April 7, 2024

The following transcript has been electronically transcribed. Any errors in spelling, syntax, or grammar should be attributed to the electronic method of transcription and its inherent limitations.  Peter began to say to him, see, we have left everything and followed you. Jesus said, truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions. And in the age to come eternal life, but many who are first will be last and the last first. So in the scenario that's before us, it would appear to us that as this rich young ruler is leaving with shoulders slumped and head hung low, as he has heard from Jesus, what would be required of him to turn from his sin, to repent of that and to follow Christ. And he leaves away. still retaining his earthly fortune, but yet sad. It seems that this prompts Peter to then turn to Jesus and ask this most direct of questions, which is to say, we've left everything to follow you. The question that he poses to Jesus is a question that I, like all the questions that come in the narratives of the Scriptures, we have the disadvantage of not hearing Peter's tone, his tone of voice, his breath, body language, the expression on his face. We don't have the advantage of hearing his tone to know how it is that he posed the question to Jesus. He could have posed it and sort of a self assured, sort of a self-interested manner. We've left everything. What's in it for us? And in fact, if we look to Matthew's gospel, Matthew puts it just a little bit more bluntly. In Mark's account, Peter says, we've left everything to follow you. And the implication is, therefore, what is coming to us? But Matthew just spells it out in his account when Peter said in reply, see, we've left everything and followed you. What then will we have? What are we going to get? What's in store for us? And so this question that comes to Jesus clearly, it's on the heels of this man who was not prepared to leave everything and follow Jesus. Peter then turns and says, we have left everything and we don't know if that's sort of the self-interested what's in it for us, or perhaps if it's more like Peter is seeking a genuine affirmation, some assurance. He has just heard Jesus's words regarding the impossibility of the command given to him. This impossible command, camel passing through the eye of a needle. Perhaps Peter at this point is wanting Jesus to assure him that his camel has passed through this needle. He's left. Now, he says, we've left everything and followed you. We know, of course, that doesn't mean that he's left the same things that the rich young ruler was asked to leave because none of the, none of the disciples are ever presented to us as wealthy people with the exception of maybe Matthew, the tax collector. He probably had some wealth, but this man was described as tremendously wealthy. So Peter has not left that kind of things, but nevertheless, he has left what he has. And indeed, no matter how much you have, if you leave everything, you're still leaving everything that you have. And when Peter says that he's left everything to follow you, he doesn't mean that he has sold all of his property and sold all of his possessions and left his wife and family. We know that he hasn't really left everything. But nonetheless, he has left his boats, his nets, his family, and he is now following Christ. We know that he hasn't sold his house because A couple of times through Mark's gospel, they're going to return to Peter's house. In fact, they recently did return to Peter's house, his house in Bethsaida. And we also know that he hasn't unmarried his wife. Because we know that as Paul writes to the Corinthian believers, he mentions Peter and how Peter's wife is traveling with him as Peter does his ministerial work, so he hasn't forsaken his wife, but nonetheless, Peter has left and followed him. So perhaps Peter is seeking from the Lord some genuine, real assurance. Yeah, I've left those things, but Lord, give me the assurance that I'm on the right path. Give me the assurance that that treasure in heaven that you mentioned to this young man, give me some assurance that that's mine. We've left it. So what is in store for us? I tend to think that that is the more logical tone of voice that Peter's question would have been because had Peter's tone been more like the first tone, you know, what's in it for us? Jesus. Then what an opportunity for a rebuke and we know that when Peter is deserving of a rebuke Then the Lord doesn't hesitate to give him the rebuke that he needs we all recall chapter 8 get behind me Satan So the Lord doesn't issue any sort of rebuke to Peter So that leads me to believe that Peter's question is probably a genuine question Lord Give me some assurance. You just talked about an impossible, supernatural thing. Assure me that that has happened to me. Assure me that I'm on the right path, and assure me that that treasure is waiting for me. So, we've left everything to follow you. And then as we follow the words here, Peter began to say to him, now we don't know whether that means that Jesus cut Peter off, that Peter began to say something, longer than that. And Jesus cut him off. We don't know exactly Mark's meaning there. But Peter began to say to him, see, we have left everything and followed you. And then verse 29, Jesus said, truly. Now, when we see that word, truly, then always we know what to expect. What follows that word is always something that Christ considers to be of particular importance. Now, we wanna be careful when we start to categorize the importance of the things that Jesus said, or for that matter, the things that Scriptures, Scriptures says, says to us, because all of Scripture is the inspired word of God and every word that Christ uttered. is vitally, crucially important to us. Nevertheless, when Jesus says the word truly or in John's gospel, it's repeated truly, truly, we know that always what follows is something that Christ himself considers to be of particular significance of perhaps heightened significance that what is to follow. It's as though Jesus is saying. I solemnly say to you, if you don't hear anything else today, hear this. So truly, I say to you, and here comes the significant thing. There is no one, no one, there is not a single one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now. So, in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come, eternal life. So here we're reminded once again that the Scriptures teach us that there are two ages, only two ages. There's the age now and then there's the age that comes at the end of this age. Matthew 12, 22. Jesus says, either in this age or the age to come. Timothy, Paul says, or the letter to Timothy, Paul says, for the promise of life now, also in the life to come. Or Ephesians chapter 1, not only in this age, but in the age to come. And we can look at other places where the Scriptures teach us there are two ages. There's this age, the age to come. Jesus says, in this age there are things coming. All those who have left houses, lands, and cities. Relationships for my name's sake, for the gospel's sake, there are things coming in this age, and there are things coming in the next age. Namely, he says, eternal life in the next age. Then verse 31, But many who are first will be last, and the last first. So Jesus finishes that little section there, that saying, with once again the reminder, That there are surprises of grace that are coming. There are surprises that are coming. Jesus will say those same words in other contexts. Matthew 19, he says it in Luke, I think it's Luke 12. He says several times this same phrase, that the first will be last and the last will be first. Meaning that when that day comes, there will be surprises in store. Just like the parable of the workers in the vineyard. Some who worked all through the heat of the day, Others who worked not at all. Some who worked part of the day, and at the moment of the pay being given out, there were surprises that were coming and some people were very shocked at what did come and what didn't come. And so in the same way, Jesus is reminding us once again that there are surprises to come on that day. And I believe that we should, of course, believe Jesus fully when he says that, that on that day there will be those whom we considered to be recipients of Little grace. Recipients of little reward, and we will probably be shocked at the grace and the reward that will be given on that day. We might also be shocked at those whom we thought were in store of great reward, who will receive perhaps no reward, or perhaps not eternal life at all. We should prepare ourselves that on that day there will be great surprises that are to come, as Jesus affirms here. Many who are first to come. Will be last we think of Judas himself who would have thought at this point in Jesus ministry that Judas Would not receive grace upon grace and reward upon reward on that day yet What a surprise there so the surprise of grace that is to come That is in store. But now let's turn our thoughts to, of course, the central aspect of the passage in the central aspect of the passage. We can't get around. It is this discussion of rewards that are to come. Jesus says again, very plainly, there is no one. There is no one. There are none who have left these things. On my behalf, for my name's sake, in Matthew's gospel or in Luke's gospel, for the kingdom of God, but Mark is most complete and most expansive, there is no one who has left these things for me or for the gospel that will not receive what Jesus goes on to assure them of receiving. So it's at this point that we might want to say, you know, it might be better if this particular passage was handled by someone who handles these things. This type of message better than myself. Someone like maybe Joel Osteen, I don't know, or T. D. Jakes, or Joyce Meyer, or one of those prosperity preachers who proclaim this kind of thing, which is to say, earthly rewards that God promises for faithful service. So is this not one of those places in which the Scriptures are spelling out for us plainly? I mean, Jesus, that's why I repeated it, Jesus says plainly, in this age. There's no one excluded in this age. There are these things that are coming. If you've left these things, then there are these things that are coming. So you have all heard me say, or most of you have heard me say that there are blessings that are ours in Christ, but all of the blessings in Christ in this age are spiritual. There are blessings in Christ for the people of God that are in store for us that are physical. But all the physical blessings of Christ come in the next stage. You've heard me say that. Is this the one exception to that? Because it sure does seem like Jesus is speaking of physical return, physical rewards in this physical age for those who offer service, or at least have forsaken or left these on his behalf. So let's, let's delve into that. Because this is, quite frankly, this is, Apart from those promises of Christ that are specifically spiritual in this age, such as the repeated promise that he will never leave us nor forsake us, or the promise that if we are sealed of the spirit, then that sealing is eternal and permanent. Those things such as that, or, or the promise that, that when we lift up prayer to his name, It is heard, and Christ is the one who mediates that, and the Spirit lifts it to his ears. All those promises are purely spiritual promises. This appears to be a promise in this age that is attached to the physical. And not only attached to the physical, it also seems to us to be the widest And the most general or generous promise of this age in the earthly life for the believer, for the follower of Christ. So let's think through this. First of all, let's just be, clear. Should we say, let's just be clear on a couple of, a couple of aspects of the promise. Number one, the, parameters, the motivation for leaving Jesus specifically says that those who have left things and it gives them motivation. And the motivation in Mark's words are for me. And for the gospel from my name, for my name's sake and the gospel. So that's a wide reaching motivation that the, the, the leaving that's done is done for two things, for the person of Christ, for Christ himself, out of this Relationship to the person Christ out of love for him, devotion for him, and also for the gospel, which the gospel is to say his message, the message that he came to proclaim that payment for sin, as we read earlier from 1st John 4 verse 10, the payment for sin, the propitiation for sin has been made this gospel message, this gospel proclamation, which is to say that This is what Christ has done for his people. So the attachment to his person and the attachment to the message of his person, Christ said, if that's the motivation and then you leave, what's the nature of the leaving? What's the nature of the sacrifice? He says. This sacrifice that we can easily divide up into two categories, the categories of possessions and relations. If you leave the possessions known as the house or the lands, or you leave the relations known as spelled out here in our passage, mother, father, what, children. If you leave those relations, So there's possessions and relations that are left. So what sort of leaving does Christ have in mind? Does he have the type of leaving that might result from what he says in another place, where he says, I've not come to bring peace, but a sword for I've turned to turn. I've come to turn father against son. son and mother against daughter for the, that's what the gospel does. The gospel divides truth from non truth. And so it also will divide family members. So is he speaking of the leaving of family members in such a way that. When conversion takes place that that creates a barrier of separation and there's a forsaking such as the case of maybe a Muslim who comes to faith in Christ and the family learns about that and there's a distinct separation, there's a disowning and is Christ saying those who have been disowned by family for my name's sake or is he saying something more like, maybe what Peter's doing right now, which is following Jesus. He's not forsaken his wife. And we know he has a wife because he has a mother in law that was healed back in chapter one. And again, Paul references that later. So Peter's not forsaken his wife, but he nonetheless is separated from his wife in the work of the ministry, a temporal separation, a spatial separation in the work of the ministries. That's something that Jesus is talking about there. Now the houses and the lands is Jesus talking about like what he just called the rich young ruler to do, to sell all your stuff, get rid of your stuff. Free yourself of your things and come and serve me. Or is he speaking more or less and something similar to that? Like you've left your home, you're not in the comforts of your home and you're working in these mission fields or you're working in ministry situations or whatever it may be. Is he speaking of something like that? Or maybe he's speaking of just a separation, like a spiritual separation in the sense that you have forsaken the counterfeit God. Of houses or lands or the counterfeit God of family relationships. You've forsaken the, the relationships that you've valued above Christ. Like he'll say in loose gospel. If those who are, who don't hate their mother and father are not worthy of me. And we know that he's not speaking of a, an actual. Anger, moral anger. He's speaking of a comparison of love. So maybe he's saying that those who have forsaken those relationships in which you were idolatrous in those relationships or idolatrous towards a house and you put away the idolatry and now you're devoted purely to him. We don't know. And in fact, I think it's probably left undefined. in order to leave it as broad as possible. The only thing that we can do is speculate based on Peter's words, because Peter says, we have left everything. And Peter's leaving of everything wasn't necessarily a forsaking or a selling, a liquidating of all his stuff, because we know once again that, for example, at the end of John's gospel, Peter says, I'm going to return to fishing. So although he had left his net and left his boat, He still had access to that somehow, so I guess he didn't sell it, he still owned it. So, whatever the case may be, I think Jesus intentionally leaves it broad and undefined as if to say all the above. Whatever leaving of possessions and relations that are done on behalf of me and the gospel, It's what puts those in the category of those who will receive the word reward that is described. So now let's think about this earthly reward. The, the, the, the reward that is given specifically Jesus says in this time and the rewards seem to be a description of those things that are physical. Houses. If you leave a house, then Jesus says it will be returned a hundredfold lands a hundredfold. Now we understand there when Jesus is saying a hundredfold, we understand what he's doing. Jesus is substituting a definite for an indefinite, and we do the same thing all the time. We substitute a definite number And what we mean is an indefinite number. We say things like I would, I would 1000 times rather drive that car than drive that truck. Or I would 100 times rather eat at that restaurant than this one over here. Or I like this 10 times more than that. And we're, we're substituting a definite for an indefinite. That's what Jesus is doing here. He's using language just like we use language. He's, he's saying a definite hundredfold or a hundred times. And what he means is he's communicating an abundant return. So this abundant return seems to be couched completely in these physical aspects of possessions, houses, and lands, and relations of mother, brother, sister, so on and so forth. So how are we to understand this? Is this really An occasion where Jesus is saying something to us that we, I think, instinctively No, that we should regret or reject, which is to say that Jesus says you cannot out give me if you give a house, if you give your house to the poor, then I'll return five more houses to you. Or if you go and you sell an acre, an acre of land and give that money to the poor, then I'm going to return it with 10 more acres. That's how this passage is typically understood. Is that what Jesus is really saying? Is he declaring here? Is he really declaring this system in which you cannot out give God in this life in physical ways? If you leave your wife or your family in order to go and serve, then I'm going to return that to you one hundredfold. So when Jesus is speaking of the returns here, let's be careful to understand what he means and what he doesn't mean. Now, how are we to determine what Jesus means and what he doesn't mean? The simplest and the clearest and the most foolproof way to determine exactly what Jesus means by these rewards is simply to look to the ones to whom he made the promise and look to how Jesus fulfilled the promise to them. And from that, we can with confidence say, however, Jesus fulfilled the promise to the ones he made it to directly is what he meant. So Jesus, does Jesus mean this promise for us? If In an indirect way, yes, but he clearly is making the promise directly to the apostles. So if Jesus made the promise to the apostles, we should be able to draw a straight line from the, from the apostles in the fulfillment of that to what Jesus intends when he says it or otherwise. The only other option is that Jesus didn't keep his promise to the apostles, which we of course, reject. If Jesus makes this assurance to them, he kept it. How did he keep it? Did the apostles die wealthy people? The apostles all died, we would assume, penniless or close to it. That is what tradition, the church tradition teaches us emphatically, is that they gave everything, indeed their lives too. And so if we can't say that what Jesus means here is that when Peter left his house, well, He ended up, in a short span of time after that, he had a house over here in Samaria, and another house down here in Judah, and another house over here on the banks of the Jordan. And he just had houses everywhere. If we can't say that, then that's not what Jesus meant. If we can't say that Ananias and Sapphira, who sold the land and gave part of it to the church, that God returned that with multiple more lands, or Barnabas right before, he's an even better example. Barnabas Who sold a piece of property and gave it to the church, and yet God didn't return more property upon him. Then clearly that's not what Jesus was intending. Or otherwise, he broke his promise to the very first people he gave it to. So what does Jesus mean when he assures them in this age, there will be a return upon you of all that you have left for my name's sake. So to see this, we just simply need to look at how this promise was fulfilled in the life of the apostles through the book of Acts and through the epistles. And so let's just take this three categories together. There's the category of relationships and then there's the category of House. And then there's a category of lands. Let's look at the house first. So Jesus says, if you leave houses for me, don't worry, there's more coming. You cannot forsake a house for my name's sake and then be left houseless. What Jesus is saying is that among the people of God, there are many houses, and if you leave a house for my name's sake, my people will supply your need. That's how the economy of the kingdom of God works. If you leave a house on my behalf, you won't be left homeless, for I will raise up the people of God who own so many resources, that they will provide the thing that you've left for me. In order to accommodate your need. And you say, where in the world did you pull that out of? Well, just the examples of the book of Acts and the epistles. Think with me, for example, the one who's saying these words, Peter, we've left everything for you. Think about Peter in Acts chapter 10. Remember the story in Acts chapter 10? Right before he goes, chapter 9 there, right before he goes to Cornelius, the Gentile centurion's house. Right before he goes, and he has that vision, remember the vision of the sheep that comes down, and the animals that he's told to eat? Where was he when he had that vision? We're told he was living. in the house of Simon the Tanner. Furthermore, we're told that he was about to eat. So he's living with Simon the Tanner and apparently Simon's wife has prepared him lunch. He's there in a house. That's the house Jesus is talking about. Jesus is not saying to Peter, Peter, if you sell a house and give the money to the poor and come and follow me, then I'm going to return that with personal ownership of 10 more houses. That's not what Jesus is saying. He's saying, whatever you forsake for my name's sake, you as part of the family of God will experience the family of God providing whatever that need may be whenever you need it. Think about Paul as he goes to Philippi. He's there in Philippi and he talks to Lydia. Lydia, the wealthy seller of purple cloth. She is converted, she comes to faith, and we're told that in Acts chapter 16 that she compelled Paul to stay with her. That she says, come and stay with us, and we can kind of hear Paul saying, no, no, no, that's okay, I'm a tent maker, we've got a tent, I'll just put up a tent. But she says, come to my house and stay, and she prevailed upon us, no, Paul, I've got extra rooms, you've got a house. Or think of Romans 16 and verse 23, there's a fellow by the name of Gaius. And we're told here, Gaius, Paul says, who is host to me. So as Paul is here writing the letter to the Romans, he's saying, I'm living with this Christian, this brother named Gaius, who is host to me and also host to the whole church. And we could go on to examples like, Acts chapter 18. When Paul says that they left there, they went to the house of a man named Titius Justus. His house was right beside the synagogue. So this was a believer whose house was Conveniently located right beside the synagogue where Paul was teaching every day and he just moves in with them. There are so many examples of this through the book of Acts and we can see in the epistles how the family of God, who has been given the resources to say, here is a brother who has left his house to come here to minister. So that's what Christ means by house. He doesn't mean that you will have personal ownership of a hundred houses in place for every one that you give away. Likewise, he doesn't mean this for relations. He doesn't mean that if you leave your spouse to go to work in this ministry position here or over there, or you go and you're planting churches over there, that, oh, guess what, you'll have another wife over there and another wife over here. Of course, he doesn't mean that. What he means is, is that the family of God, wherever you go, the family of God will be there to be your family for you. Look at, And, your notes here, Romans 16 in verse 13, greet Rufus chosen in the Lord, also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well. Or most significantly, think about Jesus words earlier in Mark's gospel, when his biological family comes for him and he says, Mother, my mother, my brothers, here are my mother. And my brothers and my sisters, those who hear the word of God and do it. And so what Jesus is saying here is no matter where you go, that the economy of the family of God will be there to be mother or brother or father or sister or son to you, that you will not Leave family members behind and go in such a way that you are then left family less. The family of God will be that for you. So, what about lands? Lands is a little bit more difficult to think through. But when Jesus says, if you leave lands on my behalf, no, no worries. There will be more lands that are abundantly returned to you. Now when we think of lands, What we think of is literally personal ownership of property, of land, of dirt. And, of course, the ancient Jews knew of that as well. But, to the ancient Jew, land meant something more than it means to us. To the ancient Jew, land meant property. A homeland, a people, a people that are mine, a culture that is mine, sort of like Ruth, Ruth says to Naomi, my God, or your God is my God and your people are now my people. And so that the idea of land for the ancient Jew encompassed not just a spot of dirt, but it was a home, a people that was mine, that a people to whom I belong. And so Jesus is saying, if you leave a people for the sake of the gospel, Not to fear, there are another people that will be given to you. Now, the scriptural examples of this are, quite frankly, so many that it would really be overwhelming to see this. But nonetheless, let me just point out to you that that is the theme, or at least one of the themes, of the New Testament. Which is to say, that when we enter the family of God, we enter into a new people. And a new people are now Our people, as Paul will say to the Ephesians, to the Gentiles there in Ephesus, he'll say once you were a stranger people, once you were alien people, but now you are fellow citizens with the saints and the members of the household of God. Now, we could trace this through the, through the book of Acts and through the epistles, but it would quite frankly be overwhelming because it is so, it is so present in the New Testament, this idea of the new people of God, the new people of God who have now been grafted in and now they make up this new people. And we see throughout the New Testament, this fusion of the Gentile and the Jewish believer into one people. And that's a great theme of the New Testament. And this is Jesus's meaning. Jesus is saying to his apostles who say, we’ve left everything. He says, The family, you won't out live the family of God. You won't leave a home and be left homeless. For wherever you go, there will be family of God who will take you in and say, Here is Your room here is your house. Our house is your house. Let us minister to you in this way. Most of us have experienced something like this. I've experienced this. I've experienced it when we lived in Colorado, when we live far from family members and there would be brothers and sisters there in the church there who would say, say to us, you know, you are a long way from your family. Come and eat Sunday lunch with us. Come and have Thanksgiving with us. Come and have Christmas with us. Or when we lived. in Maggie Valley or even here, I've experienced this in Central America. Probably most of us have experienced the same kind of thing. That when you are among the people of God, there is a real tangible reality that you are among family who will say to you, Our home is your home. Our culture is your culture. Our people is your people. You are family to us. There is this eternal spiritual bond in the family of God, but that eternal spiritual bond also manifests itself when the family of God sees one who has left something on behalf of Christ and they come to say, What you've left for him, we will return it tenfold for you here. And so this is Jesus meaning. So Jesus is not saying that whatever you leave, whatever personal property you leave, I'll return more personal property to you. Whatever wealth you might leave, I will return more wealth to you. He cannot possibly be saying that because if that's what he's saying, then what he's saying is the very thing that I just warned you about, which is the greatest barrier to faith and obedience and trust, I'm going to give it to you. What kind of sense would that make? He just, we just talked about the rich young ruler in which Jesus, the lesson there is great wealth, great wealth. is a strong inhibitor to faith. What sense would it make for then Jesus to then turn around and say, Oh, whatever wealth you leave for my name's sake, I'm going to abundantly return it to you. I'm going to return the temptation. I'm going to just stack upon you more and more barriers to faith. That makes no sense. And so instead, what Jesus is saying, this is still a spiritual Reward, so to speak, but it is a spiritual reward that manifests itself in physical ways here in this life and in this earth right now. And so this is Jesus's meaning. And so he, he is speaking here of these apostles who are leaving these apostles who would go on to follow Jesus. form the diaconate ministry in the book of Acts. And this speaks powerfully into the diaconate ministry. Because what this speaks powerfully into is the role of the deacon whom we have raised up among us and said to these men, it is your job. It is your job to be constantly on the watch, constantly on the look for those among the family of God for whom the supply those among the family of God. Who for the sake of Christ or for the sake of just difficulties in life as part of the family of God There are ways in which we can come alongside you and be lands for you houses for you Brothers and sisters mothers and fathers for you. So there's much to be said there. We're just going to touch on that And move on that this really speaks powerfully into the diaconate ministry among the context of the family of God. But notice also Jesus throws in something else here. He says, There is none who have left these things, house, lands, brothers, sisters, mother, father, or children for my, or lands for my sake, and for the gospel, verse 30, who will not receive a hundredfold. Now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children's children and lands with persecutions. So he just sort of slides that in there with persecutions. And you've got to recognize the honesty and the forthright openness of Christ to say with the family of God comes persecutions. Now persecutions, if we had more time to flesh this out, there's much about this passage that we're going to just mention and leave. Unexpanded upon, should we say? We're going to leave ourselves lots of material to talk about Wednesday night, which, by the way, I'm speaking somewhere else Wednesday night. So, Brother Danny, we're giving you just a gift here on a silver platter. You're going to have tons to talk about this coming Wednesday. Because, Persecutions, we really could rightly say, is the biggest blessing that Jesus mentions. Because the persecutions that he speaks of, they are the clearest indicator that these people belong to the family of God. And so these persecutions that Jesus says will accompany the blessings, along with the family of God who comes alongside you to say, we are your brothers, we are your sisters, you are our father, we are your children. Amen. That relationship that how you need a house. Here it is. You need a car to drive. Here it is Along with that the greatest blessing would be the persecutions that accompany that because the Scriptures tell us plainly That that is the clearest assurance that the answer to Peter's question is yes, you're on the right path Peter says what's in store for us? How do we know we're on the right path? How do we know our camel has passed through the eye of the needle? Jesus would answer that by saying, well, the first way you know that is, are you being treated like me? Are you being treated like your master? Your master was persecuted. If you're being treated like me, then that's a pretty good indication that you are on that right path. So these persecutions, we can look at that. We can look at Hebrews 12. We can look at Jesus words in Matthew 5. Blessed are you, blessed are you, when others revile you. And speak lies, about you on behalf of me. Blessed are you. We could look into that further, but instead we'll keep going. And Jesus says, with persecutions and in the age to come, eternal life. So now for the rest of the time, let's think about that aspect of the blessing, eternal life. That is indeed, of course the greatest of all. The rest of them could be erased and Jesus could have just said that one, there's no one who has left. Anything for my name's sake and the Gospels that will not receive eternal life. And that would have been enough for us. That would have been enough for us to say, Bless me the name of the Lord, if that's what's in store for us. But this eternal life that, of which he speaks, this blessing of eternal life, it fits into this category of rewards that, quite frankly, the Scriptures repeat for us over and over and over. I don't know how many of us have really truly noticed How often the Scriptures speak of rewards to come for the believer. Truly, if you were to remove from your Bible all the instances in which we are told of rewards, then your Bibles would be noticeably thinner. Because it's ubiquitous, it's all over the place that the Scriptures speak to us of rewards. We just heard about this just a few verses ago in verse 21 when he said to the rich young ruler, Sell everything you got, give it to the poor, come and follow me, and you'll have treasure in heaven. Or think of what Jesus says in Matthew 6. He speaks about how you pray. He says, Look, if you'll pray in this certain way, if you will shut the door and get alone with your father and pray in secret, then your father will reward you. Or think about Matthew, a few verses later in Matthew 6, verse 17 and 18, as he's speaking about how you fast. He says, Look, if you'll fast in this way, if you'll fast in a way that doesn't If you don't want to flaunt it and doesn't want other people to know what you're doing, but instead does this in secret, then your father's going to reward you. Or think about what he says in Luke 14 about how you, when you throw a banquet, when you throw a feast, he says, if you invite those who cannot repay you, then you'll be repaid. There will be reward for that. Or Matthew six, of course, who can forget this as Jesus summarizes that section when he says, lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, lay up treasures in heaven. You know, Every one of us, I can say this emphatically about everyone in the room, and I can say this about everyone whom you've ever met and ever known. Everyone is laying up something. You're either laying up wrath or you're laying up treasure. Those are the only, you don't have the option of not laying up something for the next life. You're either laying up wrath or you're laying up treasure. And the Scriptures say to us, Jesus says, Just lay up treasure. Send the treasure. Lay up the treasure there. Revelation 22 and 12. Behold, I'm coming soon. And what am I bringing? recompense to repay each one for what he has done. So the Scriptures are prolific when they speak to us about the reality of rewards that are to come. And the only thing that we can gather from that is, well, number one, that there are rewards and number two, God is emphatic about wanting us to know about them. This isn't a secret. We're not going to get to the next life and I'll be surprised. Oh, wait a minute. God's rewarding people here. He wants us to know this is the kind of God he is. He is a rewarding God and he wants us to know that. So what I want to do now in the next few minutes is I want to just take this idea of rewards and I want to just toss it back and forth and just think through this and think through it well. thorny sort of quandary that we come up against when we begin thinking about rewards for the Christian? And here's the thorny problem. I thought Christianity was all about self-denial. I mean, didn't Jesus just say that? Didn't he just say in chapter 8 to take, if you're going to follow me, You're going to take up your cross and do what? Deny yourself. So I thought following Christ was all about self-denial. And rewards are not about self-denial, they're about self-gratification, aren't they? And so how are we to rightly think about the Bible's repeated promise of rewards to come? Meanwhile, the Bible's repeated teaching that following Christ is a matter of self-denial. How are we to work our way through this? Well, there are, for me personally, there have been two men that have been tremendously helpful to help me to think rightly about the Bible. The thorny issue of rewards for the Christian and those two men each wrote, well, many books, but they each wrote a book about this that I would say unequivocally every Christian should read these two books. Those two men are John Piper and C. S. Lewis. So John Piper early on wrote a book called Desiring God. If you've not read that, every believer should read Desiring God. It transformed how I understand The God who rewards and the other one was written a few decades before that by one of my probably my favorite writer C. S. Lewis Lewis and he wrote lots of fiction. He wrote lots of nonfiction among his nonfiction The best book he wrote is not mere Christianity. It is the weight of glory And that's a short little book. You can read it in a couple of evenings. It's around 100, 110 pages. It is so worth your time to absorb those two books, because what those two men had to say about the God who rewards literally transformed how I understand the Christian is to perceive The promises of reward that are to come. So we mentioned this quandary, so to speak, that Christianity is about self-denial, but rewards are not about self-denial. So how are we to mold those two together? Well, here it is that Lewis, for me, is tremendously helpful because he says this in The Weight of Glory. He says this. He says the life of the Christian is a life of self-denial, but here's the important thing. It's not self-denial as an end unto itself. In other words, the goal of self-denial is not self-denial. He says the goal of self-denial is what? To know him. To follow him. Self-denial is the means by which it's done. Or you could say it this way, self-denial is the result of self-denial. Of knowing him. And so here in Lewis puts his finger on a misperception, a problem that many of us struggle with. And that is to say that when the Scriptures say to us, if you're going to follow me, if you're going to follow Christ, you must deny yourself. We think, well, that's the goal. The goal is to know him. The way we know him is through self-denial. The way we know him better is through self-denial. The result of knowing him is self-denial. So he says, this is not the means unto itself. That is what we. employ in order to achieve the ultimate goal, which is knowing him. So for me, that was, that was radically altering. That, that changed how I understood Christ's command to deny self. Christ doesn't want a whole bunch of followers that are just self-deniers for the sake of being self-deniers. He wants followers who love him and know him and as a result deny the counterfeit God of self which inhibits them from knowing him. You see? All right, so that's what Lewis was getting at. Then along comes Piper in his book Desiring God, which is I can't say enough for how helpful that is to help you think through this, to help all of us think through this. And the way Piper comes at this, he comes at this from this angle. He says, there are these two forces, these two undeniable, irresistible forces. And by that, he doesn't mean that there's only two forces in the universe, but there's these coming to bear on this topic coming to bear on our life as a follower of Christ. There are these two forces that come to bear. Both of them are powerful, and both of them seem to be at conflict. And the one force is God's repeated declaration that everything he does is for his own glory. He says that I don't know how many times but that is a prominent some would say the most prominent theme of Scripture Is that everything God does he does for his glory? He forgives his people for his glory. He dies for his globe for his glory for his people for his glory He takes on his people's sin for his glory. He raises up a people unto himself All that God does, He does it for His own glory. We know that because He says it to us so often. So that's one force. The other force is the human drive to make yourself happy. And that My friends is probably the most undeniable force in your life is your drive to gratify yourself, to make yourself happy, to produce happiness for yourself. And there's no sense whatsoever in denying that. Every person, every Christian should own that, to say, I recognize. That's how I am. Everything I do is for my happiness. I think it was Blaise Pascal that put it this way, that everyone does what they do for their own happiness. The one who is the, the passive per, the what's the name of the person, the passive person, the who abstains from war? What's the word they call it? The pacifist. The pacifist doesn't go to war for the same reason that the soldier puts on his armor and goes to war. They both do it for self-happiness. So you've got this powerful, some would say the most powerful force in your life, which is driving you to, to satisfy yourself, to make yourself happy. And the perception that we have is that those two forces Are opposed. And when Jesus says, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. What he's saying is put to death, the other force In reality what, what Piper says, what in reality what's going on is that the fallen heart has this drive to make itself happy, but our fallenness fools us into thinking that which makes us happy are the counterfeit gods of our life. All of the counterfeit gods that say to us, I will give you happiness, the fallen heart listens to those and says, that's what I must choose from that, which makes me happy or the God. Who calls me his own, who says that all things he does for his glory. And so if I am to serve him, I must put to death this desire or this drive to be happy. Because you see, you naturally see the self-happiness that you desire as coming from counterfeit gods. Your counterfeit gods will tell you, You know, it's Lord's day morning. I can stay in bed and this extra hour of sleep. And that's the counterfeit God that comes and says, I'm what makes you happy. Instead, the self-denial that Christ talks about is to say, that's not happiness. Happiness is being with God's people, you see? And that is multiplied over upon itself thousands of times every day. And so what Piper's saying is that the glory of God is not in conflict With your drive to be happiness, with your drive to be happy. What the reality is, is that your process of self-denial must be the process of putting away the counterfeit gods that promise you happiness and don't deliver it. Those are the pursuits in your life that are opposed to the glory of God, but pursuing happiness in that in which you are made to be happy, namely. Knowing him and belonging to him that perfectly aligns with God's goals of glorifying himself. Piper puts it this way, and this is really easy to remember. I've remembered this for many, many years, and I've gone back to it over and over. It is this simple statement. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. That's easy to remember and it's easy to sort of ponder and think about and remind yourself that God's glory is not in conflict with your happiness when your happiness is found in him. You see now the opposite of that is what we tend to think of as that which is most honoring and most glorifying that that when something is honoring, when something is glorifying or honoring, then necessarily the most honoring thing is that which is Completely separated from self, reward. In other words, if I'm getting something out of this, then that's morally inferior. If I do something to honor you, but I get something out of that on my own behalf, then that is necessarily morally inferior that the. The greatest moral deed you can do to honor God would be something that you get nothing from. And that is the way that the fallen mind wants to think about that, but that is not true. That's simply not true, and you know it to be true if you just simply think about it for a little bit. So let's put it in the perspective of our prayer. Relationships. Let's think if you were to really say, okay, the way that I can honor someone most, the way that I can most heap honor upon someone would be doing something in which I don't get any benefit from doing that. It's just something to honor them or something to show my respect for them. So I was listening to Pastor Andrew Davis and he puts it this way and I'm going to steal this from him. He puts it in the In the context of a young couple getting married. So he says, imagine this. Imagine there's a wedding day and there's a young couple getting married. And on the wedding day, everybody's gathered there to listen to the ceremony. And they come to the part of the vows. And when they come to the vows, the wife, my wife has these vows to say to the husband, she says to the husband, she says, I marry you, I take you as my husband today, and I have no expectation whatsoever that you're going to make me happy. I have no expectation that you're going to provide for me. I have no expectation that you're going to protect me. I have no expectation that you're going to love me. I have no expectation that this marriage will make me happy in any way, yet I give myself to you as your wife. Now, if you were there in that ceremony and you heard that, you would have the look on your face that you have right now to say, something is wrong about that. Something is very wrong about someone who would say, I exist just to make you happy with no expectation of anything for myself. And if that ceremony continued to its conclusion. And they came to the point where the minister said, if anybody has any objections why these two should not be married, hopefully everybody in the room would say, yeah, we do. Something is not right about this. This couple should not enter into a marriage in which one person has no desire to be made happy by the other. If we can understand that in a marriage, why is that so hard to understand in our relationship with the Lord? Why would we therefore think that it's morally superior for us to say to God, God, I will serve you and I want nothing in return. I will honor you. I will glorify you. I will worship you, but I want nothing in return. I'm, I'm above all that wanting rewards thing. I'm going to do this for your glory, God, and nothing else. Just like the marriage ceremony, we should say there's something wrong here. There's something awry. And this is why God is so emphatic in the Scriptures to teach us that he is a rewarder and to teach us that those who follow him, the denial that you do is the denial of counterfeit gods, of counterfeit happiness, of false joy. That's the self-denial that we're called to. And so Lewis, going back to Lewis now, Lewis picks up on this and he says, if this is true, and I, I just portrayed that as though Lewis and Piper were contemporaries. They weren't. Lewis is writing in the sixties and Piper's writing in the nineties. But nevertheless, Lewis picks up on that to say, if that were true, If our greatest happiness is found in knowing him, Then it's not true to say that our desire for happiness is too strong. He says it's too weak. He said the problem with most Christians is not that you want too much to be happy. The problem with most Christians is that you're too easily satisfied with counterfeit happiness, that you're too easily placated with false joy, that you're too quick to accept the extra hour of sleep on Lord's Day morning. When you should instead have a heart that drives you to say, I will be satisfied with nothing less than the perfect happiness that God promises me as the rewarder. And that's what he, where he comes along to say, this, this is why God tells us over and over of his rewards for us because he wants the Christian to desire those and be satisfied in nothing less than those. So as you have this picture in your mind of Jesus calling these disciples to follow him, the rich young ruler, who is the only one in Mark's gospel that didn't follow Jesus or, or think back to his call to Peter and Andrew and James and John and Matthew. The picture you should have in your mind of Jesus calling to Matthew and Matthew leaving his tax booth to follow Jesus. You should not have this picture of this. robot spiritual zombie that hears the call and just says, I must obey. I must obey and follows Jesus. Instead, you should have in your mind, a, a complex picture of a man who is a mixture of trust and obedience and curiosity and delight that the Holy Spirit has communicated something to Matthew in that tax booth. Something into his inner soul, which he doesn't necessarily fully understand, but he does perceive in that man is what I've been looking for. In that man is the happiness that I've been looking for my whole life, that this wealth has not given me. In something about knowing him and following him is the purpose for which I have been searching. That's the happiness that I've been looking for. So this reward, these rewards that God promises are something He wants us to hear and to know and to meditate upon. Now, in just a few, the last few minutes here, what I want to do is just think a little bit about what the Scriptures say to us are our eternal rewards that are to come. And we're not going to spend too much time on this, but I just want to mention this to sort of plant the seeds and let you think about this and let your minds and your souls meditate upon this. When we think about those eternal rewards, I apologize for the alliteration, but sometimes you just, something just has to be alliterated. Those rewards can really be classified in three things, crowns, commendation, and capacity. Crowns, commendations, and capacity. Because that's how the Scriptures present to us our eternal rewards. First of all, crowns. What are crowns in Scripture? Well, we come across crowns a great deal in the Scriptures and those crowns that we come across, we read about the in Revelation four and verse four, the elders were throwing their crowns at the foot of Christ.