking forward
to this future event that he had planned out. He was happy,
he was joyous as he was describing it. And why do you suppose a
young 16-year-old man would do something like that with his
life? Because yeah, he was weighing the rest of his few years here
on earth against something that in his mind was far greater and
for all of eternity. And what he was anticipating
was this. He was anticipating, and he's been taught this by
the teachers of the Muslim religion, Islam. He was anticipating that
he was going to from the day after he exploded himself for
all of eternity, experienced a feast in a garden-like setting
in which he was going to be served all of the most delicious foods
he could ever want to eat for as long as he wanted to eat them,
and he was going to be attended by servants that would be there
to serve his needs, and specifically attended by 72 young females
that were there strictly for his pleasure. And because he
really believes that, he is going to be willing to blow himself
up in hope and anticipation of acquiring that very thing. Now,
of course, I don't think I have to go into detail as to why this
concept that he's willing to sacrifice his life for is wrong,
and why it's not a biblical concept. But I want you to understand
this. There's something about what he's doing that's not far
off from what many believers do. And that is he's considering
the concept of reward from what perspective? a fleshly, natural,
human perspective. In fact, let me read to you a...
this is a comment made by a Islamic teacher about this concept. As this has come out more and
more in the news, there have been people that have been saying,
you know, that's kind of ridiculous that this is what these people
are living for. And this is how he explains why this is a true
concept for Islam. He says, It is the reasonableness of the
Islamic law that a glance which accidentally falls on something
which is not permissible to see is forgiven. And he's talking
about here a man looking at a woman in a particularly unhealthy way.
I really do not understand how can a person with even a cursory
knowledge and exposure of human nature criticize this aspect
of reward mentioned in the Quran in lieu of an exemplary pious
conduct in this present life. The Quran has simply stated that
in the life hereafter, man shall be granted all these things that
he strongly desired to possess in the life of this world, but
he refrained from doing so to God's consciousness and due to
which many a time he is driven away from the path of the Lord's
liking. On the contrary, the Noble Qur'an has simply assured
man there is no harm in this attraction if one's behavior
is controlled within the boundaries of Islamic law. It has assured
man that if, in the life of this world, man would control himself
within the boundaries, his Lord in His infinite mercy shall grant
him on that day all that he desired to get but from which he refrained
himself. In other words, the whole point
of this Islamic teacher is this is the idea of our eternal reward.
There are things you want right now really, really badly, but
that you know it's not right for me to have that. God has
not allowed me to have that. I shouldn't have that. And yet
he's saying the reward is God is going to give you all of that
then. You don't get it now, but when you get there, God will
give you all of those things that you so craved now. And that's
going to be the nature of your eternal reward, the fulfillment
of all of your natural cravings in abundance to satisfaction
for all of eternity. Now, that's a problem because
As I said, even believers can indulge in that kind of thing.
Years ago I told this story, I don't know if any of you remember
this, but I had a good friend as a brand new believer. This
was actually the first believer that I had any kind of Christian
relationship with after I came to know the Lord. A friend of
mine by the name of Ken. He and I used to discuss eternity
and heaven and what it was going to be like. And I'll never forget
the day he told me of his concept of heaven. And Ken was a true
believer. He knew the Lord. He loved the
Lord with all of his heart. He lived his entire life in the
service of the Lord. And this is what he was looking
forward to as his personal reward. He believed that God in heaven
has created compartments for each one of us, kind of like
where the scripture says, I'll go to prepare a home for you.
And he took that concept to mean that God has specially designed
a place for each one of us, a place that's going to be the satisfaction
of our greatest longings, of our greatest enjoyments in this
present life. And Ken was a man who, you know, worked very hard.
In fact, he worked unbelievably hard. He worked like 20 hours
a day on average and worked to exhaustion. And so for him, heaven
was all about not having to work like that any longer and do the
very thing that he really wished he could do here in this present
life. And what he really longed to be able to have more time
to do, everybody has their own thing that they like to do in
their free time. What Ken liked to do was surf. He was a surfer, grew
up as a surfer before he became a working man. And so his whole
idea of eternity was that after meeting the Lord, after having
his life evaluated, that the Lord was going to present him,
kind of introduced him to his own private beach in heaven. And you're laughing, but this
was really what he believed. And his private beach was going
to be the perfect beach. I mean, you see those brochures,
some of you may have even been to one, but nothing like the
beach that was waiting for him. The perfect sand, the perfect
sun, the perfect weather, and most importantly, the perfect
wave. Always. Every wave, the perfect
wave. And he would be surfing and riding
the curl perfectly for eternity. And he was looking forward to
that. I mean, he was his heart was focused in that direction.
Now, I think you understand there's something wrong with that, right?
I mean, is it that God doesn't want us to be satisfied for eternity? You know, is it that, you know,
he wants to withhold from us what we really, really want for
all of eternity, just like right now, we know he withholds things
from us that in our heart we really want. No, it's nothing
to do with that. It's that that approach to considering
eternity is far too low. It's too fleshly. It's too...
it shortcuts. in the wrong kind of way. It
undercuts the glory of what is actually waiting for us. And so what I want to ask you
as we look at these things this morning is this. I think it's
healthy to do a little heart perspective check. I'm going
to briefly describe what I believe is actually waiting for us. And
before I do, I want you to just ask yourself the question, stop
and ask, You're going to be rewarded on
the final day. What is it that you really want to receive? I
mean, I'm going to tell you what I think you're going to receive.
But before I do, consider what is it you really want from the
Lord as your eternal reward. What's valuable enough to you
that would give meaning and significance to your eternity? I hope it's
something better than a perfect beach and a perfect wave. I hope
you desire something far greater than that from Him. All right,
now, with all of that, this is where we move into speculation
here. And I'm doing that unapologetically, but I'm warning you and letting
you know that I cannot say that these things I'm going to describe
to you are absolutely guaranteed to be what is going to be our
reward. This is what I see in Scripture,
and this is what I believe is waiting for us. So, turn with
me if you would to 2 Peter chapter 1, and I'm going to recommend
to you that our reward is going to be a threefold reward. And
I think that's appropriate, not just because I made that up,
but I think that that's how God tends to work in these things.
He tends to work in groups of three. Of course, as an expression
of His triune nature, I think that's appropriate. 2 Peter 1. Remember, I've identified already
that there's going to be, and we talked about this last week
in some detail, there's going to be degrees of reward in heaven,
meaning some of us are going to receive more reward than others
of us. And so in each one of these things,
I want you to think in terms of degrees. I'm going to identify
the three things I think are the actual substance of a reward,
but in each one of these, there are greater and lesser degrees
of experience of these things. So the first is this. I believe
that on the Day of Judgment, what we're going to receive,
first and foremost, is a specific degree of God's glory for us
to have as part of our being for all of eternity. 2 Peter
chapter 1. I'll read from Simon Peter, a bondservant and
apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith of
the same kind as ours by the righteousness of our God and
Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied
to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing
that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to
life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who called
us by his own glory and excellence. For by these, that is by these,
the glory and excellence of the Lord himself, for by these he
has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises. So
that, meaning the whole goal of all that he's done to give
us his precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you
may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption
that is in the world by lust." Now he goes on from verse 4,
and he describes a process of what Christian teachers for generations
have rightly called sanctification. The process of what we consider
to be our growing in the Lord. And when we talk about growing
in the Lord, we're not talking about, you know, our physical
stature changing. We're talking about our spiritual
nature doing something. Our heart, our spirit, our inner
person changing. When you grow in the Lord, your
inner person gets what? Gets bigger, for lack of a better
term. Your inner person gets bigger.
Just like when we talk about a person that's in this natural
world that we live in, first born, and we say, my, and we
come back a few months later, my, how you've grown. What do
we mean? They've gotten bigger. They've
approached their full stature in a greater way than they had
before. Their physical body is growing. When we say someone
is growing in the Lord, what we mean is that they're becoming
more and more like the Lord Himself. They're increasing in this process,
and the whole process is that the Lord The whole goal of the
Christian life is for us to be conformed, as Romans chapter
8 describes, conformed to the image of Christ, meaning it's
a changing process, an internal transformation process where
we become a little bit more and more like Him. Here, Peter describes this goal
of becoming what he calls, and this is kind of a mysterious
phrase. I wish, I really do wish, that the Lord had inspired Peter
to stop and explain this a little bit. You know, add another paragraph
of explanation. He doesn't do that. He just kind
of lays it out there and allows our brains to simmer with this.
And the idea is that you may become partakers of the divine
nature. Now, in one sense, as I was talking
about earlier at communion today, as soon as we're born again,
we partake of the divine nature. To be born of His Spirit and
to be recreated as a new creation in Christ is to partake of His
divine nature. But the question is, is the experience you have
of his divine nature on the day that you're born again, the fullness
of all you will ever experience of his divine nature being made
part of you for the rest of your Christian life. The answer is
no. Progressively, as you grow in him, you partake more and
more and more of his divine nature. So if you've done that fully
and faithfully throughout your entire Christian life, what is
that going to mean for eternity? We'll turn from 2 Peter to 1
Corinthians chapter 15. We'll read about what Paul describes
about the day of resurrection. And he uses some imagery that
I think is helpful to describe what I'm trying to describe here.
1 Corinthians chapter 15. I'll read from verses 40 to 43. It's in the middle. We're picking
up right in the middle of a long conversation about the resurrection
and the nature of the resurrection. And Paul is right now answering
some specific questions about the resurrection body. We did
a study on this together a few weeks ago, but I'm going to pick
up with that and just focus on one particular element here.
Verse 40, there are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. But the glory of the heavenly
is one, and the glory of the earthly is another. There is
one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another
glory of the stars, for star differs from star in glory."
Now right up to this point, all he's talking about is the physical
universe around us. He's talking about astronomy.
And any of you who have ever bothered to look up in the sky
when it was visible, you know, the stars were visible, and have
observed the sun during the day and the moon during the night,
and have observed the various stars as that can be seen from
the perspective of this earth, you'll notice that there are
different degrees of glory among those bodies in the heavens.
And what do we mean different degrees of glory? What he's talking
about very practically here is there's different degrees of
light that can be seen from each one of these heavenly bodies.
Out of these three categories, sun, moon, and stars, which sheds
the most light on the earth? Sun. Which sheds the second most? Moon. Why? Only because the Moon's
closer to the Earth, of course, and it reflects the Sun's light.
And even among the stars, there are different degrees of light
that are shed on the earth, depending upon how close the star is to
the earth, and also, depending upon the star itself, how big
that star is, where it's located, and how much light it's shining
forth. And his point is, as he concludes this, looking at the
end of verse 41, for star differs from star in what? In glory. That means that God
made the stars in the heavens the way that he did on purpose.
Any of you who have gone into any degree of study of astronomy
have come to the realization that not all the stars are identical
in the heavens. There are what scientists call,
astronomers call, red giants, and blue dwarfs, and yellow suns,
and there are just all kinds of different categories. But
they're all different. No two stars are alike. And this is, of course, the fingerprint
of God's handiwork. Just like no two snowflakes are
identical, God distinctly and uniquely created each star with
its own appropriate degree of glory. But they're all more or
less bright than the others. Now, what does this have to do
with our eternity? Paul takes all of this practical perspective
and he focuses on this one point, starting in verse 42. So also
is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body,
it is raised an imperishable body, it is sown in dishonor,
it is raised in glory. The Lord says through Paul that
when we're raised from the dead, we're given brand new physical
bodies, all of us are going to be gloriously raised from the
dead. And there will be, I believe,
actual glory of God emanating from each one of our bodies.
Resurrected bodies. And that is going to be an awesome
and glorious thing. But here's one additional step,
and this is the speculative part. I believe some of us will be
more glorious in our resurrection bodies than others. In fact,
we'll all be on a spectrum of expressing and revealing God's
glory through our resurrection bodies. We'll all be in distinctive
points along that spectrum. There'll be some that will be
fully glorious, more than we can comprehend. Others will just
be minimally glorious, if there is such a thing. minimally glorious. How could that be? Well, we talked
last week about, you know, being saved as though through fire
by the skin of our teeth, someone who has no eternal reward attached
to their salvation. I think that person will experience
a minimal degree of the expression of God's glory through their
resurrected body for all of eternity. Why does that matter? What's
so important about that if you have more glory than I do? for
eternity. Well, here's the thing. One thing
that's going to be understood in a way that we struggle to
understand this now is that this thing of bearing God's glory
is essential to what it means to be a human being. And we don't
give as much weight and significance to this as God himself does.
You remember back in the very beginning of the book in Genesis
chapter one, when God first set himself in the week of creation
to the task of creating humanity, what did he say he was going
to do when he created human beings? He said, let us make man in our
image to bear our likeness. There's something about bearing
the image of God, being like God in expression, that is essential
to your existence. And it's going to be significant
to you for eternity in a way that is not quite that important
to you right now. Being like Him, bearing His image,
Having His glory revealed in you and through you is going
to be the single most important thing to you for all of eternity.
Much more than the perfect wave, or the perfect beach, or any
other concept of what that reward is going to be like. Alright,
let's go to another one. Mark chapter 10. I said there's
a three-fold aspect of our reward. The first aspect is that there
will be degrees of glory. What that really boils down to
is, for eternity, how much will each one of us be like Him? How
much will each one of us be like Him? The second one is what I'm
going to call, and it's in Mark chapter 10, we're going to look
at this. It's what I'm going to call degrees of proximity. The first aspect of reward was
degrees of glory. This is degrees of proximity.
Proximity means the nearness of one thing to another thing.
And I believe that the next aspect of our reward is this. How close
will you and I be to the Lord for all of eternity? And I believe
this, that some of us will be closer to the Lord than others. We'll all be at least minimally
close, meaning none of us are going to be isolated, disconnected.
You know how it is, a person, even someone here might be experiencing
this today, be in the middle of a fellowship of believers
and yet be feeling completely alone and lonely. There won't
be anything like that experience for eternity for us. we will
be fully and completely connected to him. And if he lives inside
of us now, as I was talking about at communion, how much more will
he be living inside of us then? But there's another aspect to
our fellowship with the Lord beyond just him living inside
of us. And that is the actual ramifications of who he is and
how we relate to him in terms of actually coming into his presence,
and we'll see this in Mark chapter 10. This one is hard to describe,
but I think it's worth considering together. We're going to read
from verse 35, where James and John, and these of course are
two young and spiritually rambunctious disciples of the Lord, two of
the apostles of the Lord. These were the two that were
known as the sons of thunder. James and John, the two sons
of Zebedee, came up to Jesus one day saying, Teacher, we want
you to do for us whatever we ask of you. Pretty bold, don't
you think? Lord, here's what I want today.
I want you to do whatever I want you to do. Well, you know, you can take
a shot. There's nothing wrong with taking
a shot. All he could say is no, right?
He said to them in verse 36, well, what do you want me to
do for you? He didn't immediately slap them down. He was open to
hearing their question, their request. They said to him, this
is what we want. Grant that we may sit one on
your right and one on your left in your glory. And when they
say in your glory, what they're talking about is in eternity.
In eternity future, this is what we want. What they're actually
asking him here, it's an awesome request. It's an awesome request. It's not like they're asking
for riches and fame and, you know, the kind of things that
people typically ask for, comfort. They want to be as close as possible
to Him in eternity, for eternity. And they see a scenario in their
minds, and the scenario is they're thinking of the throne of God
in heaven. And they're thinking of proximity
to that throne. Think of it this way. Yes, in
one sense, we're all going to be connected to the Lord. But
in another sense, there really is a throne room in heaven. And
there are, as the book of Revelation describes, myriads of individuals
on that day that are going to be surrounding that throne. Have
you ever been in a large crowd, like maybe at a concert? and
you wanted to get closer to the stage, but you had difficulty
getting there because of the crowd that was between you and
the stage. Now, what I want us to see, and I'm not wanting to
lose the reality that yes, the Lord is going to be living inside
each one of us in eternity, but there's another aspect in which
He is seated on the throne and there are going to be some closer
to that throne and some further away on that day and forever. So he goes on, As they asked
this question, grant that we may sit, one on your right hand,
one on your left, in your glory. And Jesus said to them, you do
not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup
that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?
In other words, his first response was he wants them to understand
that that position has everything to do with how they're living
out their service to the Lord right now. It has everything
to do with what they're doing with their present lives. And
they said to him, we are able. And of course, this is, you know,
typical apostolic presumption, you know, to the point of, yeah,
it's kind of a spiritual arrogance. It is. I mean, yeah, oh, yeah,
we're well able to do that. No problem. We got that covered.
And Jesus said to them, the cup that I drink, you shall drink.
And that cup, of course, is the cup of suffering and carrying
out his life assignment. And you shall be baptized with
the baptism with which I am baptized. And of course, that was the baptism
of the Holy Spirit. So both of those experiences
were awaiting them after his ascension back to heaven. They
were going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, which they experienced
on the day of Pentecost. And then following that, those
two were both going to experience the suffering that comes with
the life assignment that God gave to them as apostles. But,
he says in verse 40, to sit on my right or on my left, And that
right there staggers me. It stops me in my tracks because
the question was, Lord, this is the picture of what we've
got envisioned for eternity. We see you seated on your throne
and we see someone on your left and someone on your right. And
we want to be those two individuals that are given that privilege.
And the Lord doesn't stop them and say, you have got a totally
fleshly perspective of what it's going to be like on that day.
He basically authorizes their perspective. And he says, you're
right, there is going to be someone seated on my left and someone
seated on my right. But the problem for them was,
this is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has
been prepared. Meaning that God has marked out
two individuals, we don't know who, that are going to sit on
the left and the right hand of Jesus for all of eternity. Can
you imagine? I'm not presuming that's going
to be any of us. But can you imagine for a moment
what that would be like? Okay, here's your eternal reward. You get to sit on, okay, maybe
not the right hand, even the left hand of Jesus for all of
eternity. That means you're at the nerve
center of all of existence and creation and all of God's purposes. And you get to be there and hear
everything He says and everything He does and participate at the
core, at the root, at the hub of it all for all of eternity. Is that of any value to you?
Is that of anything that you would be willing to sacrifice
something now for the possibility of getting into one of those
slots then? You know, is it? That's the thing.
And so, you know, of course, we won't emphasize this, but
he goes on because in verse 41, hearing this, the ten began to
feel indignant with James and John. Who are the ten? The other
of the 12 apostles. Why did they feel indignant? Because, hey, wait a second.
Who says you can sit on the left and right hand? You know, yeah. Hey, I'm Peter here. Don't I
get a spot? You know, you know, so obviously
there's some, you know, fleshly perspective that's been folded
into their spiritual perspective here. But the whole idea is,
I do believe there is such a thing as proximity to the Lord on that
day and forever. Revelation chapter 4, turn there
quickly if you would. This is just to confirm that
point. So the question really boils
down to this. Won't we all be equally close to the Lord forever and
ever and ever? The answer is, in one sense, yes, because He's
going to live inside of us, but in another sense, no. No. In
another sense, there'll be some that are closer to the throne.
In the actual economy of the kingdom, meaning the living out
of the administration of his kingdom, forever and ever and
ever, and his kingdom will be forever and ever and ever, there
are going to be closer and further positions from the hub, the center,
from the throne of God. Revelation chapter 4, verse 1,
this is a vision that the Apostle John has of this heavenly scene. After these things I looked,
and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice,
which I had heard like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me,
said, Come up here, and I will show you what must take place
after these things. Immediately I was in the Spirit,
and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and one sitting on
the throne. And he who was sitting was like
a jasper stone, and a sardius in appearance. And there was
a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance.
And verse 4 is one of the most ignored verses in the book of
Revelation in terms of its ramifications for our lives. Around the throne,
and rightly so, the throne in the center gets most of the attention.
But don't ignore the rest. Around the throne were 24 thrones. And upon the thrones, I saw 24
elders sitting, clothed in white garments and golden crowns on
their heads. Golden crowns, of course, crowns
is a symbol, just like thrones are, of what? authority and so
in the throne room of heaven what we have is we have a single
most glorious throne that's in some sense situated in the center
of all things and around we don't have the exact arrangement but
most likely a circular kind of arrangement around the throne
an additional 24 thrones and I've said this phrase before
you you may remember me saying you may not there are a It's
one of the little known facts of the book of Revelation and
of spiritual reality. There is more than a single throne
in heaven. There are a total, at least that we know of, of
25 thrones in heaven. How many times have you heard
someone say there are 25 thrones in heaven? Come on. You just
don't hear that kind of stuff. Why? Because we don't pay attention
to the details. But this detail is significant because this is
something that describes what our eternal experience is going
to be like. Now, here in the Mark passage,
we were just focused because that's all they asked about.
Their perspective was somewhat limited. They could have gone
into more detail in their request. They just asked for the left
and the right hand. They had 22 other slots they could have
been angling for, right? We don't know who these 24 individuals
are other than they're called what? They are called, in verse
4, 24 elders sitting. This is a term that's used to
describe human beings in Scripture. These are not angels. These are
not angelic authorities. These are human authorities.
Who are these 24? There's a lot of speculation
out there about who these 24 might be for the people that
do pay attention to this passage. I'm not going to speculate on
that. That's not my point. I don't even care who these 24 are other
than Is there an outside possibility you could be in one of those
24 slots? Now, I could just hear all of us saying an immediate
dismissal. No way. But why way? Why? Why not? Why couldn't you
be among those 24? Because it's not going to be
a matter of favoritism. You know what I'm saying? It's
not going to be like the Lord just likes the look of you a
little bit better than he likes the look of someone else. How
is he determining who's going to be in these 24 slots? It's
all about reward on that day. It's all about faithfulness in
the present life, not in terms of anything other than, did you
carry out the life assignment that I gave you? Now, these 24
are the only that are mentioned, but that doesn't mean that these
24 are the only that are significant. Let's look on into the book of
Luke, and we'll end with a couple of passages on the third area,
which really overlaps our second area. What we've talked about
is our reward is going to be Degrees of glory, being more
or less like Him forever and ever. We've talked about our
reward being degrees of proximity, which is all about how close
will we be to Him forever and ever and ever. And then the final
area is degrees of responsibility forever and ever and ever. How
much will He assign us for eternity? Because the reward is all about
how faithful we were to what He assigned us in our present
life. But the nature of the reward will be to then flip that coin
and show us that our faithfulness and what He assigned us now will
lead us to a greater assignment for all of eternity. We will
not be like the one traditional image, a bunch of floating people
on clouds strumming harps for eternity. We will be doing stuff. Actively doing stuff for eternity. Really, really, really important
stuff for all of eternity. Stuff that's more important in
its ultimate significance than anything you've done in this
present life. It's going to be big stuff that you're going to
be doing. But what you're given to do for eternity has a lot
to do with how faithfully you did the assignment that he gave
you now. And he will give you a proportionally
bigger assignment depending upon the faithfulness to the present
assignment. Luke chapter 19. I'll start from verse 11. We read
this last week, but I want to emphasize a different aspect
here. While they were listening to these things, Jesus went on
to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and they
supposed that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately.
So he said, a nobleman went to a distant country to receive
a kingdom for himself, and then returned. We saw that the nobleman
is the Lord Jesus himself, leaving to go back to heaven, leaving,
when he does, his servants in areas of responsibility. And
he called ten of his slaves, and gave them 10 minas and said
to them, do business with this until I come back. That's their
life assignment in this present world. But his citizens hated
him and sent a delegation after him saying, we do not want this
man to reign over us. When he returned after receiving
the kingdom, he ordered that these slaves to whom he had given
the money be called to him so that he might know what business
they had done. The first appeared saying, Master, your mina has
made 10 minas more. And he said to him, well done,
good and faithful slave, or well done, good slave, because you
have been faithful in a very little thing. You, as your reward,
I'm reading in here, you are to be an authority over ten more
miners? Ten cities. All right, here's
the thing. Before he leaves, he gives this
slave ten pieces of coin, a certain value. And he says, here's my
assignment. Take care of these ten coins.
and do the right thing with them. So the slave goes out and he
takes, actually it's a single coin, and he makes ten out of
it, and he comes back and delivers that to the Lord for the Lord's
evaluation. The Lord's pleased and happy with what he's done
with what he had given to him. And he has made ten coins out
of the one. And so what is his reward? Does
he let him keep the coins? Does he say, here's some more
coins on top of that as a reward? He gives him an assignment that's
way out of proportion to what he had assigned to him to begin
with. Much larger. Okay, it's like the difference
between this. If I gave you $10 and said, take care of this. And I'm going to come back later
and I'm going to evaluate it. And then I came back and I saw, you
know what? You were very faithful with that ten dollars. You turned
my ten dollars into a hundred and you gave me a hundred dollars
back. OK, here's here's your reward. You are now mayor of
the city of Los Angeles for the rest of your life. Now, what
are you going to do with that? How are you going to take care
of that? I mean, would you look at me kind of funny? Like, wow,
I mean, I just I just took $10 and I invested it and I gave
you back $100. You may be mayor of the city of Los Angeles. What's
that all about? The point is that the Lord has
plans for the future, eternal plans. We will in a couple of
weeks probably look at the nature of the new heavens and the new
earth and what's going to be involved in that. But one of the things
that's going to be involved in that is an ever expanding kingdom of
God in which there will be greater and greater areas and spheres
of responsibility to be managed and to be taken care of. And
this indicates by way of hinting that this is part of our reward. Look over in Luke 22 real quick.
And of course, I didn't read this detail, but in the parable
we just read, the one man who had made 10 minus was given responsibility
over 10 cities. The man who made five minus was
given responsibility over five cities, which implies that there's
going to be degrees of greater and lesser degrees of responsibility
for all of eternity. in God's eternal kingdom. Luke
22 verse 24. There arose also a dispute among
them as to which one of them was regarded as to be greatest.
He said to them, the kings of the Gentiles lorded over them
and those who have authority over them are called benefactors.
But it is not this way among you, but the one who is the greatest
among you must become like the youngest and the leader like
a servant. For who is greater, the one who
reclines at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the
one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as the one
who serves. You are those who have stood
by me in my trials, and just as my Father has granted me a
kingdom, I grant you that you may eat and drink at my table
in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve
tribes of Israel." Now what is that? What does that mean? What's
the promise that the Lord makes to these apostles? He's saying,
you've been with me from the beginning, and just like I was
faithful to my Father's assignment that He gave me, and the reward
was, the Father gave me ultimate authority. Part of Jesus' reward
is He's been given all authority in heaven and on earth and under
the earth. That's part of His reward. Therefore,
is the Father going to give us something different? something
unique? No, he's going to give us a lower
measure of the same exact kind of reward that he gave to the
Lord Jesus himself. We will bear authority over different
aspects of his kingdom in greater or lesser degrees depending upon
our faithfulness in this present life. Now, all of this, as I
said, is somewhat speculative. You don't have to take the details
of what I've just described as gospel, but I do think there's
enough information in the passages we've looked at to focus our
hearts in a perspective of consideration about what eternity might mean
and how our present faithfulness and our present service will
have a dramatic effect and impact on how much we will be like Him,
how close we are to Him forever and ever and ever. how much He
sees fit to entrust to us in our eternal service to Him in
the ages to come. Let's pray. Father God, I pray
that You would make us a people who are so heavenly-minded that
we are of real earthly good, that we would have hearts and
minds that are fixed on You, on Your Son who sits enthroned
over the heavenlies and over this earth and over everything
under this earth, And that Father, as we set our minds on those
things above, that you would change and transform us so that
we live out our life assignment in faithfulness and that you
would shock and surprise us with the glory of what the reward
will be on that day. I ask it in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen. The copyrighted product
of Tree of Life Christian Church of Canoga Park, California. You
are welcome to pass this message along to others, as long as it
is not sold, and it is passed along unaltered in its entirety,
with source credit given to Tree of Life Christian Church.
Our Eternal Reward
Series Eschatology series
When the Lord returns, He will bring His reward for His people. What is the reward? Scripture seems to indicate a three-fold reward that will profoundly affect how we experience eternity.
Copyright 2003, Tree of Life Christian Church. All rights reserved.
| Sermon ID | 52503193023 |
| Duration | 54:31 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Revelation 22:12 |
| Language | English |
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