Slide 1
2021 Pew poll:
– 73% of Americans believe in heaven
– 62% believe in hell

Slide 2
“To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:
These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.  I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name…” Revelation 3:7-8

Slide 3
Hold on to what you have, so that no one takes your crown. Revelation 3:11

Slide 4
“The one who conquers I will make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will never go out again. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God—the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God.” Revelation 3:12

Slide 5
The GREAT REVERSAL
– Ostracized here, celebrated there
– Little power here, ruling there
– Accused of being anti-God here, acknowledged and beloved by God there
– Shut out of society and religion here, become a pillar of the temple, with God’s name written on us, there

Slide 6
Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels. Revelation 3:4-5

Slide 7
Three rewards to Sardis:
1. Walking with Jesus as part of His triumphal procession

Slide 8
“Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.” Luke 9:26

Slide 9
Three rewards to Sardis:
1. Walking with Jesus as part of His triumphal procession
2. Your name will never be blotted out from the book of life
3. Jesus will confess our name to the Father

Slide 10
Churches have to decide whether they want to PLEASE THE WORLD or PLEASE GOD.

Slide 11
The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. Revelation 3:5

Slide 12
Christ and Rewards:
– Jesus teaches that some will experience great levels of rewards, even above others (Matthew 5:12).
– He specifically refers to those who are called “least” or “great” in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:19), and in context this declaration is clearly based on earthly obedience.
– Jesus explicitly tells his disciples to “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…” (Matt. 6:19) and assures them that  “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age…and in the age to come, eternal life.” Mark 10:29-30

Slide 13
As Jesus calls his disciples to a higher way of living, he freely uses reward terminology to do so.
– Jesus explicitly tells his disciples to “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…” (Matt. 6:19)
– Jesus warns us in Matthew 6:1-4 that if we do acts to be seen by others, we won’t receive a reward from our heavenly Father, but if we do these good deeds in secret, our Father will reward us in secret.

Slide 14
“My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done.”
Revelation 22:12

Cam Cameron was the head football coach at University of Indiana at the same time that Bobby Knight, the famous head basketball coach was there. Bobby Knight was very successful, but he was also pretty controversial. He had a temper, he would throw chairs, he would manhandle players ultimately got fired because of it in spite of his success. But the two coaches were talking one day and Cam said to Bobby, I can’t wait till I get to heaven. I wanna tell the legendary football coach, Paul Brown, just how much I’ve appreciated how he’s opened up the whole game of football. To me, always contentious. Bobby said, well, what are you gonna do if he’s not in heaven Camp? Thought for a moment and said, well, I guess I’ll let you tell him. <Laugh>,

According to a 2021 pupil, 73% of Americans believe in heaven while only 62% believe in hell. As Kurt said, we’ve been looking at the seven letters to the seven churches in the book of Revelation, but today we’re gonna do something a little bit different. There’s gonna be a short summary of Philadelphia and then we’re gonna look at the second half of Sardis that we didn’t get to last week because I wanna emphasize something that was in every letter. But we don’t always have time to emphasize everything. Of all the letters. It talks about the rewards that we can expect in heaven when we prove faithful and overcome the world and share the victory of Jesus. Now, the reason I think that’s so important for some of you this morning, not every sermon hits everybody the same way, but I know some of you are frustrated because you feel like you’re doing everything you’re supposed to do.

You’re loving, you are serving, you’re trying, you’re sacrificing, and life isn’t turning out the way you thought it should. And there’s even in the back of your mind, does Christianity even work? How? How come I’m not seeing the payoff? If you’re in that situation, you’re online and in that situation, I think the message to Philadelphia and Sardis could be particularly encouraging and healing for you today. So let’s jump into Philadelphia chapter three of Revelation beginning with verse seven. Jesus says this, these are the words of him who is holy and true. Who holds the key of David What he opens, no one can shut and what he shuts, no one can open. I know your deeds. See, I’ve placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength. Some translations say little power, which is a very legitimate translation.

Yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. So what? What little power opening, shutting, what’s going on there? The historical situation makes it very clear. There are a group of people, they called themselves Jews, although Jesus denies that they were Jews, they were persecuting the Philadelphia Christians and they were excluding them from the temple saying, you have nothing of God. You have nothing to do to worship here. I said, why do Christians care if they’re kicked out of the synagogue? Well, in the first century, that was your entire social life. It could affect your employment, certainly could affect your ability to have friends and go out for dinner. All of those things are diminished. And frankly, there weren’t that many Philadelphia Christians around for them just to enjoy each other. And so they’re being shut out and Jesus is saying, look, they’re shutting you out.

I’m opening the door and what I open, no one can close. Jesus is turning their focus from what these people are doing to them, to what he can do for them. And it’s a glorious promise. So it’s really a picture of a persecuted, marginalized people, ostracized from society with little power, no influence with the elite, no access to society. And God is saying, I know things don’t look very good for you right now. Hang in there, stay true to me. I will show them. I will show your enemies how you’ll be exalted and how you are identified with me. But this is key. God is not telling the Philadelphia Christians, I’m gonna change your circumstances on earth. He’s saying, remain faithful. Get through this and you’ll be richly rewarded in heaven. He builds on this in verse 11, hold on to what you have. Why?

So that no one takes your crown. He’s gonna talk to ’em about how they can reign in heaven. We’ll get into a little bit about that more next week. But this pushes back against the little power. Yeah, they say you have little power. They say you’re the lowest of the low. One day you’ll rule. Just hang in there, be faithful and they will see that you rule. And in verse 12, the one who conquers, I will make a pillar in the temple of my God and he will never go out again. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God. Again, they’re saying, you have nothing of God in you and God is saying they’re gonna find out how closely connected we are that you will be a pillar in the temple speaking of spiritual terms.

And they will see that I will write my very name on you all told what he’s saying here is there is going to be a great reversal. You will be ostracized here but celebrated there. You may have little power here. You will rule there. You may be accused of being anti-God here, but you’ll be acknowledged and beloved by God there you may be shut out of society and religion here, but you’ll become a pillar of the temple with God’s name written on you there. That’s the promise. Now, let’s go back to Sardis a little bit because he also speaks of rewards to there. And we didn’t get to that last week beginning with verse four, and it’s an entirely different situation to Philadelphia. There’s no blame, there’s only praise. Sardis got very little praise because there wasn’t a lot of good going on and that’s why it begins.

Yet you have a few people, few is very important here. They were in a place where they just felt like the whole church has been compromised. People around them are compromised and you feel weird if you believe that you’re to follow Jesus and nobody around you is. And that’s kind of what’s happening to artists. But there are a few who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me dressed in white for they are worthy. The one who is victorious will like them be dressed in white. So there’s three rewards promise to sardis. The first is walking with Jesus as part of his triumphal procession. This will be so cool. We don’t talk about it, but there will be a moment when every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord. And you’ll be invited to that celebration if you walk with Jesus on earth.

You’ll never have been wanted to be invited to a party or a celebration or get together more than this one while everybody exalts and lifts up the name of Jesus. But the condition to that, the condition to walking with Jesus in the next life is walking with Jesus in this life. See a lot of people, everybody wants to walk with Jesus in the next life. This life got other things to do. They might be ashamed of some of his people or ashamed of some of the things written in his scriptures. But Jesus is saying, you’ve gotta walk with me in this life. If you wanna walk with me in the next my wife and I lived in northern Virginia, the Washington DC area for 10 years back in the nineties when George HW Bush and then Bill Clinton were president. So we knew a lot of people that worked for the government.

Whenever an election would turn over, a lot of our friends would be looking for jobs because there were a lot of jobs and they paid pretty well. And what they would all tell us is that when you’re applying for a position with the new administration, they would say, don’t just send me your resume what you can do. Tell us what you’ve done. Send us your bush credentials. Send us your Clinton credentials. What do they mean by that? If you wanna enjoy the spoils of being the winners, show us how you helped get us here. Were you with us? Were you for us? Were you helping us to get into power? Now that we’re in power, let’s do it together. But did you help us get to power? And in a way, Jesus is kind of saying, did you walk with me on earth? Were you faithful to with me on earth?

Did you serve me on earth? Those are those who walked with me on earth that will walk with me in heaven. He’s so clear in Luke 9 26, who, whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the son of man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. The second promise to Sardis is that your name will never be blotted out from the book of life. What’s happening there in Greek cities, if you committed certain serious crimes, they literally blotted your name from the book of registry of being a citizen. You were gone. You are persona non grata. And Jesus is saying, if I put your name in the book, nobody will take it out. You’ll be a citizen forever. And then third, I think this is the best one. Jesus says He will confess your name to the Father.

I I’m just asking for God’s help to get this through to all of us here. There will come a day. The Bible is very clear. When we all will be face to face with Jesus, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Jesus says on that day, you will never want anything more. You will never have ever wanted anything more than to hear Jesus say, father, this one is mine. He is with us. She is with us. You’ll, you wouldn’t care about where you went to school or what athletic rewards you got, what your office looked like. It worked, how, how your relationships worked out. You’ll say, God, please, you say Yes, Jesus, just confess my name to the Father. That’s, I’ve never wanted anything more. You would go back and live your entire life for that moment. If you could understand ahead of time how glorious that moment will be, if you could understand how much you will want that.

And that’s Jesus’ plea to Sardis. I know things aren’t looking very good for you right here. I know you’re frustrated here, but what I want you to do is to care as much about what will happen then as you do about what is happening now. And it’s Jesus’s plea to us today. We wanna reach out to the culture, we wanna be winsome, we wanna be persuasive. But what has to be our DNA, what has to be sort of our focus is that every church has to decide whether they’re going to please the world or whether they’re gonna please God. The two are at odds with each other. And Jesus is saying in that moment, you’ll be glad that you lived to please God. Why? Heaven is not like the American idol where millions of people vote. The world doesn’t get an opinion about God. We think she lived a pretty good life. You, you should let her in. Or God, we think in in the day the morality of our day, he was the one that, that we all thought he was a good guy. There’s one vote, there’s one person and it’s Jesus. And we all wanna know is will he confess our name to the Father?

Now another thing that the Sardis rewards helps us understand, and this is an intriguing question, is this, what will we wear in the heaven? Never thought about we, we have new spiritual bodies, right? But what will we wear when we’re there? We spend a lot of time thinking about what we wear here. One study I read showed that ev, the average United States woman will buy 37 new outfits a year, 37. Now I have a friend who says his wife buys 37 Lululemon outfits a year, but that’s, that’s in, in his marriage. We spend a lot of time shopping and cleaning and ironing and buying and all of that. We are really focused. What do I look like now? Do I look good? Do I look attractive? Am I making an impression? All of our focus is what do I’m gonna wear here? And I get that.

But Jesus is helping the church of Sardis to ask, what will we wear in heaven? And the answer is in verse five, the one who is victorious will like them be dressed in white. It’s why the worship team was wearing white. Why I am what a lot of the guests experience. We’re not launching some new crazy cult next week, we’ll all go wearing our normal colors, but, but we’re looking forward to being part of the victory, celebration of Jesus where everybody celebrates his victory by wearing white. Where does that come from? When a Roman conqueror was entering a city after having achieved his victory over another nation, he would be greeted by the citizens all wearing white. That’s what they did. And so Jesus is celebrating the victory. You’ll be a part of that victory dance, but only the victorious enjoy the spoils of victory.

What does it mean to be victorious? Let’s go back to the other five letters. Don’t assimilate with the world. Resist the moral well, the, the moral pressure of the world. You really believe that you’re gonna do that. Don’t be misled by false teachers. Be true to everything that Jesus has said. And if you do that, it may not go well for you on this earth, but in the end you can wear the white of victory. My wife is flying out to Seattle this week to spend some time with my oldest daughter. She’s getting married in September. They’re gonna shop for her wedding dress. One question I don’t have to ask is what color dress are you gonna buy? What color do you think they’re gonna buy? She’s gonna buy white. That’s traditionally what brides wear. It’s supposed to signify purity. But when Jesus marries his bride, the church, she will wear white to symbolize victory that she’s overcome, that Jesus has overcome the world.

And we get to celebrate in that. And here’s the thing, you will be a million times prouder of wearing that white in heaven than anything you do on earth. Any achievement you have here, any athletic award, anything you’ve done in business, queen Elizabeth said she hoped Jesus would return in her lifetime so she could take off her crown and put it at his feet. You won’t care about what you’ve achieved on this earth as much as you’ll care that we get to celebrate the victory of Jesus. We don’t wanna miss those rewards. Now some of you totally understand this, been raised in the church. You might say, Gary, we’re saved by grace through faith. Right? You, you keep talking about rewards. I mean, our works don’t get us into heaven. I, it kind of makes me uncomfortable and, and I’ve had some that have felt uncomfortable about that.

Why do we talk about rewards? Because Jesus does. If we wanna teach the whole Bible, when Jesus talks about rewards, we need to talk about rewards. I’m gonna explain why. So I wanna take you to seminary for seven minutes. You know, some don’t like this part, others do. But I just wanna get out a clear doctrine that doesn’t get a lot of attention with a contemporary church. I’ve gotta leave out a lot of verses. But Jesus speaks so much about rewards in heaven. And that will surprise some people. The one thing that’ll surprise people is that what heaven and hell frankly, but we don’t have time to talk about hell. What? What will surprise about heaven is it’s not known for its equality or socialism where everybody’s the same. We think that’s the ideal. It’s not the way that Jesus talks about heaven. Look at this.

In Matthew five 12. He teaches that some will experience great levels of rewards even above others. Matthew five 12, he specifically refers to those who are called least or great in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew five 19. In context, this declaration is clearly based on earthly obedience. Now, clearly no one, not a single person will enter heaven because of their works. This is not about getting into heaven. It’s about your status and what you enjoy once you’re in heaven. And so Jesus uses rewards to motivate his disciples. He explicitly tells his disciples in Matthew six 19, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. He warns us in Matthew six, one through four

That if we do our acts

To be seen by others,

We pray, we fast, we give, that’s our reward.

And we lose

The rewards we would have

In heaven. And we should seek

To

Keep those.

He also uses the thought of rewards to teach his disciples

To love beyond the ordinary. It’s

Because

Of heavenly

Rewards

That we can love like no other people on the planet can love. Look

At what he says in Luke chapter six, verse 35. But love

Your enemies.

Who does that? See? Why would anybody

Love their enemy? I mean, maybe ignore ’em, maybe walk

Away. Love them, do good

To them, lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Why would anybody

Do

That? And Jesus says,

Why

Then your

Reward will be great

And you’ll be children of the most high.

What Jesus is saying this,

This will change some of your lives. If you think about this, we don’t love

Others

To be loved in return. That’s

The way the world works. That’s trading

In some instances it’s even using people. I will love you

If you’ll

Love me back,

But Jesus says, we love because we trust that God will reward us because God loves us

All so much. He

Sees what you’re doing. So whether

You’re loving a, a wonderful spouse

And

God says, thank you for loving my spouse that

Way. Or whether you have a difficult spouse

And God say, I know he’ll never appreciate you. I know she doesn’t get how good

She has it with you. He says, but

Keep loving. Keep serving.

You’ll see how

I will spend eternity rewarding you for loving somebody so well on this earth.

Whether you’re

Taking care of an aging parent or a parent that isn’t a believer and you keep loving them and they keep being hateful

Toward you or a child that you have sacrificed

For and they resent

Your sacrifice

Instead of thank you

A, a coworker

That you’re just kind of praying,

They’ll retire at the age of 38 ’cause you’re

Just done with them. And Jesus says, look, they’re never gonna be grateful. They may never get it.

But

You have an entirely different motivation you can love like nobody else loves

Because

You know that you’re going to be

Rewarded.

Very significant in Mark 10, James and John approach. Jesus,

Hey,

Can you put one of us at your right hand and one of us at your left? You can choose who, but let it be one of us.

What does Jesus

Not

Do? He doesn’t

Chastise them or shame them for wanting to be great in heaven. He admits, yeah,

Those are great places. That’s prime real estate. That’s great problem. Instead he tells him how to get there.

You’re trying to find it the wrong way.

If you wanna be great in heaven and you should, you serve here, you become the lowest here. You learn to love maybe even the unlovable here so far from shaming him for wanting to be great in heaven. He actually tells ’em how to get there. It’s just different than most people think. I I could go on and on and on, but seminary is over. It’s just this is woven throughout all of Revelation. We’re not, we’re ending revelation next week. But if you go to the end, revelation 2215, this is prime motivation. Jesus says in Revelation 2212, my reward is with me. And I will give to everyone. Read this with me according to what he has done. Now let me make this clear. I wanna be very clear on this. We are all objects of God’s wrath and that none of us deserve heaven. And none of us can do so many good works that we find ourselves deserving of heaven.

The man who spends 60 hours a week ministering to the terminally ill in a hospice deserves hell no less than the man who sells drugs to adolescent kids. A woman who cares for a contentious mother-in-law while working for Child Protective Services deserves to go to the same place as a woman who steals money from her employer or killed someone while she was driving drunk or sold one of her children for drug money. This is not about getting into heaven. All of us have forfeited our way to heaven. It is only through the mercy and sacrifice of Jesus Christ that we will celebrate on Good Friday and Easter that any of us can get into heaven, which none of us deserve. But here’s the wonder of our God. This is what’s so amazing. He said, yeah, you don’t deserve heaven. I’ve made a way for you to get what you don’t deserve, but like those infomercials.

But wait, there’s more. And here’s the more I will give you my Holy Spirit who will empower you, who will equip you and motivate you to do good deeds. And then I will reward you for the good deeds that I do through you. And you’re like, God, how? How can this be true? But it’s who God is. Those of you who resist Christ, I’m just thinking, do you really know what he’s offering you? Not just salvation, but in eternity rewards. And he’s the one that will inspire you to do what is rewarded. We couldn’t make up a God like this. That’s how wonderful he is. And so Jesus promises, rewards and sardis to remind us that we are strangers and pilgrims in this world. He says to Sardis, you might feel weird for being one of the few who haven’t soiled your garments. You, you stand against the culture that that that is against you, that cuts you down.

But don’t give in. He says to Philadelphia, you might be ostracized and locked out. You might feel like you are powerless. But hang in there. You will rule with me. I will claim you and you will wear white. But here’s the thing, it may not happen on this planet. It may take some time. I think of the Dutch post impressionist painter, Vincent Van Gogh. He’s well known as a painter. He’s actually a very pious man. He served some time as an evangelist to Belgium. Miners loved to read the great Christian works. He read Thomas EMAs and John Bunion and John Wesley. And that’s why when you see in his art like this painting of the peasants, he, he did to the underclass in his art, what Tolstoy did in his literature, when people are just embedded in the truth of Jesus, they tend to bring nobility to the disenfranchised in society.

And, and that’s what he did. But in spite of his great works, I mean, one of his paintings, the orchard with Cyrus’s has sold for over $117 million. But as much as he was a Christian, he was also mentally ill. And in a tragic death at the age of 37, he died and he had only sold two paintings in his entire life. He lived in abject poverty for his entire life. People have been made millionaires many times over like this. This one painting 117 million. And he got nothing. He only sold two paintings and that not for very much. And one time he was so deep in debt, he put this wheelbarrow of his paintings and he went to a creditor and he wielded up to the creditor’s door and he said, look, I I just don’t have the money to pay you. Will, will you take these paintings for my debt?

Starry Night has never actually been sold. A museum acquired it, but every art historian says it’s gotta be worth over a hundred million dollars. And then you’ve got this like the, the orchard or whatnot. And he, and he shows these masterpieces to the creditor. And the creditors said, are you kidding? Those aren’t worth anything. What am I gonna do with those? And he slams the door. His wife was over his shoulder when he had this. And she says to her husband, you could have at least kept the wheelbarrow, right? We could have used the wheelbarrow. Art historians love to tell that story because they’ve estimated there’s no way, there was less than tens of millions of dollars worth of paintings in that wheelbarrow that the creditor said was worthless because none of Van Gogh’s works were considered valuable until after he died during this life.

He lived in poverty. His work wasn’t appreciated. After he died, they realized the genius and the beauty and the brilliance of his work. And Jesus is saying, it’s kind of like that for Christians. What we do, loving and serving anonymously the world may not appreciate. But in time after we die in the, in the eyes of God, what we do will be seen as so valuable. So if life hasn’t worked out for you yet, you know, I, Gary, I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do. I pray I fast. I study the Bible. I give, my relationships are still a mess. My finances haven’t been fixed. My health isn’t that great. What good is Christianity doing? Me? What does Christianity even work like? I, I get, for those of you that are asking that I, I understand the question because it can be frustrating when you sacrifice and do everything you can and you don’t see the results.

I feel like I’ve been living it in a different sense. I decided the started this year, I need to prioritize my physical health in a way that I haven’t. So I signed up for a club, all the things that people do in January. And Kurt said in a sermon, they usually stop by January 20th. You could talk to my wife. I’m still going there. I’m still working out more. I’m even lifting, which I haven’t done for a while. And so I’d like to thank the zero of you who have stopped me in the atrium saying, Gary, you’re looking ripped. I mean, what have you been doing?

The reason zero of you have said that to me is I don’t see a change at all. I, I, I get it. And I thought I would at least start losing the pounds. I mean, I gave up sugar for length. I thought they’ll just drop off. They won’t go. They’re so stubborn. In fact, they laugh at me, Gary, you think you’re gonna lose us? We’re actually gonna invite our friends for a party <laugh>. I’m like, no, you can’t invite, oh yeah, watch us. And they do. I have these illegal squatter pounds in my stomach and they just won’t go. And I feel like I’m doing everything right. But here’s the thing, I’m gonna keep doing it because sometimes you just gotta look at the long term game. What Jesus is telling these churches and us is that Christianity isn’t like a slot machine. You put in your coin, you find out if you win.

It’s like a long-term investment. You sacrifice now and it make time. It may take time for the investment to come home. The other thing Lisa and I have done at the start of the year is we just realized we needed to look at our finances a little more closely. We had an IRA at my old church. We had to combine ’em, just do things. Look, I don’t understand taxes or finances at all, but for some reason there was like 5,000 of it. They said, well, we can’t just roll this over. You just gotta take this out. You can just spend it. And I, I, I said to Lisa, well that’s, that’s no fun. I mean, we, we have IRAs. I’m gonna buy an individual stock. Now my son, who is, he works for KKR, it’s a private equity firm, very great in business. He had told me, dad, somebody like, you should not buy individual stocks.

It, it’s a losing game. Just buy an index fund, let it go. It’ll be fine. And I’m like, what’s the excitement in that? I mean, how do I impress my wife that I bought an index fund and now it’s, it’s shown his benefit. So I decided I would buy stock in my son’s company in KKR because I, well, if I go down, he’s going down, right? <Laugh>. And so I was impressed ’cause I showed Lisa 10 years, it’d done nothing but go up. So I bought it at 1 51. I thought, this is great. ’cause Four days later I’d made $165 for doing nothing. And I’m thinking, well maybe God’s calling me to retire as a pastor and I’ll just give investment advice. Right? I’ll Thomas’ Trading TIPS newsletter. $5,000 a year. I’ll just tell you what stocks to buy. <Laugh>.

Have you looked at the stock market the last six weeks? <Laugh> it went down to 1 47, then one 30. I couldn’t look at it for a while. And then I saw it went down to 108. We lost a third of the investment. So I’m kind of complaining to my son, yeah, KKR stock, you’re not doing so well. He goes, dad, don’t worry about it. Just forget about it. Wait 10 years, you’re gonna do great in 10 years. You’s just gonna take time. And that’s what Jesus is saying to the church is that we invest in acts of obedience. We may not see an immediate payoff. You may not be thanked, you may not be appreciated in this world, but it’s a long term investment and that’s how Christianity can feel If you think it doesn’t work. I’ve done everything right. I’ve said it takes time. You’re making an investment.

Don’t judge the results of your faith by what you have this day. ’cause I think here’s what Jesus might say to some people in Cherry Hills Community Church. He might say to those, and a lot of you probably don’t know that there’s a group here that does that. Those who go to the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility on the first Saturday of the month to share the gospel, to lead ’em in a time of worship. Those women wear these embarrassing green jumpers that they think define them their entire life. And these souls here from Cherry Hills are trying to say, come to Jesus, worship Jesus. You won’t be identified by wearing green. You will wear white in victory. What a great hope they can give. Some of you are caring for disabled family members. Nobody sees aging parents. Nobody sees, but God does. I think even just common things, I I’m so grateful to my mom who gave birth to me.

Moms, I don’t know that your kids will ever thank you enough. Your daughters might when they go through it themselves, but your sons tend to take it for granted. But let me tell you, young men, if you’re thinking about what your mom did, nine months of discomfort followed by nine hours of agony, followed by nine months of no sleep and very dirty hands. And she did that for you. And she keeps doing it. And nobody gives you an Oscar for acting like you need, not don’t need sleep or acting like you still have energy left for your husband. Nobody gives you an Oscar. No designer says, I’m gonna create a dress just for this woman to show the beauty of who she is. No designer will make you a dress, but Jesus is making you a dress. He says to be fruitful and multiply. When you do that out of reverence for him, he will reward you and you will be dressed in white.

Some of you have blended families and your kids are coming from broken homes with all those issues. And you’re trying to keep a second marriage together. And, and it’s not always gonna pay off. These kids don’t appreciate that. You’re trying to give them a second chance. They might resent it. Just as an aside, if you need help, we have a great ministry here, blended and blessed. They have a live stream in two weeks, April 5th. It’s on the app. If you’ve got a blended family, you really should be there. Many of you gave to greater things. I don’t know what you gave. Kurt doesn’t know what you gave. Some of you really sacrifice ’cause you wanna feed the hungry. You want to help the sexually traffick. And you’re thinking, man, it, it hurts and there’s no award for you here on earth. But God knows.

And he would say to you, <laugh>, you realize you think you’re giving this up. You have no idea what you’re going to get. And, and some of it, we just don’t think about these awards rewards because I, I was talking to an elder this week and I said, I just wanna get in. What do I care about? Heavenly reward. I figure if I’m just in, it’s a great place. And I get that ’cause I thought that myself so often. But here’s the thing, if Jesus is saying it should motivate us, it tells me we don’t have a clue how good it is. How many of you watched the Christmas story movie? I know a lot more of you. Raise your hand if you’ve watched. Remember when Ralphie is watch listening to Little Orphan Annie? And he wants to get that decoder ring so he can finally figure out what the reward is. And so he sends all the tabs away, he finally gets the decoder ring and he gets the message. And what was the message? Be sure to drink your oval team. And he was really upset. Jesus is not like that.

I I, I don’t know what the rewards are, but if Jesus talks about him, we should. Why? I, I don’t know the rewards, but I know Jesus. I know his kindness. I know his generosity. I know his creativity that will make the works of Van Gogh look like a child with crayons. And if he says do this to get that, when we see what that is, everybody who put his words into practice, everybody who believed him and acted accordingly will be so glad they did. Brothers and sisters, if Jesus talks about rewards, we should let

The rewards motivate us. We don’t deserve any of ’em. But that’s the kindness and generosity of our God. So serve love, let yourself be anonymous. Do things in secret that nobody knows about. And Jesus who sees us in secret says, great will be your reward. Father, thank you for these promises. Thank you that we can trust in Jesus and what he says, and Lord, some that just feel discouraged because their life isn’t turning out the way they thought. I just pray that this promise would take hold of them, embolden them, encourage them, and motivate them. Because here’s the thing, Lord, you don’t want a single person here to miss on the glorious reality of being rewarded in heaven and wearing white as we celebrate the victory of Christ in Jesus name, amen.