Sermon for Flinders Park Church August 2018
A couple of weeks ago, I discussed why we need not fear the Day of Judgement if we are united to Christ by faith. We cannot stand at the judgement on our own merits but only the merits of Christ. Since that is true, can there be any kind of reward awaiting us? What would we be rewarded for? And if there is no reward, what motivates believers to be obedient to God or to give up worldliness and worldly pleasures? Let’s consider these questions today.
Many times the Bible speaks of rewards for the people of God. These rewards are for those who long for Jesus to appear (2 Tim 4:8) and love the Lord Jesus (Jas 1:12). The reward is a motivation to persevere under trial (Jas 1:12). The Christian life can be difficult and often is. The temptation is to give up serving God and give up living a Christian life because it is too difficult. But Jesus promises a reward to those who do not give up. “Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets” (Luke 6:22-23). He said to the church in Smyrna, “Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown” (Rev 2:10). One reason for being faithful to Jesus during trials is this promise of reward.
However, we are not promised rewards in this life. The reward is for the life to come. It is easy to have short-term thinking in this regard. Jesus warned people about the Pharisees and how they made a public display of their religion. “‘Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 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 I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you’” (Matt 6:1-4). Jesus said something similar about prayer (Matt 6:5-6). Our Father in heaven will reward us, but not necessarily in the present.
Those who want to approval of other people may well get that approval as their reward in this life, but they will miss out on a reward from God. On the other hand, those who seek to please God rather than other people are content to go unrecognised in the present so that they may receive a true reward from God when Jesus comes again. If we forget this, then we can get sucked into the preaching of some people that say that Christians can have everything by faith now: health, wealth, success, honour etc. It is possible to be healthy, wealthy and successful in a worldly sense and not have God’s favour. It is better to seek after the rewards that only he can give.
The next question is whether rewards for Christians differ or not. There are two different strands of thinking about rewards in the Bible. The first is that every believer in Christ will receive the same reward. Jesus told a parable about workers in a vineyard.
1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. 3 About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went. He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ 7 ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ 9 The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ 13 But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Matt 20:1-16).
According to this parable, the reward that people receive in the kingdom of God is not dependent on how much a person worked, but only on the generosity of God. It is only by grace that anyone is saved at all. So in that sense it is reasonable that whatever reward we receive is dependent on grace and not what we do. The reward in this parable is to become part of God’s kingdom. It makes no difference whether someone enters the kingdom early or late. The very fact of being able to work for the King of kings is a reward in itself.
But this is not the only picture of rewards in the New Testament. There are other passages which suggest that there are levels of reward on the Day of Judgement.
By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. 14 If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames. (1 Cor 3:10-15).
The context of this passage is that Paul calls himself a builder and his building is the church. He laid the only true foundation, which is Christ. There is no other. What people lay on that foundation can be considered by God to be precious metal or precious stones or it can be considered common things like wood, hay and straw. Clearly, the former is good and the latter bad because when it comes to the Day of Judgement, those who do not build with precious stones or precious metal will only be barely saved, only just escaping through the flames. The rewards that we will get are based on how we build on the foundation of Christ. There is nothing at all for those who build on some other foundation because Christ is the only true foundation. Everything else is “sinking sand” (Matt 7:26).
It matters how we build on the foundation of Christ, or to put it another way, it matters what we do in the Christian life because the reward we receive will be dependent on how we lived. So the question is: What actions count as precious stones and precious metals? What are we rewarded for doing? There are several things for which a reward is promised.
Firstly, there is a reward for honouring God’s people. “Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward” (Matt 10:41-42).
There are rewards for enduring persecution (Luke 6:23) and for loving your enemies (Luke 6:35). There is a reward for holding on to Jesus in the face of trials. Jesus told the church in Philadelphia, “I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown” (Rev 3:11).
There is a reward for disciplining yourself to follow Jesus. “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize” (1 Cor 9:24-27).
A final question: what is the reward that we will receive? First and foremost it is the approval of Jesus himself. In the parable of the nations, the master rewards those who have cared for the weak and vulnerable by saying, “‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’” (Matt 25:23). Pleasing Jesus is what his people most long for. This is the most motivating aspect of the reward that awaits us. It will help us to endure whatever problems are present in our lives.
Secondly, we will receive an inheritance. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Col 3:23-24). Our inheritance is our reward. What is our inheritance? The tribe of Levi had no physical inheritance, except tithes (Num 18:24), because their inheritance was the LORD himself (Deut 10:9). The reward we are seeking is a deep and completely right relationship with God himself. It will be an unhindered relationship; there will be no sin on our part and no wrath or judgement on the part of God. It will be just like the perfect relationship that Jesus has with the Father.
And thirdly, the reward is that we have brought others into the kingdom of God. Paul said, “If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make full use of my rights as a preacher of the gospel” (1 Cor 9:17-18). And again, “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends!” (Phil 4:1). Elsehwere he wrote, “For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you?” (1 Thess 2:19). This reward is the fruit of building the church (see earlier discussion about 1 Cor 3). When we work towards building the body of Christ either through encouraging and building up people within the church or witnessing to those outside the church so that they may come to know God through Christ, then these people form part of our reward.
So in sum, those who follow Jesus faithfully to the end will receive a reward. In one sense we do not deserve this reward at all because it is Jesus who has earned it for us. However, the fact that we will receive a reward for serving Jesus is a great motivation. When life is difficult or people are hostile towards our faith, we can stand because we know that our reward is coming. Right now we might lose time, money, reputation or health. But we will be rewarded if we stay faithful. God may well ask us to do something difficult or painful. He will certainly ask us to go against the tide of our materialistic culture. People will very likely think we are strange being Christians. But we have a reward that can never spoil or fade.
Consequently, knowing that we will have a reward, let us live as people who want to please Jesus far more than we want what we can have here and now. Pray, give, love, be holy all because we have a reward. Seek to do the will of God because he rewards those who serve him. Make every effort to be godly people. Nothing that we do for Jesus will go unrewarded. But anything that we do in the flesh and to please the flesh will be burned up. Make sure that you endeavour to build on the foundation of Christ with gold and precious stones and not with straw.