Law & Grace - Matthew 10:32-42 Not peace,but a sword
Matthew 10:32-42 · Vern Peterman · Nov 13, 2011
Law & Grace, No. 44
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926253131193

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We do, in fact, have quite a number of things that will be in addition to or different from the schedule that might ordinarily be the case over the next couple of months. And so we'll be getting, I think in the past we've called it a refrigerator list. Whether you keep it on your refrigerator or not isn't important. But at any rate, just so you're aware of those things. We've tried to include a number of those things the bulletin, but for example timings of things for the next couple of months will in some cases be different.

We will be for Christmas Day and for New Year's Day not having electives but having just the main service changes like that. So be aware, I mean if you show up for the electives and nobody's here I guess that's sort of okay but it'd be better if you knew, right?

At any rate, in view of that as well, I'll be traveling over this next week, so I'm really excited about what Roger has to teach this next Sunday. He'll be teaching out of Colossians 3, 1-4. Just a spectacular passage, so that'll be great. I'll be teaching at a church over in California. the day before that doing a marriage seminar for some churches over there.

So, at any rate, the Lord's got some neat opportunities for all of us here in the weeks and a couple months ahead. Here in this passage that Courtney read for us, at least most of the passage, they'll be studying the day. It was included in what he read. I think a perspective on it that's important is that Jesus spoke with proverbial insights. That is what I mean by that.

If you read through the Old Testament book of Proverbs, you'd likely notice that even though the book presents wisdom, it doesn't do so in some long flowing pattern. Rather instead, it's a collection of fairly brief bits of wisdom. And Jesus presents, in this passage, a similar kind of thing as he gives his disciples instructions. Rather than some this, then this, then this, with a logical sequence and a flow to it, he gives them, here's a little bit of wisdom, and here's a little bit of wisdom, and then sometimes it's in one verse, and other times it may be in three. But it's little pieces of information that will be helpful for you as you go about on your assignment, two by two. He assigned the disciples to go out two by two to the people of Israel in the land of Israel and from a practical standpoint largely in the area around Galilee and telling them here's what you need to keep in mind as you head out to tell the gospel of the kingdom to these people.

Here's an example of how Proverbs tends to do things. You'll notice I give an example of Proverbs 10, 7 through 9. This is not on your handout particularly. But you'll see on the one hand a pattern from one verse to the next, but by the same token, not necessarily a flow. Here's what we mean. Verse 7, the memory of the righteous is blessed, but the name of the wicked will rot. How's that for a complimentary passage, right? The wise of heart will receive commands, but a babbling fool will be ruined. And then verse 9, he who walks in integrity walks securely, but he who perverts his ways will be found out. Similar pattern, but not necessarily a logical flow or a sequence building from one to the next.

Jesus speaks in much the same way as he's sharing here in the last half of Matthew chapter 10. Jesus said, as we pointed out before, a lot of things that were typical of what rabbis said in his day. Many people, when they're reading through the Gospels, will hear things and read things that Jesus said and think, oh, that's uniquely Christ's. There were, in fact, some things that Jesus said that were just absolutely typical of what the rabbis would say.

One of them, we would make an example of here, is, take my yoke upon you. That was actually something said by other rabbis. So there is, on the one hand, a typical rabbinical set of sayings. Another one, here's one quoted from Luke 14, 26. Jesus says, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. That sort of thing was said, actually, typically by the rabbis. And there were over a hundred of them in Israel during this time. One little comment. This hate, and you'll see a similar statement in today's passage, this hate is a Hebrew figure of speech.

It does not mean that you're supposed to hate your mother and father and that sort of thing. Obviously, if you're honoring your mother and father, you're not hating them, right? It is a figure of speech that says, compared to the way you love and follow and are devoted to me, your love, which is proper for your mother, father, etc., family members, will be as hate by comparison. In other words, the love and devotion to Christ must be that intense. That's the Hebrew figure of speech here.

He will give them warning about the hardships that they're going to face, about the opposition that they should expect, so that they know to expect it. And he says, don't let that dissuade you from doing what I've assigned you to do. Know that there is going to be opposition, there is going to be hardship, but that it shouldn't change what you're about to do. Go right ahead and tell people what they don't want to hear. Okay? All right. We'll also find this kind of thing.

While it's typical of rabbis, we will find additionally Jesus says things that no other rabbi would ever, and I put in here bold italics, dare say to his own disciples. Some of the things that Jesus said, others would hear and say, okay, that's what all the rabbis say. And then Jesus would say things that no other rabbi would ever, ever say. We will continue to compare and contrast.

What do we mean by that? We'll find some things that are the same between ourselves and the people of Israel, and we will find some things that are different. When things are the same, we'll identify that. When things are different, we'll identify that. It's really not that complicated, although it seems that a lot of Christians and even Bible scholars get challenged at this point. But we will compare what's the same and what is different. An important tool for us to understand as we're going through these passages is to define words that are the same for Israel and the church but have different meanings.

An example would be the word blessed. Here in Deuteronomy 28, 8 and 9, He, that is God, will bless you in the land which the Lord gives you if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. The blessings are what? Conditional or unconditional? They're conditional, right? Here the blessings are conditional. And where are you blessed? In the land, here on this planet, right? You're blessed in the land, here on this planet, if.

If you carry them out. If you do them all, and by the way, how many is all? All? 613 laws. 365 of them? are negatives. Don't do this. The rest are positive statements. You must do this. Carry them all out and you'll be blessed in the land, if you do it.

We, however, in the church are told, Ephesians 1.3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, where? In the heavenlies, in Christ. Blessings, are they conditional? No, they're unconditional, and the blessings are in the heavenly places.

So very different. Same word, but a very different meaning to them. That's how we will compare and contrast. The next slide here has this, but I underscore the word disciples. The word disciple or disciples is used throughout the Gospels, all four of them, and the Book of Acts. But the word disciple is used differently for the Jews than the word is for the church. Why? Disciples in Judaism focused on the law. Why would in the Acts the disciples, who are Christians as a part of the church, not focus on the law? Because we died to it. Right? So the same word used differently.

Now, the disciples, that is the 12 disciples here in the land of Israel, speaking to the people of Israel, they had already seen, that's what we saw in chapter 8 and chapter 9, they'd already seen the scribes and Pharisees opposing Jesus, and it had only just begun, but they had seen it. They were quite aware that Jesus had met with opposition. Even some of the disciples of John the Baptist challenged Jesus. That's rather startling. But the disciples had already seen opposition from different other parties, right?

The Pharisees had begun to accuse Jesus of doing things by the power of Beelzebub, and they are not done. We're going to be looking at that more in the weeks ahead. This word Beelzebub is derived from the name Baal, who is the chief Canaanite god. out of the gross Canaanite gods, and so Beelzebub became a Jewish figure of speech for Satan. And Satan in fact does have a number of names even biblically, right? Why does Jesus bring this up?

The disciples had already seen the opposition from the scribes and the Pharisees. If Jesus, their rabbi and master, received this treatment when he was in fact doing the preaching and validating the kingdom with the miracles and healings and cleansings and setting out of the demons, the disciples could also expect the same treatment. You've seen it happen to me. As you go out and begin to preach the gospel of the kingdom and do the kinds of miracles that validate your ministry, expect the same treatment.

That's all he's telling them. And if you think about it, it's only fair that he tell them that's what to expect. Imagine if our troops, when they went into Iraq, were told Hey guys, it's going to be a cakewalk. Everybody will be just glad as can be that you're there, and it won't be any problem at all.

Would that work out? Well, not so much. And so our troops were not told that, and Jesus did not tell the disciples, hey, it's going to be a piece of cake going out there. Everybody will just love what you have to say, and nobody will oppose you at all. They'll all agree with you. No. That's not what he told them.

And so this passage, Jesus is actually telling them what he ought to tell them, because they need to be addressing what, look, you've been given an assignment, expect opposition. Expect it. Now, what you disciples are declaring will eventually be brought out publicly. Now, there certainly are going to be those who don't want to hear the good news that is the gospel of the kingdom.

They would rather you kept it to yourself. Hmm, sounds like what happens with Christianity in our culture. They'd rather you kept it to yourself. This is a private matter. Don't dare bring that out in public, right? What are the two things you're not supposed to talk about in polite society?

Politics and religion. You all know what that is, right? So what does the Lord say? Well, you need to tell people the gospel. And what are people going to interpret that as? Probably not politics, but certainly religion, right? Okay. There are people who are going to say, I'd really rather you kept that to yourself. And that's if they're being polite.

Since the gospel of the kingdom will eventually be very public, you disciples might as well bring it to light and tell it out loud. It's all going to be out in the open ultimately anyway, but your assignment is to tell people, don't keep it secret, tell it out loud, bring it to the light, put it out there. You might as well, because eventually it's all going to happen anyway. To the disciples, Jesus' message is this. It's the absolute truth. It's absolutely going to be made public. It will happen. So don't hold back and don't back down. Just do it. So that's what he's telling them here in verses 26 and 27. Now, verse 28. Ah, the question.

Should we be afraid to tell someone, that telling someone that someone will cause us to go to hell? Is that what he's saying? Is this verse saying, be careful, you had better be afraid that someone's going to cause you to go to hell. Is that what it's saying? Well, is it? Well, nobody's answering, so I will. Okay.

Jesus does not mean that we ought to be afraid that someone will have the kind of influence so as to cause someone of us who believes to go to hell. That's not what he means. Notice that he doesn't say to cause you to go to hell. He doesn't say it's you who are going to hell. So, that's not his point. He does mean that there are those who are going to be influenced so as not to believe And then their souls and bodies, not these, but their souls and bodies will be eternally, but not terminally, that is never ending, not terminally ruined in hell. So there is somebody to be careful of, but it's not about your own salvation.

It's about somebody else's. Now one other thing, this word for hell, is a word we brought up before, several chapters back. It's Gehenna. Let's give you the story behind that. We covered it back then, so if you want to look this up, this is not included in your slides. But Matthew 5, 21 through 32, we covered this. Jesus uses a word that he uses here in Matthew, and it's also in Mark.

It is translated hell. The word is Gehenna. It's used just once each in Luke and even in the letter by James. The word is Gehenna. It's from the Valley of Hinnom, which is a valley just south of Jerusalem. It was, at the time, a burning trash heap. It's a place that actually had a long-standing history of a fiery and awful past, all the way up to New Testament times in Christ's day. Here's the Old Testament story.

That valley was a place of burning of the infants to the god Molech, to the pagan god Molech, 2 Kings 23.10, Jeremiah 7.31. And it was a horrible, horrible, awful thing. And God said, don't you be doing that. But it took place there, just south of Jerusalem. This burning of infants of the pagan god Molech, this was actually what you would do with your firstborn. If you can imagine that. And the parents, the parents out of religious duty would take their firstborn and present them to be burned here by the god Molech.

In the New Testament times, the very same location was just used for burning trash. They would have trash there And then any criminals whose bodies weren't taken away, like after they'd be crucified on a cross, they'd just take the bodies down, pull the nails out, take the bodies down, and put them down in this place called Gehenna. And they'd dump animal carcasses and people carcasses there. So Gehenna, by New Testament times, had become a figure of speech for hell, because it was constantly a burning fire and stench.

It was a miserable place. Not a place you'd hang out, right? Here he is in Jerusalem, and this would be a diagram of the area around Jerusalem and the Hinnom Valley off to one side. So here you see it located right there. Here's what that valley looks like now. No longer trash and no longer the God Molech there, but that was the place.

That's what Jesus referred to there in this word. So, should we be afraid that someone will cause us to go to hell? No, but ultimately Jesus is pointing to the destructive influencer, Satan, the ultimate one. He was in fact in the garden, the one that initiated the fall of man by his deception that led to destruction. Now, the next slide there, verses 29 through 31 are covered. This is titled Falling Sparrows and Counting Hares. The truth is we could call it Falling Hares and Counting Sparrows, but anyway.

It goes this way. People in New Testament times would pay the smallest coin in circulation. There's a picture of it there, both sides. For the two sparrows, why would you pay such a small amount? I think it's translated cent in a lot of your translations, or maybe farthing to use the British coin system. Why the smallest amount? Because you had to have two sparrows to be worth one penny, right? There just wasn't much meat on them. So Jesus used that as an example.

It is insignificant by human measure. God knows our every detail and values us. Sorry about the blurry there. By the way, I'm telling you, the picture goes blurry, it's not your eyes. Okay. Even if human beings didn't care much if a sparrow fell, God knew. We would say, well, that doesn't matter if a sparrow falls.

But God knows. He knows everything that happens. One more thing. Not only does He know every detail, He values us. That's key. God knows the number of our hairs. Of course, for me, that's getting easier all the time. But He knows every little detail about us. Okay. Verses 32 and 33.

Confess or deny. Is that how we gain or lose salvation? So what do you think? There are a lot of people who think that that's what it means. Confession or denial is not the basis for salvation or else Peter's salvation would have been lost. Isn't that what he did? Matter of fact, it's the exact same word. Didn't Peter, a couple of years after this, right across the courtyard from where Christ was, Jesus even told him in advance he would do it. Peter, you will deny me, not once, three times. Peter's salvation would have been lost if denial was how you lose it, right? Judas, in fact, did confess Christ.

So does that mean he's saved? No. To the point, he did it well enough even on this assignment. We don't know who he got paired up with going out two by two. Even on this assignment, nobody suspected that Judas would be the one. Even at the Last Supper, as Judas went out, people were still saying, it's not me, is it? They didn't say, well, no, it's him, right? They didn't. Even to the last hours, they didn't know it was him.

But he was, in fact, not saved, and therefore could not be rewarded. This passage here is therefore not about loss of salvation, but it's about instead reward. Confession or denial does matter when it comes to present fellowship and eternal reward. There's a supplement that we're making available, 2 Timothy 2, 11 through 13. That's one that addresses this, you know, if we deny Him, He denies us. Is that also a loss of salvation, or does it mean something else? So anyway, a one-pager will have that available. Present fellowship and eternal reward, not salvation, But eternal reward are what's being spoken of here as well as in the Second Timothy passage. And the reward, as we'll see here shortly, is a victor's crown.

All right. So anyway, you can take a look at that, and I won't take the time for that now. We're about to enter the season where people celebrate Christmas, a part of that, and it's in the Christmas cards. It may even be in our Christmas program here.

While the angels told the shepherds, peace among men with whom he is pleased. By the way, the angels told, not saying. Told the shepherds, peace among men with whom he is pleased. There will be people who will not please the Lord, And there will be people who will not be pleased with the Lord either.

Right? What is this? He's not declaring war when he says, I bring a sword. That's not his intent. But he is saying that he himself, he himself, who he is, who he declared himself to be, is an issue on which people will be radically divided. People will be radically divided.

Have you noticed that? Who's Jesus? Oh, he's my Lord and Savior. Who's Jesus? That blankety blank. Right? And I've heard the whole extreme from people. There's even a website I kind of chuckle about. Jesus never existed. Right? So, and of course that's one way to get rid of the problem, right? It doesn't work out very well historically, but I guess you can believe anything you want.

Jesus is an issue upon which people will be radically divided. As a matter of fact, if you think about that, that's the ultimate division, isn't it? It's not just division now. There's a dividing point off into the horizon. There's a dividing point where all of us will be divided over Jesus, won't we?

Those who put their trust and faith and confidence in Him and what He did on the cross and what He did when He came out of the tomb. There are those who put their trust and faith and confidence in Him and there are those who most certainly will not. And that's the ultimate division.

Right now, we all walk around the same planet and breathe the same air. I saw a statistic one time. I don't remember the exact number, but you've breathed the same number of oxygen molecules. It's O2, right? Oxygen molecules as Leonardo da Vinci. So we have this commonality. We walk on the same planet and spend the same money and eat a lot of the same food.

But there's a dividing point out there that'll be radically different, and it's Jesus. So he's letting them know this is a dividing point, and it's really just started. Swords don't make for compromise. You stick a sword out, as people are coming at it, they have a tendency to go one way or the other, right? They pick which path. There will be those who would not like to hear the gospel of the kingdom, or any other gospel from Jesus for that matter, even with Jewish families of the closest ties.

Jesus' own family is an example of that. We were studying, not too long ago, on our Thursday night study, the Gospel of John. And one of the things we presented there is there's a place there in the Gospel of John where it's very clear that Jesus' brothers do not believe in him and they wish he was dead. They invite him, go down to Jerusalem because we'd like you to get killed there. You may have even noticed that the gospel of substitution, Christ died for your sins, can divide up families not founded wholly or entirely on knowing Christ the Savior.

It's happened in my extended family. I've seen it happen in others. All the more reason, in fact, to firmly found your family on knowing Christ the Savior. Firmly found your family on that. Ah, yes, now the question. I had some up front saying, OK, what's the answer to the question that you had up there?

Am I supposed to take up my cross daily or not? Let me know. Tell me. I got to know what to do here, right? Well, we're going to answer that. Are you ready? Here we go. So must you take up your cross and follow Christ in order to be worthy of Him? Do you? Ready to do that? No. Why would we say such a thing? What? Jesus said this. Aren't we supposed to do this? No. Why not? Okay.

God had something different in mind for us who are in the church. When we believe the gospel of substitution, What do we mean by that? Let me be clear, that Christ died for your sins and was buried and rose again. That's the gospel of substitution. I'd say in a nutshell, but that's definitely a figure of speech.

When we believe that, God had something different in mind. God identified us with Christ in His death on the cross. As far as everybody could tell who was there, Jesus alone was on the cross, and Jesus alone got spikes put in each hand. And Jesus alone, as far as anyone could tell, had a spike put through His feet.

But the cross was crowded that day. It was crowded with you and me. We were crucified with Christ that day. Now, when you're crucified, how many crosses do you carry? You don't carry any crosses. You're on it. To carry a cross is to anticipate your death. To believe that you've been crucified with Christ is to look back upon your death. Aren't those quite different things? Yes, they certainly are.

God wants us to reckon and consider. In fact, I'm using a word out of Romans 6 there, 611. It's actually an accounting term. The Greek word that is translated reckoning, the King James, consider in the New American Standard, it's actually an accounting term. And the accounting term means to figure it out. Add it up. Calculate this one. Or another way we put it in modern vernacular, you do the math.

On the basis of the deaths that already happened when we died with Christ on this cross, the death already took place. And our living is to be like that. Not on going back and trying to carry the cross around. Carrying the cross around, and actually what they did was carry not the cross, but the cross piece, was to carry the law around for a Jewish disciple. Right? To carry the law around. And the cross piece, the patibulum, was actually what you carried, not the whole cross. And so what they're saying, here's this big scroll. It looks like the petibulum at a distance that you're carrying.

So no, you don't need to pick up your cross daily because you've already been nailed to it. And it's a done deal. You do need to reckon on that co-crucifixion with Christ daily. Now we're to the lost and found. And this isn't Nancy trying to find a home for a coat, right? This is the lost and found department. It's in verse 39.

He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for my sake will find it. Jesus said, basically I'm paraphrasing, if a person already feels like he has found his life by himself, that person will in fact have lost any hope of finding true kingdom life there for the Jews. Who are those who thought they had already found their life?

The Pharisees. By the way, people will often ask, from time to time I get this question, why didn't the Jews believe that Jesus was the Messiah? Well, let's put it this way. The Pharisees figured we are the best of the best. We have got this all figured out. As a matter of fact, the way they thought they were going to force the Messiah to come. That's right.

They were going to make the Messiah come by getting all the Jews at one time to follow the law. If they could get all the Jews to follow the law, then the Messiah would come. So to have Jesus come to them and to say, you guys have a problem and I'm the Messiah, was totally inconsistent with their whole frame of reference. Wait a minute, the Messiah can't come until we make everybody follow the law and they're not doing it, so you can't possibly be the Messiah. Since we're going to be so good, we're going to make the Messiah come. And therefore you're not the Messiah. And how dare you say that we have a problem.

So, these had already figured out that they'd found life. It's in the law. But the Jewish disciple who would be spent for Christ's sake has already found the true kingdom life that his heart desires in Christ the King. As for us, God has already made sure that we have lost our life. See, he who loses his life, for my sake we'll find it. Guess what? It's done. You don't have to lose your life. God made sure you did. He crucified you with Him. You've been crucified with Christ. You don't have to go and lose your life. It's already been lost. You were crucified with Christ.

So, verse 40, what and who are you receiving? Jesus said that the one who receives the disciples, here he is talking to them, as they carry out this ministry assignment that he's going to send them on two by two, receives Christ. And the one who sent them, the one who receives Christ, receives the Father who sent him. So here, disciples, if they receive you, they're receiving me. And therefore, they're receiving the Father as well. That's the message he has for them. It's fairly straightforward.

So, are we all to be receptionists? Well, not exactly. Okay. Even so, our own receptiveness of valid ministry is at issue. Our own receptiveness of valid Ministry is the issue. It's more than just a human-level transaction. Oh, there's all kinds of ministry. Even your coming here involves ministry, right? But your own receptiveness of ministry is more than just a human transaction. As far as the world is concerned, you walk through the doors of a building. We had a sociological transaction here, right?

And that's how the world looks at it. It's all just human-level interaction. We've done our anthropological duty. That's the way the world sees it. But in fact, how we receive ministry, and there's lots of it, how we receive ministry Here, even among us as a church body, is important. Why? It's because it's not just about receiving one another. That's only where it starts.

It's about what are we doing with what God is telling us? What are we doing with the ministry that God is bringing in our way? God has intentionally revealed Himself, ultimately in Christ and His Word. And what we do with that revealing of Himself matters. He's going to reveal himself in ministry through us as a church body.

Now, receiving, giving, and reward is verse 41 and 42. Godly receiving is rewardable by God. That is, Jesus is telling the disciples, as people receive you and welcome your message, They actually will be rewarded for that. Even as they give you aid, they'll be rewarded for that. Jesus spoke of rewards for the Jews who believed and then received God's prophets and righteous men and showed kindness to these humble ones.

The translations sometimes say little ones. It's literally humble ones. So we in the church, the body of Christ, are identified as a different body of people, but we too are offered rewards or victor's crowns for what the Lord works in us and through us by his grace. You have a chart like this. There are five crowns that the New Testament identifies for those of us in the church. In some cases, they're in more than one passage. The victor's crown, church founder's crown, a rapture's lover's crown.

Can you imagine? There is an eternal reward for looking forward to his coming. Are you looking forward to his coming? Cool! Because there's an eternal reward for that. That's great! Isn't that amazing? The Lord says, are you looking forward to my coming? That's great! I'm going to reward you forever for that, even after I've already come. Isn't that wonderful? That's fantastic. Then elders crown for service, a trial crown, you go into a rough time, wonderful! Okay?

God can use that. Matter of fact, He'll reward that forever as you go through that faithfully, trusting Him, depending upon Him. There are also three other things that are not called crowns, but rewards, similar to what we see here in the Gospels that Jesus just mentioned. A solid foundation reward. That is, this is standing on the Word of God. There's a reward for standing on the Word of God here. And how long does it last? It doesn't fade when we walk through heaven's gates. You know how long it lasts? It lasts forever. A solid foundation reward. A voluntary service reward.

Not somebody comes up to you and says, will you do this? Yeah, I guess so, right? But actually, yeah, I'd love to do that. Why? Because God loves it when people are motivated by grace. He says, yeah, that's exactly what I wanted, right? He says, I'll reward that. What you did that only took a little bit of time, I'll reward that forever, and it's never going away.

An inheritance reward. Now that's interesting. I thought inheritance is something you get when somebody else dies. Very interesting. These crowns, I need to talk about it. It's not a diadem, not a royalty crown. It's a victor's crown in athletic competition. This would be an example of what that would look like in New Testament times and before.

One of the points we have here is what God has us doing here is for His eternal purpose. What are you doing? Are you working? Like this guy working on floors? God has called us to a variety of roles and activities and the reality is those change over time. You may be at a point where you say, Heaven's I've gotten to a place where I need a lot of help.

You know, God's not still not done with you yet There's a reason why he's still got you here if your heart's still ticking. Hey, there's a reason why you're here What God has us doing in time is for his eternal purpose Whether you're doing a lot of cooking Whether you're watching a whole boatload of kids Whether you're fixing engines or driving the cars that are in them. So, whether you're doing that, God has in mind ministry for you. God has a purpose if you're here. And it doesn't matter if something in your body doesn't work. I've got a few things that don't work. God still has in mind ministry. God's eternal purpose is to reveal and declare and to share His glory with you to the end that He is eternally glorified. And if you're still here, He's not done carrying that eternal purpose for you.

Crowns and rewards are not about us and our horde. Got that? Trying to be slightly poetic there. Crowns and rewards are not about us and our horde. It's not like, man, you ought to see the crowns. I got them up on my mantle back in my mansion that the Lord prepared for me, and they're kind of cool. You know, I kind of like to look at them and, boy, did I do good. No, it's not about that. It's about glorifying God. That's the end result.

And one of the reasons we bring that out is, what are you going to do with those crowns? Suppose you get all five crowns. What are you going to do with all those? Are you going to put them on your mantel in your heavenly mansion? No. We're going to be laying them at his feet again and again and again. The crowns are a capacity to glorify the Lord. That's what they are. They're not a hoard. They're not a selfish, look what I got. Look what I earned.

You're a capacity to glorify the Lord forever. And it can happen in a moment here. We spend a short period of time here when it's all done. You compare the time that all of us live here to eternity, it's pretty small. But isn't it amazing that for the time that we're here, the Lord rewards us forever with a capacity to glorify Him. Let's take a minute to glorify him right now.

Lord, we thank you for what you have done. We thank you for what you've accomplished. We thank you for the rewards that you offer, not so that we can selfishly put them up on our mantle and have everybody admire what we've done, but so that we can glorify you forever. What an amazing, yes, and gracious thing that you have done. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.