Matthew 6:1-18 "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 "So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 5 "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
16 "When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Introduction: Be Careful
We have been studying verse-by-verse through the Sermon on the Mount and have come to this section that begins in verse 1 of chapter 6, and we have spent two weeks on these opening verses already, and today I want to devote a third sermon to them for three reasons. First, because the principles in this section are so important in the Christian life. Second, because the principles about the role of reward in the Christian life are so often misunderstood. There is a great deal of confusion over how we ought to think about reward and what role it should play in our motivations. And the third reason I feel we need to give careful attention to this section is because of the very first word in the chapter: Beware.
That is not a throw-away word. It is a word that refers to constant vigilance. Jesus is warning us about hypocrisy in this chapter and He begins by saying, “Watch out! Be constantly vigilant and on the lookout for this in your life!” The opposite of living for divine reward is hypocrisy, and that is something we need to constantly be on the lookout for. That is important because most of us do not think of this as being much of a danger. The hypocrites are always those people – the people on TV, the people in other churches…certainly not me! We all love to hate the hypocrites. But most of us, when we read about the hypocrites, the last thing on our mind is ourselves. But Jesus is warning us here that the temptation to have an outward display for the sake of men (especially with things like prayer and giving) is a constant threat. It is one of those sins that sneaks up on you.
I do not know about you, but when I think of external religion I tend to think of the most extreme kind of hypocrites – the ones in the liberal churches whose religion is one hundred percent external. Those churches where becoming a Christian is just a matter of signing up – adding your name to the role, and the Christian life is all external procedures without any transformation of the heart or love relationship with God. And they are really big on community service and social issues and recycling, etc., but oblivious to things like repentance, brokenness before God, preferring Christ above the world, etc. That is what I always think of as hypocrisy. But that is not something I have to be vigilant and watchful lest I fall into it. If that is all hypocrisy is, then Jesus would not have to tell people like us to constantly watch out, because we are not even attracted to that sort of thing. But there are more subtle forms that can sneak up on even the strongest, most devoted followers of Christ. Keep in mind - Jesus is not warning the hypocrites here. He is not talking to the hypocrites. He is talking to His Disciples and warning them not to be like the hypocrites. Those of us who are true, committed followers of Christ, unless we are really on our guard against it, will probably fall right into this sin of external religion in some subtle form.
Later in the Sermon on the Mount we will find that when we become critics of others without criticizing ourselves Jesus calls us hypocrites.
Matthew 7:5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
So do not think of a hypocrite as a complete phony who does not practice what he preaches- like someone who tells other people to give to the poor, but he does not give to the poor. That is not what Jesus is talking about here. These hypocrites DID give to the poor, and they did pray and fast. They did all these things, probably more than most people. The only place their hypocrisy existed was in their motives. And sins that exist only in the motives are very hard to detect and very easy to fall into, so we must constantly be on our guard.
So just because I am not a hypocrite now does not mean I will not be one a month from now. In fact, we who are committed to Christ and striving to follow Him with all our heart and soul, are in some ways even more prone to fall into hypocrisy, because when we slide backwards we are tempted to hide it. Everyone experiences some spiritual decline from time to time. And if you have been a strong Christian and then you start to slide backwards a bit, you are more tempted than anyone to put up false fronts because you are desperate to hide that decline. The people who do not care about Christ at all usually do not care all that much if people think of them as strong Christians. But those of us who know that closeness to Christ is everything – we are the ones most tempted to hide our little and big rebellions against Christ. So if you are not a hypocrite at all right now you are, in some ways, at greatest risk because if you slide backwards over the next month or so, the temptation to put up a phony façade to hide the direction you are moving will be very powerful.
Review
Unintentional secrecy
So Jesus gives us a way to test our motives. Just do your praying and giving and other acts of righteousness in secret once in a while and see what happens. They do not have to always be secret – just sometimes do them in secret and see if your motivation peters out.
And it does not have to be intentional secrecy for this test to work. Sometimes your good deeds are secret not because you did them in a closet, but just because everyone around you is so oblivious and that they just do not notice or appreciate anything you do. You are working your fingers to the bone in some ministry – giving, sacrificing, laboring, and never a word of thanks or even acknowledgment. Other people are being recognized publically and are getting awards and applause and everything else. Meanwhile all you ever get is criticism when your task is not done just right. What happens in your heart when you get no recognition or appreciation for what you do? Your husband does not appreciate all the housework you do. Or your wife seems oblivious to how hard you work to support the family. What is your reaction when your good works go unnoticed? Do you feel like throwing up your hands and saying, “What’s the point? Why should I even continue to do this if no one appreciates it?”
Think about that question in light of what Jesus is saying here. If we ask, “What’s the point?” that implies that the only good reason to serve and give is for human recognition. There is no point in doing good things if I don’t get recognition from men. If all I am going to get out of it is reward from my Father in heaven, that is worthless. That is not enough motivation to keep me going. That is unbelief.
Privacy for self-glory
So the issue is not secrecy for secrecy sake. There is nothing inherently spiritual about keeping your giving or fasting secret. It is evil to do them for show, but keeping them secret can be just as evil depending on your motive. Some people keep their acts of righteousness secret because they are ashamed of Christ. They are embarrassed to be such a goody-goody or a religious nut. They keep their religion under wraps not because they want to avoid self-glorification, but because they want to avoid persecution.
In fact, sometimes self-glorification is actually the reason they are keeping things secret. They are secretive about their giving and prayers and fasting because they do not want people to see how little they give and pray and fast. The bill they put in the plate is folded fourteen times not because they are being modest and humble, but because they do not want people to know it is just a single. Keeping your deeds private can be the same sin as showing them off. The issue is not whether you do them in secret or do them to be seen; the issue is why – whose approval are you after? When we prefer man’s approval over God’s we tend to show what we ought to hide and hide what we ought to show.
One-handed giving – give and forget
OK, so that gets us up to speed through verse 2. One quick footnote before we move on – I am not going to take the time to develop a full biblical theology of giving at this point. In the past I have done that, and it is a six- part sermon series that is available on Foodforyoursoul.net. The series is titled “Giving,” so if you have questions about giving in general you can refer to that. For now I would like to keep our focus on the specific points Jesus is making here in Matthew 6. In verse 3 Jesus ramps up the secrecy principle even further.
Matthew 6:3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing
Keep it hidden not only from others, but even to yourself! So Jesus calls us to practice one-handed giving. For most of us, it takes two hands to give – one to write the check, and one to reach around and pat ourselves on the back. That is two-handed giving. One-handed giving means not doing it for human applause including even your own applause. It is tough to clap with one hand.
Two-handed giving
There are so many subtle ways we tend towards two-handed righteousness – being impressed with our own external deeds. You got up early, you read your chapter from the Bible, you read your little devotional, you spent the full number of minutes that you are supposed to spend praying each morning, and you feel soooo good about yourself. Should you feel good? Well, if the purpose of that morning routine is to help you commune with the living God and it worked, then absolutely! If you read that chapter and prayed those prayers and walked away loving God more – if it stirred up the fires of your affection for Christ – then yes, it is definitely something to rejoice over. Jesus is not talking about that here. He is talking about being impressed with the external action alone, apart from an inward reality- those times when you crank out the religious routine and there is no real communion with God that results, yet you still walk away patting yourself on the back for getting your chapter read. That is theatrical religion – even though the only audience is you. You are not bragging to anyone else, you are not advertising it to people around you, no one even knows, but it is still a theater. Two-handed righteousness is when I do some religious action up on a stage, and there I am also in the audience. I may be the only one in the building, but there I am in the front row, all by myself whistling and cheering and giving a wild standing ovation. I observe my own show and I am moved to tears with the performance.
We write a check, sign it, put it in the plate, but that act is not our way of saying, “I love You too, Lord!” Rather it is our way of saying, “OK, conscience, you can shut up now. I put the money in the plate, so lay off already.” Or it is our way of saying, “Nice job, self! Man, if people only knew how generous you are – how sacrificial your giving really is – they would fall down on the ground in awe.”
How? Seek divine reward
So Jesus says, “When you give, do not even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” Do not even take notice of your own righteous actions. You have heard the phrase “Forgive and forget;” Jesus says, “Give and forget.” How do you do that? How do you give so you do not have the violins playing the background in your own heart? It is one thing to keep things hidden so that other people are not impressed with your religious practice, but how do you keep yourself from taking notice?
It is possible. Just think of all the things you do every day that you take no notice of. Was there a big fanfare in your head when you brushed your teeth this morning? Did you come here this morning all puffed up because of what a great thing you accomplished by putting on deodorant? The fact is the great majority of the things we do we barely notice. We do them and then we forget about them.
That is how our giving should be. One-handed giving is when giving becomes such a natural part of the Christian life, it is like closing a door behind you or turning on a light. It is basically spontaneous, there is not a lot of deliberation about it, and as quickly as you do it, it is out of your mind. The basic actions of life just sort of exist in the background. They need to be done, we do them, we move on.
Why do we remember our giving so much? Going for the wrong reward
Why isn’t our giving and serving like that? What is it that causes us to make such a big deal out of those things? Why is it that you have not given a single thought to the last time you tied your shoes, but the last time you served someone or did something for someone or gave to someone – weeks later you are still keenly aware of whether that person was grateful or ungrateful, and how much of your time it took up, how much it cost you, etc? What makes that stick in your mind so much? And how do you change that?
The only answer in the text here is to give for reward from the Father. If I am giving for reward, that will keep me from being overly impressed with my own generosity. What is to be impressed with? If Bill Gates walked up to you and said, “Hey, see that guy standing on the corner? If you walk over there and give that guy all the cash you have in your wallet right now I will reward you with $10 million,” so you walk over and give him the two dollars you have in your wallet so that you can get the $10 million – are you really going to be bowled over with how generous you are? Living for divine reward is a great safeguard against pride.
We tend to become impressed with our acts of righteousness when we are not being compelled by the right motives. We give to the poor not because we are seeking the rewards that come from the smile of God, not because giving to the poor is the heartbeat of Christ and we want to join side by side with the Lord in His work in this world – none of that is driving us, but rather the action becomes an end in itself. We give just because we want to accomplish giving. We pray for the purpose of logging some hours praying. We read the Bible to make some progress toward the back cover. Or to prove how spiritual we are. Instead of using prayer and giving and fasting as tools to accomplish spiritual goals, they become the goals in themselves. And that is when your left hand cannot help but notice what your right hand is doing. But if your left hand is focused on God and His promises of reward, the fact that the right hand happened to be the tool God used to alleviate some of the suffering becomes almost incidental.
The reason our own good deeds sticks in our minds so much is because the reward we got from them was so unsatisfying. If you do twelve hours of hard labor for your boss and at the end of the day he pays you twenty-five cents – that sticks in your mind. But if you get a fair wage for a day’s work, you forget about it and move on. And if you get a huge, disproportional reward for a tiny little bit of work – your attention will be fixed on the reward, not the work. If you pick up a scrap of paper and someone rewards you with $10 million, you do not lose a lot of sleep fretting about how much of your time and energy you had to sacrifice on the scrap paper task.
So the reason one-handed giving is so hard for us – the reason we take so much notice of all our sacrifices and generosity and service to others is because the reward we got from it was so inadequate. You did it for recognition, and you did not get enough recognition, or you did get it and it did not satisfy. You clean up after your kids or do your husband’s laundry day after day – year after year – if you do that for their appreciation they could shout and cheer and give you a ten-minute standing ovation every single day and it would not be satisfying to you. But if we do things for divine reward, and we believe God when He tells us how massive that reward is in comparison to what we did, our left hand will not even notice what our right hand did. We will forget all about the deed and be amazed by the size of the reward for such a relatively insignificant thing.
If you are ever reluctant to give more because the last time the person was ungrateful, you gave for the wrong reason. As parents we need to work hard to teach our kids to be grateful, and it is appropriate to be distressed when they are ungrateful in the same way you are distressed over any sin in their lives, but we need to work hard to discern our motives and fight against the selfish parts in our motives.
What is the reward?
OK, so for three weeks now we have been talking about how important it is that we be motivated by God’s promises of reward. And so I think I would be remiss if I did not spend at least a little time talking about what the rewards actually are.
Proverbs 19:17 He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward him for what he has done.
When you give you are lending to God, in the sense that God will pay you back. He will reimburse you. How will He do it? What currency will He use to repay you? The more we know about the rewards the easier it will be for us to be motivated by them, so let’s take a look at what they actually are.
Accepting the worship
The most important one, I think, is simply God’s acceptance of the gift. When we give – whether it be money or time or mental energy or whatever, all our giving should be given to the Lord as an act of worship. When the Philippian church sent some money to support Paul as a missionary, Paul referred to that gift as a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God (Phil. 4:18). So the most important reward for our giving is the reward of God accepting our gift. God does not accept every gift. In fact, God does not accept most gifts – He only accepts gifts from His children offered in faith for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it is an awful thing to have your gift be rejected by God. In Genesis 4:5 Cain is miserable. It says that Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. Why are you so upset Cain? What horrible calamity befell you that created such distress? Here is what happened: he gave a gift to the Lord, and the Lord did not accept it.
Genesis 4:4 The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his gift, 5 but on Cain and his gift he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
One of the great miseries of life is to give a gift and have that gift be rejected by God. And one of the great pleasures and joys of life is to have God look with favor upon a gift that you gave, because acceptance of your worship and looking upon it with favor means shows God’s acceptance of you and looking with favor upon you – because the way you give to the Lord reflects the love you have for the Lord.
A fundamental aspect of worship
That is why all true worshippers give. Notice how Jesus begins the sentence.
Matthew 6:2 So when you give…
He says when, not if. Jesus assumes we are going to give. Every heart that loves the Lord will express that love in giving. That is why we feel that we do not have to pass a plate and do capital campaigns and preach on giving every year to coerce God’s people into giving. I rarely preach on giving and yet all of you just faithfully fill up those offering boxes every week.
And if you are a new Christian or you have never been taught about this, it is not very complicated. When you get a paycheck or some money comes your way for whatever reason, pick a percentage that you can joyfully give as an expression of your love for the Lord, and set that aside right off the top – before you pay any other bill or do anything else, and then use the rest to live on. That is what “firstfruits” means – you always give to the Lord first. And you give whatever percentage is in your heart to give. “But what if it is only one percent?” If that is all you can joyfully give then give one percent. If your love for the Lord is pushing you to wish that you could give five percent, set that as a financial goal and start working toward incrementally bumping it up. But whatever you do, do not miss out on one of the blessed ways the Lord has given us to express our worship and our faith in Him. It is such a wonderful blessing to give a gift to the Lord and have Him accept it and be pleased by it – do not miss out on that. Sometimes people think if they cannot give ten percent, or they cannot give the amount they normally give they might as well give nothing. Do not give nothing. Giving to the Lord is a crucial part of Christian worship, and it is a wonderful thing when God accepts that worship. And when God smiles on your life, that brings countless different kinds of blessings.
General blessedness
Isaiah 58:10-11 if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.
Darkness and night speak of trouble and sadness and hardship and gloom. Light and noonday speak of relief from the hardship and joy and peace and all the rest. Generally speaking, when our love for the Lord flows over into generosity the darkness in our lives gives way to light and our lives are blessed by God.
Acts 20:35 it is more blessed to give than to receive.
Receiving makes you happy, but generally speaking you will be a happier, more fulfilled person if you are a giver.
Guidance
And in Isaiah 58 He goes on to give some specific examples of that blessedness.
Isaiah 58:11 The Lord will guide you always
When we give the Lord rewards us with guidance. Instead of stumbling around and never really knowing for sure which way to go, which option to choose; God makes the decisions of life clear and shows us His will. When you are not receiving guidance from God, life is painful because you just cannot seem to see which way to go. Life is a constant stream of decisions, and having to agonize over each one makes life really tough. And living with regret because of wrong decisions makes it really tough. But when He guides us, His way becomes clear.
Provision and Satisfaction
He goes on…
Isaiah 58:11 … he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
Provision and satisfaction. Even when provisions are nowhere around, God sees to it that somehow they seem to come your way. He richly supplies you not with everything you want, but definitely with everything you need to accomplish His will.
Strength
And one of those things you need in life is strength.
Isaiah 58:11… and will strengthen your frame.
When trials and hardship and trouble come, instead of being fragile and easily discouraged you find a powerful inner strength and fortitude that can plow right through hardship without getting bogged down with discouragement. (And notice – there is no obvious connection with giving. When God rewards your giving very often the reward seems completely unrelated to the giving.)
Refreshment and life
Isaiah goes on - not only do you have strength and provision and guidance in times of trouble; you also have emotional and spiritual refreshment and renewal and life.
Isaiah 58:11 …You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
All the brown in the landscape of your life turns green, and you flourish and thrive with invigorating, revitalizing newness of life.
Success
All those rewards in just two verses. But that is not all. Scripture speaks of many other rewards that come from giving. For example, success.
Proverbs 16:3 Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.
If you give money to help someone who is poor, or to support some wonderful ministry, that can be effective or it can flop. You could give some money to help someone out and it ends up not really helping at all. It does not alleviate any of their suffering – or maybe even creates greater suffering. On the other hand your gift might end up being incredibly effective. It might greatly relieve their suffering, and draw them to closer to Christ. It might result in His name being honored and thanksgiving being offered to God. It might result in souls being in heaven that would otherwise have been in hell. Giving a gift can be a flop or it can be a huge success. And so one of the sweetest rewards that we seek from God in response to our giving is His blessing on what we give so that it succeeds rather than fails.
You can see how these kinds of rewards would obviously be forfeited if we give with wrong motives. If my goal in giving is to impress someone with how spiritual or generous I am, God is not going to bless that goal. If part of the reward is that God would bless the gift and make it effective for accomplishing its purpose, obviously that is not going to happen if the purpose of the gift is self-glorification.
Honor
Well, what else? What other rewards does God promise in response to our righteous deeds? How about honor?
1 Corinthians 4:5 wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.
One of the highlights of our reward will come when the Lord Himself honors us by affirming His pleasure in us. That is when we hear the “well done.”
And it happens at the Second Coming.
Luke 14:13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.
So for the most part that reward comes in the future. Some of it comes in this life. There are times even in this life when God allows it to be known that He has favored you. There is a dispute and God allows it to come to light that you were the one who was in the right. So we do receive reward in some measure now – but those are only the tiniest samples of what is to come. At the Second Coming it will not be subtle – the whole universe will hear God call you His child and tell you “well done.”
Responsibility
And along with the honor will come responsibility and glorious, meaningful, fulfilling work. In Matthew 25 Jesus told a parable about reward and it ended this way: To those who were faithful prior to his return the master says,
Matthew 25:21 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'
Part of our reward will be responsibility – being placed in charge of things. In this life being in charge is a mix of pleasure and pain. That is true of work in general. There is a joy connected with creating things and accomplishing things, but there is also the pain and struggle of the curse. But when God lifts that curse there will be all the joy and none of the pain. You will have a shot at an amazing career in heaven – with work that suits the way God designed you – a job with no drawbacks at all. If you are disappointed in your life here because you feel you were meant to fly airplanes or create art or music or whatever – but you are stuck in some job that has nothing to do with that, don’t worry. This short little life here is nothing but the preparation time where you accumulate the rewards that will launch your real career in heaven.
Treasure
“Is that all?” No. Jesus also compares our reward in heaven to money. The reward you get on Judgment Day will be very much like money is in this world.
Matthew 6:19-20 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth … 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven
The word “treasure” is a financial term. It is used of things that have great worth and can be used to purchase stuff you want.
So why does Jesus use that kind of terminology? Are we going to receive money from God on Judgment Day? Will there be a monetary system in heaven? I don’t know if there will be coins and bills, but there will be something that will function like money.
Money is stuff that enables you to get something you want. You see something at the store that you would love to have, but you cannot have it unless you give them a certain amount of money, then you can have it. Evidently, in heaven there will be a system that is somewhat similar to that. Our rewards from this life will enable us to get things we desire in the next life.
Will everyone have exactly the same reward in heaven? No. Jesus often spoke of degrees of reward.
Matthew 5:11 Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you … because great is your reward in heaven
If everyone’s reward is exactly the same then this whole section in chapter 6 would become meaningless. Obviously the situation on the day of rewards will be much different for the person who prays and gives and fasts for the sake of human honor and the person who prays and gives and fasts with a godly motive. The first guy has already received all the reward he is going to receive for all that and the second guy will be rewarded in heaven. So clearly some people will receive more reward than others.
1 Corinthians 3:12-15 If any man builds on [the foundation of Christ] using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
Will there be poverty in heaven? No, but some will have a great deal more treasure than others, and I think that treasure is called treasure because it will be a lot like…treasure. Will there be any unfulfilled desire in heaven because you do not have much treasure? I don’t know. But I do know those who get great reward will be really glad they are getting that much reward. And nobody is going to like suffering loss on Judgment Day. Are there tears in heaven? No. Sorrow in heaven? No. Regret? No. Anxiety? depression? Frustration? Emptiness? No –
Revelation 21:4 He will wipe every tear from (our) eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain
Everyone will be happy in heaven. But do not make the mistake of thinking, “Well, as long as I make it in as one escaping through the flames, even if I have no reward at all, that’s fine with me. I don’t care if I’m a janitor sweeping the floor as long as I make it in.” Those are words of unbelief. Those are words of a person who does not believe God when He says His rewards and treasures are worth getting at any cost. And people who do not believe what God said are at risk of not going to heaven at all. We are not in a position to pick and choose from God’s Word. If we are going to be believers we need to believe whatever He says, and He says He wants us to be motivated by the rewards that He says are more desirable than anything in this world.
Psalm 17:14 O LORD … save me from … men of this world whose reward is in this life.
God’s Happiness
So those are a few of the things Scripture says about our reward. But maybe you are still not convinced. Maybe you are a little more philosophical, and you are thinking, Sure all that sounds good, and would be enjoyable for a while – but for all eternity? Even the greatest imaginable pleasure would get boring eventually.
Well that is for sure. I definitely agree that the greatest imaginable pleasure would get old and boring eventually. But why place that kind of arbitrary limit on it? Why limit it to “imaginable” rewards? An 8 year old cannot imagine enjoying a relationship with someone of the opposite sex. To say that something cannot exist simply because of my inability to imagine it is not only the height of arrogance, it is also childish. It is like a kid who thinks something disappeared because you put it behind your back out of his view.
On the other hand, there is an element of it that actually is imaginable. God gives us all kinds of illustrations – like fulfilling work, honor, treasures, riches, money, etc…, and then tells us that the feelings of enjoyment we will have in heaven will be much like the feelings of enjoyment we get from those things now, only much greater. We cannot imagine what could produce feelings like that indefinitely, for all eternity – but we can imagine the feelings and trust God for the rest.
People who imagine boredom in heaven forget that God is infinite. They think it will get boring because they think in terms of eternal sameness. But God’s mercies are new every morning and they will be forever. He is infinite and we are finite, which means we could learn a million brand new things about God and see a million brand new sights that we have never seen and experience a million brand new experiences every single day for all eternity. We will forever be learning and growing and our joy will forever be increasing.
And if you are really picky, and you are worried about whether the reward will be enough to satisfy you, all you have to do is take a look at Matthew 25:21.
Matthew 25:21 "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into your master's happiness!'
The realm we will enter on that Day is none other than the realm of the happiness of God. The things that go on in that realm are things that are good enough to satisfy the desires of an infinite God. Think of it. Just reduce that down to the human realm. Imagine a man rich beyond imagination – so rich he could never possibly spend all his money. He can have absolutely anything money can buy. He has been that rich for the last thirty years, so there is not much he has not tried. His house is filled with so many amazing things to do that he goes to a typical rich person’s house and is bored to tears. What would it take to show a guy like that a really good time? What would it take to get him excited about something? A lot – right? And what if someone told you that he was involved in a vacation that was so amazing it was exciting enough even to make him happy – and you were invited? You would expect quite a vacation, right? Well, not only can God have absolutely everything money can buy; He can have absolutely everything else too – anything and everything He wants. And His desires are perfect desires – not like our cheep, corrupted, misguided desires. He knows everything and what things are better and best and He is in a realm where it is only the best. And things are so good there that it is plenty to satisfy even Him (even though He has already existed for all eternity). That is the happiness of our Master, and on Judgment Day He is going to say to each of His children, “Enter into that realm.”
What is it that is so great? His own presence. The presence of God the Son and God the Holy Spirit and God the Father.
Conclusion – Believe!
We could go on and on with this, but we are out of time. So let me just close by reminding you that the bottom line on all of this is faith. God has given us plenty to be motivated by; the only question is whether we believe Him. It is no coincidence that Hebrews 11 (known as the “faith chapter” or “the hall of faith”) is a chapter that is all about reward.
Hebrews 11:8 By faith Abraham … obeyed … 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
14 People who say such things show that they are looking for … a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
24 By faith Moses … chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.
35 …Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.
Let us look in faith to our reward and seek a better resurrection to the glory of God.
Benediction: Luke 6:38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
Summary
One-handed giving is when you do not even take notice of your own deeds of righteousness. We take notice of our own righteousness when we do it for the wrong reward (because the reward is unsatisfying). Living for divine reward guards against getting puffed up (what is to be proud about when you get a huge reward for a tiny work?). God promises acceptance of worship, general blessedness, guidance, provision, satisfaction, strength, refreshment and life, success, honor, responsibility, treasure, and the environment that is good enough to satisfy and delight God Himself.
