The tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. So let us begin then with prayer.
Father, thank you for granting us a beautiful day to gather together to be in fellowship with one another. And we do pray your blessings upon the fellowship after service as well. And we ask you to grant that we can connect with each other in this hour and this time when we need each other so greatly. We bless you for it. Thank you for the music and the songs we have heard.

Now, Lord, help your servant as I try to unpack the wealth of this subject today. Help me to succeed at conveying to your people the comfort and hope of the Scriptures. And I will give you praise and thanks for that today. In Christ’s name, amen.
Amen.

So we mentioned that we would take one week. We’re going to skip Revelation now for a little bit and go come back to it in September. But we wanted to come back to this. I told you as we went through the seven churches, each church ends with this promise of reward. And I wanted to spend a Sunday on that. And that’s what we’re going to do today. However, I’m not going to focus on the specific rewards of each church. I want to focus on the nature of rewards in general. And there, because I got a lot more there I want to draw out. I will call your attention to the fact that many of the rewards that are mentioned overlap and are synonymous. So, for example, Ephesus, Smyrna, and Sardis are all promised something related to eternal life. The tree of life, the book of life, are not experienced in the second death. Pergamum and Philadelphia are both promised a new name engraved on an immovable object, a stone or a pillar. And then Thyatira and Laodicea are promised to share in Christ’s eternal reign. Those are the blessings, those are the rewards that are promised in these letters.

But I want to come back to this concept a little bit touching on last week and moving forward today with the concept and the nature of rewards in general. So let me lay out our goal this morning if I can succeed at this. Our goal this morning in talking about rewards is to recognize that the offer of rewards does not imply the loss of salvation, but relates to the enhancing of our eternal delight.

Now, last year, if you remember, probably ending about this time, we did a series stressing the accounting of Christian works, that as believers we will face the judgment throne of God. And the works we do as believers will be evaluated and determined whether they’re lasting or eternal or just temporary things. Now, this subject is a source of great misunderstanding. This first song today was just excellent in bearing this out. When the subject of Christians giving account comes up, it can and often does strike us with fear. Because in our hearts, the true believer knows how sinful we still are, how often we struggle, how much we fail, how easy it is for us to slip off. I didn’t bring it up today, but one of the commentaries I purchased to go through the book of Revelation by Joel Beakey in one place, and he’s the president of a theological seminary. He travels around the world speaking. He’s written books, and in this one spot he says, I am surprised at how easily I slip into sin. And so we know that about ourselves. We’re not perfect. We struggle, we fail, and we yield to temptation. And as the old song says, our hearts are prone to wander. So when we hear this message about our works being held accountable to God, it can cause us a little bit of angst and uncertainty because we’re not comfortable with that concept. That’s why it is important for us to understand that the accounting that Jesus mentions here and in other places that we will briefly look at do not imply the loss of salvation. They do not threaten the loss of salvation.

Now here’s some of the thoughts in addition to what we’ve already said in the past. Only saved people can be guilty of unfaithfulness. The world cannot be guilty of unfaithfulness. They’re not in relationship with Christ. Only you and I can be unfaithful in a relationship. But wait a minute. How did we get in the relationship? It was an act of God’s mercy and God’s grace. It goes back to our concept that we said last week, and we will say again sometime, whether you can or cannot lose your salvation. Can I ask you a question? How did you get salvation? Eternal life is a gift. If you lose the gift, how will you regain the gift? And this is, if you don’t get it right in our hearts, we think we have to do something. We have to do something to get it back. That’s work salvation. And this is the same thing here. I must stay faithful or I will lose this gift, which means I have to do things to keep it. And I know it’s a challenging, I know it’s very challenging to keep the balance, and I wish I was a better person, better minister, whatever, so I could convey this more thoroughly. You cannot lose the gift. And if you do, how will you get it back again? The answer in any way to get it back if you lost it was to earn it. And that’s work salvation. We’re saved by grace.

Now, here’s the other thought, especially as it relates to these issues of unfaithfulness. God saved you. And when He saved you, there were several things we need to remember. First, He knew every sin you were ever going to commit again. He saves you knowing how many times you’re going to fail and in what degree. He has forgiven all that mess of sin has been forgiven, wiped away. And yet, we live in fear that the slightest infraction will separate us from Him. Do you not see the inconsistency? This God who’s already forgiven this grocery list of sins is now going to push you out because you messed up in one area. Now, it is important. And this always comes up. And it is important. So I finished this book this week, a very good book. A lot of pointers I hope to incorporate in my preaching.

But we do want to make sure. Because many people say, when you say that you can’t lose your salvation, people think that means you can go out and do anything. No, you can’t. That’s what the whole call of faithfulness is about. If that were true, Jesus would not be rebuking these churches for their drift. But I found this incredibly ironic. Approximately one-third of American adults, say they have had a born‑again experience. And that figure has remained consistent for decades. Surveys find little difference, however, when comparing the believer behavior, the behavior of these born‑again Christians before and after their conversion experiences. Are you listening? Are you listening? In fact, these surveys indicate that in three major categories, illegal drug use, driving while intoxicated, and marital infidelity, behavior actually deteriorates after an expression of commitment to Christ. God, I hate it when I feel like I have to say, I told you so. But when your pastor stands up here and tells you that just because somebody repeated a prayer does not mean they have truly given their hearts to Christ. And the incidence of drunk driving triples after people become Christians.

So, we must make sure that we keep this balance. No, as a Christian, there are things you should not do. But you were saved by grace. And it is a grace that is accounted for all your sins, past, present, and future. And therefore, you cannot be lost.

Now, so our theme, our goal is to recognize the offer of rewards doesn’t imply a loss of salvation, but relates to the enhancing of our eternal delight. Now, here, you’ve heard me say this, and I repeat it. I don’t know how that works. How can a perfect world be less perfect? How can I have a better life in heaven than you do because I was more faithful than you? I don’t know, but that’s what the Scripture teaches. Therefore, just because we cannot deem, because we can’t, we cannot deem as unimportant what we don’t understand. I don’t understand the Trinity. I don’t understand the resurrection. I don’t understand the virgin birth. I don’t understand any of that, but I affirm it is true because the Bible says it’s true. And that’s what we must do here. I don’t know how it works out. That somehow this person’s heaven is better than that person’s heaven based upon what they did in life. But this is what the Bible says.

I also want to call your attention to this. We must make a distinction, I believe, between the loss of individual salvation, which I do not believe a true believer can experience, and the loss or death of a congregation. I believe it is possible for churches to die. We see it happen all the time. Whole denominations have died, gone under, or are going under because of their liberal policies. Something like a thousand churches a year close in America, and there are many reasons for that. Jesus here says to the Ephesians church, if you don’t remember where you were and get back to it, I’ll remove your lampstand. But according to chapter one, the lampstand is the church. You won’t be a church anymore. But we should not conclude that because the church ceases to exist, individual believers in the church lose their salvation. And these letters are written to churches full of people, but nevertheless, the loss of the church should not be used to imply that you can lose your salvation.

Now, there are several considerations there. I’ll call your attention to one of them. Each letter ends with an invitation to individuals within the church. Let him who has an ear hear what the Spirit is saying. And the invitation implies that the person has the ability to respond to the correction Christ is offering. Now, get this. The true believers within each congregation will respond, repent, and be rewarded for their faithfulness. It has, therefore, nothing to do with the question of individual salvation. The Bible is clear that God has always had a remnant of people. He will always have a remnant. It doesn’t matter how far the church goes to the liberal side of things. God has a people who are going to be faithful to Him. Remember the story of Elijah? And Elijah comes on, has this encounter. I won’t give you the whole nine yards, but basically, he goes out feeling sorry for himself, and he says, Oh God, I’m the only one left. There’s nobody but me. And God, in the Shifflett paraphrase, says, What kind of God do you think I am that I would let my kingdom come down to a bitter old man like you? And he says, I’ve got 7,000, a symbolic number of people who have never bowed to Baal or kissed his ring or gone after these idols. God has always had a people, and He always will have a people. Even within congregations that die, even within denominations that die, God has a faithful people. And those faithful people will always respond to the call of God.

Now, if I could give you one more thought quickly illustrating that this isn’t, this question of rewards is not connected to the loss of salvation, is that all seven churches are called to conquer, to overcome. But two of those churches have no sins to overcome. Remember, Smyrna and Philadelphia have no words of reprimand. He doesn’t say there’s anything wrong with them. All the others, he says, I’ve got this against you, I’ve got that against you, you’re doing that, you shouldn’t be doing this. But those two, he says nothing about that, and yet, he says to both of them, you need to overcome so that you can have this reward. Isn’t that interesting? Because if it was related, if the loss of reward equaled the loss of salvation, then why does He offer this reward to these two churches who aren’t doing anything wrong? And this is an important consideration.

Now then, our first part of the goal is to see that these issues of rewards here are not used to imply the loss of salvation. Then we come to our second aspect, the enhancing of our eternal delight. The rewards are aimed at enhancing our eternal delight.

This is pervasive in Scripture, and I must break it down into two segments. So let me begin with the pervasiveness of rewards in both the Old and New Testament. In his book After Life, Hank Hanegraaff says this, Degrees of reward in heaven are not often the subject of contemporary sermons. They were, however, the constant theme in the sermons of Christ. He explicitly points to degrees of reward that were given for faithful service, self‑sacrifice, and suffering. The canon of Scripture is replete with references to rewards. While we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, what we do now counts for eternity. Randy Alcorn, in his book The Law of Rewards, says, while our faith determines our eternal destination, our behavior determines our eternal rewards. And this is a concept that you find in the Bible again and again and again.

For example, these two verses which imply losing a reward: Mark 9:41, Whoever gives you water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward. 2 John 1:8, Watch therefore that you may not lose what we have worked for but may win a full reward. And we’ve stressed it. You know it. We’re saved by grace. We’re not saved by work. So what is he saying we have worked for? It is that aspect of eternal reward in heaven. The New Testament refers to rewards in the language of crowns. For example, 2 Timothy 4:8, Henceforth, because of his faithfulness, Paul says, There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord will award to me on that day. James 1:12, Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial. For when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him. Revelation 2:10, Be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life. And be mindful that in that verse he’s talking to Smyrna who had nothing to be reprimanded for. They are already living faithfully. He just is encouraging them to continue to live faithfully.

And part of the reward in eternity will be this crown of life. In both Matthew and Luke, Jesus assured the disciples they would rule the twelve tribes of Israel. And Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:2 says believers will rule the world. This rule is implied in the Beatitudes of Matthew 5:5, Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. And as I pointed out earlier, two of the churches, Thyatira and Laodicea, are promised to share in the rule of Christ at that point. Also in the parable of the talents, he says, you’ve been faithful over this, I’ll give you control, authority over that. These are the rewards that enhance our eternal delight. They are not meant to be thought of as symptomatic of losing our salvation.

What we can say here is there is no question that God rewards the deeds of those whom He has declared righteous through the work of Christ on Calvary. He does not reward the works of sinners. If they be good works, they’re not rewarded because they’re not doing it in a relationship through Christ. They’re doing it of their own energy. They’re trying to earn His grace and earn His mercy. Therefore, if these rewards are not related to whether we are or aren’t, whether we can or cannot be lost, what’s the point? And the point is that they enhance our eternal delight. That in some way, which we cannot understand, faithfulness here equals greater joy and satisfaction there. I admit I’ve already said it and I’m not going to keep saying it. I don’t understand it. This is what the Scripture teaches. 1 Corinthians 3:14-15, Here at the judgment day Paul says, If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved. Notice that. He doesn’t say you’ll lose your salvation. He says you will lose a reward. And this is significant.

Why would that matter? Somehow, in ways that we cannot see and fully understand what we do as Christians now impacts what heaven will be like when we get there. Now, this brings us to a perennial question of whether it is appropriate to seek a reward when we’re serving God. Is it wrong to seek a reward from serving God? Well, this is pretty involved, so let me give you a few thoughts. First, God by His very nature is a rewarding God. And thus, to reject the reward is to reject the fullness of God. He is by nature a rewarding God. And if I say, well, I don’t want the reward, well, we’re really saying I don’t want part of who God is. We need to consider this. For example, Hebrews 11:6, Without faith it is impossible to please God. For he that comes for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him. He rewards those who seek Him. He is a rewarding God by nature. Isaiah 62:11, Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth, say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your salvation comes. Behold, His reward is with Him. When He comes, the reward comes with Him.

And then He goes on and says, His recompense is before Him. Notice, children, it is in God’s nature to reward righteousness and to punish wickedness. To reject, dismiss, or deemphasize either of these is to deny God’s essential nature. He is by nature a rewarding God.

And therefore, and let me say this before I go on. Here’s what people say about rewards sometimes. I’ve said it. Some of you have said it. I’m going to say it and then I’m going to ask you what’s wrong with it.

Well, as long as I get to heaven, I don’t care. I ain’t worried about rewards as long as I get to heaven.

Now, what’s wrong with that statement? Well, basically, it overlooks the fact that that is not all that matters to God. Your salvation, your name being in the book of life, you getting in the gates of God, that’s not God’s only concern. You might be satisfied with that, but God isn’t.

Listen, children, and this is a challenge for me. I’ve got to tell you, this is a big challenge for me.

In ways that we cannot see, God uses our works to bring others to Christ. When I say I don’t care about the rewards, I’m also not caring about the works. And when I say I don’t care about the works, I’m undermining what God is using to bring people to Christ.

If you give faithfully, God’s going to reward you in heaven. If you’re faithful in church, God will reward you in heaven. And you can go on down the list, can’t you?

When you just make it about whether we, the idea that I’m not interested in the reward, you don’t realize God’s using the reward or the work rather. The work you’re being rewarded for, God is using that work to bring others to Christ.

When you come into a church service, when you give to the Gideons, when you pray, when you talk to somebody in the marketplace about Christ, all these little works that seem insignificant, and we never see any evidence that any of it works, God is using it in ways we cannot see.

Secondly, in ways we cannot comprehend, I’m trying to answer the question: well, it doesn’t matter to me about the rewards.

What’s wrong with that statement? It matters to God. First, because He’s using the works to touch others. And secondly, because God derives pleasure from rewarding His people.

We don’t often talk about the emotions of God. It’s a heavy, complex, difficult, long‑debated subject. But when you look at the Scripture, what do you see? Pleasure and displeasure. What happens at the baptism of Jesus? Anybody remember? He comes up out of the water, the heavens open, a voice comes down from heaven, and what does it say?

This is My Son with whom I am well pleased.

God derives pleasure from rewarding His people. It should matter whether we get a reward because we’re called to live a life which is pleasing to God, and God is pleased by rewarding His people for that faithful service as a rewarding God. That’s why it should matter to you.

Well, I don’t care if I get a reward. I’m coming back so don’t leave me yet.

Listen to 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 9 and 10. Whether we are at home or away, that is, whether we’re in heaven with God or whether we’re still here on earth, we make it our aim to please Him. Stay with you; we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what He has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Knowing that we will appear before Him, we make it our aim to please Him so that when we stand before Him, He will say, well done. And He will give us the rewards that He has assigned.

In the context, that statement is about God being pleased when we stand before Him. Listen to this verse. I want to come back to that verse later. But it’s on this part of the outline.

So I’m going to say it. Luke 12:32. Fear not, little flock. It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Notice this, please. And contextually, I’ll come back to that. So when we say, is it appropriate to seek a reward? And sometimes we want to say, well, it doesn’t matter where I get a reward or not just as long as I get to heaven. And I understand the motivation behind the statement, but it’s still wrong because that’s not all that matters to God.

It’s not all that matters to God.

Now here’s a little thought.

And when you and I say, I ain’t really worried about the reward, if God takes pleasure in rewarding His people, when I say I don’t care about the reward, what am I really saying? I don’t care what God wants. I don’t care what He thinks. I don’t care what His plan is. And that’s a troublesome place to find ourselves in.

Now, the second thing I would call to, the first one is, God is a rewarding God by nature. We’re talking about, is it inappropriate to seek rewards? God is a rewarding God.

But secondly, God commands us to serve with the promise in mind.

It cannot be wrong to seek the promise that He has made for our service.

He says to these people, if you overcome, if you do this, if you’re faithful in that, I will reward you like this. It’s His idea.

How can it be wrong to seek what He has invited us to seek?

Thirdly, and this again kind of overlaps with the other, but to reject the reward, to reject the reward is to set the criteria for our service. I’ll decide how I’m going to serve God.

This is endemic, epidemic in our culture.

Oh, I love Him. I believe in Him, but here’s how I’m going to serve Him.

Now, you have that right in regard to the duties within the church. You don’t have to clean. You don’t have to take out the trash. You don’t have to do any of those things. You have that right as it relates to ministry. You don’t have to be a pastor. You don’t have to be a song leader. You don’t have to be a council member.

But you do not have the right to set your own rules when it comes to the day‑to‑day in and out of Christian living. You do not have the right to look at the book and say, I’m not going to do that. Well, that’s just not what I’m going to do.

And this is what happens when we say, well, I don’t want the reward, Pastor. I’m not worried about the reward. What we’re really saying is I’ll set the terms for my experience. I’ll make the rules.

Children, what sounds like humility it sounds like we’re really, really spiritual, that we’re not looking for rewards.

It sounds really spiritual. And what we’re really doing is inserting ourselves in the place of God.

Now this attitude, as I’ve already said, bleeds over into all the other acts of service.

If I’m not worried about the rewards, and I say, I’m not worried about the rewards, so I’m not going to worry about doing that, and sooner or later every aspect of our service is characterized by unfaithfulness, and that unfaithfulness will result in a loss of reward and might indicate that we aren’t saved.

Notice, I did not say might indicate that I will be lost. It might indicate that you’ve never truly gotten saved to begin with.

Summarize, Pastor. If we’re not careful, this question, is it wrong to seek a reward? If we’re not careful, we need to realize it denies His nature, it sets the rules for our service, and expresses a disregard for what He has said is pleasurable to Him.

Now, we come to another question. How do we keep from seeking reward just for the sake of the reward? Granted, God says, I’m going to reward you, and therefore, it’s not wrong to seek that, but how do we keep from doing just to get the reward?

So let me give you three thoughts.

Three, and I’ll try to be relatively quick. Number one, resist neat reward formulas.

What is a neat reward formula? Do A, get B. Do A, get B. Pray, presto. Give, presto. Witness, presto.

When I first got saved, this was the instruction we received. We’re out this week and talk to somebody about Christ, and they will give the heart to Him this week.

How many have ever talked to Christ or talked to people about Christ, and they didn’t give the heart at that time or the next time or a week after or a month after? It’s a neat success formula. Life is not like that, even with God.

I’ll give you an example. It’s prevalent in the church, and I have to be careful here because I’ve said it before and I will repeat it this morning. The church cannot exist without our financial gifts.

It can’t. There’s no point for you to say, boy, I really love this church, I really appreciate the pastor. If we don’t give, we’ll not have either one. And again, I always like to throw this out.

I shouldn’t have to. We’re not in trouble. We got money. Everything’s good. But if we don’t do our part, who knows what’s going to happen down the road? So we enter the concept of tithing.

And tithe, the Greek and Hebrew word, the word tithe in the Greek Old Testament and in the Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Old Testament means one‑tenth. One‑tenth. Ten percent. That means if you made a thousand dollars, if your paycheck this week was a thousand dollars, you ought to bring a hundred dollar check to the church.

And most Christians in America do not do that. They give and they call it a tithe, but it’s nowhere close to the tenth.

Now, this is the teaching of Scripture. And I understand some people it’s a greater challenge than others. But here’s what we do.

God says in Malachi chapter 3, if you’ll bring the tithe into His storehouse, He will pour out a blessing upon you so great, you won’t have room to receive it. That’s an instant reward formula.

I knew one pastor and he said to people, if God doesn’t bless you this week, I will give the tithe you gave back to you. His church had income about $100 000 a month. It was easy for him to make that kind of promise.

But what we say, you bring in the tithe and God will bless you. And what’s wrong with that? Because now you have begun to do it to get what’s coming back to you. You’re not doing it because you care about the church. You’re not doing it to support the pastor. You’re not doing it to advance the kingdom. You’re doing it because you were promised you’ll get that and more back.

Now, what’s wrong with that? And it’s very popular, by the way, in the American church. Many of you have been told that.

We almost never talk about that because I don’t believe it’s the correct formula.

I do believe in giving. In fact, one Sunday I’m going to talk about giving over the course of the summer. Which is almost impossible and difficult for me to do.

But what’s wrong with that idea? Give the tithe and it will come back to you because Jesus said lay down your life. He said deny yourself.

And if God gives you back immediately what you gave to Him, what did you really give to God? Where’s the sacrifice? Where’s the laying down of your life?

This is what’s wrong with that whole philosophy.

Oh, God will bless you if you do this and it’ll happen this week. I think it’s T.D. Jakes who says if God didn’t give you back your money and more you shouldn’t give to begin with.

So we must take the biblical principle of laying down our lives of giving to the work of the church and by the way if the church was loaded if we had $100 000 in the savings account and we were $10 000 a month over budget with the income we have a responsibility then to send that money somewhere else.

We can never rest on our laurels and say oh, look at how God has blessed us.

But the focus is: are we just doing that because some preacher told me if I give it I’ll get it all back this week? This life because if it all comes back to us in this life children what did we really lose? What did we really give?

How did we sacrifice the Lord if we get it all back? And that’s one way that you should resist that kind of neat reward formula.

Secondly, and this one is a challenge in our culture. You and I have to recognize the difference between earthly temporal blessings and eternal rewards.

You see we talk this. I got a new blessing this week or this month we got a new job, new house, new car. I had a successful surgery man I’m blessed sit outside on my deck and we have put all these flowers around the deck that draw hummingbirds and you can sit there and a little hummingbird is a foot and a half away and I’m thinking boy aren’t we blessed what you and I consider blessings children are experienced by millions of people who do not know Christ.

We must recognize how those material blessings are meant to be used for cultivating eternal rewards. We should ask ourselves whether we are laying up treasure in heaven with the blessing God is giving us here, and this ends our consideration of the reward. Amen.