2023-05-14 Eternal Rewards 2

If you injure yourself rounding the bases after a home run and you can’t run or walk, your teammates can’t help you. One collegiate softball player tore her ACL while rounding the bases, and according to the rulebook she couldn’t receive help from her teammates to finish her home run trot. In a great example of sportsmanship, the other team’s players helped her touch all the bases.

Golfers have to sign their scorecards, or else they’re disqualified.

If you take your shirt off during a foot race, you’re disqualified.

If a pitched baseball is lodged into the umpire’s mask, all runners advance one base.

In tennis, if your hat falls off, your opponent can say that it was a distraction and negate the point. So keep your hat on at all times!

There’s something called the ground-rule triple in baseball. If someone tries to catch the ball with their hat, the batter is awarded third base.

If you take your shoe off and kick the soccer ball, that’s considered a handball.

Every sport in the world has clearly defined rules, Some weird, but most logical. With all sports, If you follow the rules and excel above all other competitors, you win the prize. Usually, the prize is a trophy of some kind and the accolades that go with it. In professional sports, there’s also a monetary reward of some kind. For most winners in sports, the biggest thing is the satisfaction of having won and the memories associated with the win.

Two Sundays ago, on April 30, I began a short three-part series on Eternal Rewards. In my first Sunday I talked about the interplay between salvation through faith in Jesus and the good works that we as believers are called to do. My main premise in my last section was that there are rewards promised to us by Jesus for faithful service to him as his followers.

Wages and Being Paid Back.

As I said then, Jesus spoke more than once about rewards to come in the next life.

In Luke 14 we have the story of Jesus attending a meal at a pharisee’s house on a Sabbath day. First, he healed a man and taught about doing good on the Sabbath, then he spoke about good protocol when being invited to a banquet, saying that you shouldn’t take the place of honour, but a lower place, allowing the host to promote you if he wants to. Then, Jesus said these words, (read Luke 14:12-14) (blank) Give freely to those who can’t repay you here, because you know that God will repay you later, not while you are alive, but after you are dead. The Greek word that is translated as repay is a compound word, apodidomai which means to give back. God will give back to you later on what you give away for him here.

Earlier, in Luke 6 Jesus uses the word misthos to speak of the reward we will get when we love our enemies. This word misthos, elsewhere is used for wages. Wages are what we earn through our effort. In both these passages the idea is that some day, in the future, after we die, we will receive something in return, wages or payback, for our effort and sacrifice now.

There is one more passage that I want to look at that speaks of God rewarding us in the future for our efforts now. It’s found in Hebrews 11. Before I read the passage and speak of the verse, I want us to think about the nature of Hebrews 11. We often call it the Hall of Faith. In the chapter the author tells story after story of the faith of the people of God in the First Testament. He speaks of Abel, Enoch, spends quite a bit of time on Abraham, speaks of Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and the people of Israel leaving Egypt and briefly mentions many more. At the end of the chapter, he says this, “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.” (Hebrews 11:39, 40)

Did you catch what he’s saying? They received the ultimate reward for their faithful actions after Jesus rose from the dead! With this as our context, lets look at what verse 6 says, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” The word translated as rewards is a unique combination of misthos and apodidomai. A combination of wages and pay back. This is the part of the character of God. God loves to reward those who seek him and serve him, who give their lives for him, even when they don’t receive what is promised in this life.

Rewardable Actions

So what will we be rewarded for? What kinds of actions and service does God desire of us?

Bruce Wilkinson suggests seven different things, I’ll add one more.

God will reward you for seeking Him through spiritual acts such as fasting and praying. Hebrews 11:6, the verse I just read, speaks of a reward for earnestly seeking God. Matthew 6:6 speaks of a reward for secret prayer. “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” Then, Matthew 6:16-18 says, (read) (blank) Fasting to know God more deeply will be rewarded. This principle of the Father seeing what is done in secret and not forgetting it but rewarding it is incredibly important to remember. We often do good and wonder if anyone notices. Sometimes we can get discouraged by the fact that no one notices. Here Jesus is reminding us that there is someone who does notice and who promises to reward us. We can count on the Father to not forget and to reward us for faithful service.

God will reward you for submitting to your employer as a faithful steward. In Ephesians and Colossians Paul writes instructions to the households of the church. In that day and age, slaves were part of the household. Here’s what Paul writes to them in Colossians 3:22-24 (read) (blank). Thankfully, we no longer have slavery. But the principle holds true. God will reward us for faithfully carrying out our duties when we work for others.

God will reward you for self-denial in His service. Let’s look at what Jesus said in Matthew 16:24-27, (read) (blank) On earth it feels like losing one’s life is a bad bargain. Self-denial is hard. Often there is no earthly reward. But God promises there will be a heavenly one. He will himself return with his angels and reward those who sacrifice for him.

God will reward you for serving those in need in His name. Mark 9:41 says, “Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.” (blank) It’s not only apostles and prophets and pastors that will be rewarded. Every Christian who serves God in the opportunities God gives them will be rewarded. I’m going to talk more about that a month from now. Every good thing you do in Jesus’ name will be rewarded. He promised it.

God will reward you for suffering for His name and his reputation. Luke 6:22-23 speaks of this. (read) (blank) Again, it is tough to be treated like this. But if we know of the reward to come, we can handle this mistreatment much better.

God will reward you for sacrifices you make for Him. Luke 6:35 says, “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High.” In fact, Jesus says that every person who sacrifices to follow Him will be rewarded a hundredfold! (Read Matthew 19:29) (blank) Do you know what a hundredfold is? 1 becomes a 100, a 10,000 % increase! I did the math. 10,000 % is right. God’s promised reward isn’t chintzy, it’s extremely generous. Did you also notice that the reward mentioned here is separate from eternal life. Eternal life is the addon.

God will reward you for sharing of your time, talent and treasure to further his kingdom. (read Matthew 6:3,4) (blank) Again, notice that things done in secret will be noticed by God. Now let’s turn to 1 Timothy 6:18-19. (read) (blank) In 1988 I went on a missions trip to Europe. At that time every country in Europe had its own currency. When you went to a bank, there would be a board on the wall with the list of all the currency exchange rates. Then I could convert my dollars to Marks or Forints or whatever I needed. That way I could bring the value of my money with me. Our treasure on earth cannot be taken with us to heaven, unless we convert it into heavenly currency. The only way to do so is to do good with it on earth and share generously with others. Many of us make investments such as RRSP’s or shares in companies. We take them seriously. We want to be able to keep on taking care of ourselves when we get older. It is much more important to invest in God’s kingdom. He promised he would take care of us if we do so in Matthew 6 just before he told the crowd to store their treasure in heaven.

God will reward you for loving your enemies. (read Matthew 5:43-46) (blank) Jesus implies that there is no reward in doing what comes naturally, loving those who love us. Think about that. All of us get rewarded here on earth when we love those who love us. The love we give comes back to us, again and again. But loving your enemies? Sometimes it’s returned when the enemy becomes your friend, but more often there is no reward here on earth. The enemy stays your enemy.

Clearly, God loves to reward his people for their faithful service to him. As you can see, much of what God wants us to do in service is upside down to the way the world operates. He doesn’t want us to build kingdoms and conquer people. He wants us to humbly serve the poor and destitute, love our enemies and do our service often in secret. It’s not about us, it’s about him. Our service is to people now for a future reward. In short, it involves obeying the Great Commandments, Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and loving your neighbour as yourself.

Quality Matters

Now we know what we are to do, how will God judge our efforts? The words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 3 that speak of our works being tested with fire speaks of the quality of our work, but it doesn’t say what a quality work looks like. Only that its quality will be revealed in that last day. We have to turn elsewhere to find this answer. Since Jesus is the one who promised rewards, paying attention to Jesus’ words would help us. Once again, I’m going to borrow these ideas from Bruce Wilkinson.

The first point Wilkinson makes is that the life God rewards is centred on relationship with Jesus. There is a

Test of Relationship. The night before Jesus’ crucifixion Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit, apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5 (blank) Any work we do for Jesus needs to be in the context of a relationship with him. His kingdom is completely relational. In fact, Jesus says that our work apart from him is nothing. We can’t bring healing to other people, only Jesus can. We can’t bring hope to other people, only Jesus can. Jesus points out the importance of a loving relationship with him when he speaks to the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2:2, 4. He says, “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.” Sounds like a fantastic church, doesn’t it? They work hard doing the work of God and persevere through difficult times. But he goes on to say, “Yet I hold this against you, you have forsaken the love you had at first.” Do you love God more than your good works and the people you do them for? If God would ask you to stop doing your good works, for his sake, would you? If we don’t continue in relationship with him, our works have no eternal value.

Test of Motive. Three times in chapter 6 of Matthew Jesus says to do something in secret, giving to the needy, prayer and fasting. Each time he gives an example of someone doing it for others to notice. “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by others. Truly they have their reward in full.” Mt. 6:2. (blank) If you do your good works so that others will notice, if you do it for the adulation of the crowd, your works will be burned up. You’ve got the wrong motive. What’s the right motive? Paul says, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” 1 Cor. 10:31 If it’s for his glory, it doesn’t matter if anyone here sees it. God sees what is done in secret. This is especially tricky when you have a public ministry like pastoring, but motives matter.

The test of love. As I said earlier, all the good deeds Jesus asks us to do are out workings of the greatest commandments. Love God and love people. Jesus said, “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great.” Luke 6:35 (blank) When Paul wrote his first letter to Corinth he wanted to talk to them about spiritual gifts. It seems that some of the people in Corinth were pretty proud of their gifts. Paul said, “If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” If you do your good works without love, you will gain no reward from God.

In 2 John v8 John said, “Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, the that you may re rewarded fully.” Are you pursuing a relationship with Jesus? Do you do your works for the glory of God? Do you love those you serve? These are the things we can use to test ourselves to make sure our works will be rewarded.

Conclusion

When I was a child our church would hold annual missions conferences, three or four evening services were we would hear from missionaries and hear sermons on supporting missions. There were a few hymns that would often be sung. One of them was “Work for the Night is Coming”. It was basically about working hard in missions before we would die or before Jesus would come back. It was about urgency. People are dying without Jesus. I agree with the sentiment of the song.

However, another motivation should be the rewards Jesus promised for faithful service. I think most of us feel a little awkward thinking of working for rewards. It seems to run counter to the Biblical elevation of humility. But the fact is, Jesus promised us eternal rewards for faithful service. Why would we not want to take him up on that? It is a legitimate motivation!

Pray

Benediction: 2 Thess. 1:11, 12

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