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That Jesus gives in the Gospels that tells us who we are before God. It is the story in Luke 18 of the tax collector and the Pharisee. We've already seen in our sermon series through Matthew, the very poor reputation of the Pharisees.
They were known as those who were self-righteous. They thought they were good. They thought they were special. They thought God had a special love for them. This shows up clearly in the parable in Luke 18.
In verse 11 of that chapter, the Pharisee prayed to God, I thank You that I am not like other men. Extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.
So as we see here, we see the pride and the self-righteousness of the Pharisee. Now let's look at the tax collector. We already know earlier from the book of Matthew the reputation of the tax collectors.
It was a position that was looked down upon by the nation of Israel. Tax collectors were known for working for the Romans. The Roman Empire. They were the ones who were in power at this time. And tax collectors were known as those who enriched themselves while taking advantage of their fellow Jew.
But in this parable in Luke 18, the tax collector realizing his utter wretchedness is the one we should follow, not the Pharisee. This is what Jesus said about the tax collector in verses 13 and 14. But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breasts saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
Then Jesus said, I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. What we must understand as Christians is that God owes us nothing.
It is only by His sheer mercy and grace that we are forgiven our sinful debt and brought into a right relationship with the living God. One chapter earlier in Luke 17, verse 10, Jesus describes what our attitude should be as those who are forgiven and as those who serve Him.
He said, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, we are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty. When we come to faith in Christ, God owns us. We are His servants. And it is a great delight to be His servants, but we should never say to the Lord, You owe me for all that I have done for You.
He owes us nothing. And we owe Him everything for what He has done on our behalf. And the beauty of it is that He gives us the best life possible. So it's good to be His servant. It's the most joyful life possible.
But we should always remember that the only reason we are in this position is because of His sheer mercy and grace. While all of this is true, one of the most remarkable realities of the Bible is that He will reward us for our obedience.
God rewards the faithful and punishes the unfaithful. In Jeremiah 17, verse 10, the Lord says, I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind to give every man according to his ways according to the fruit of his deeds.
And Romans 2 .6 says that the Lord will render to each one according to his work. So none of the reward received from God will be deserved because all of it is from His mercy and grace. But today, as we continue our sermon series through Matthew, Jesus will explain that God loves to reward His people.
He loves to reward us for our faithfulness. And this should be a strong motivation in our lives to live a life pleasing to God. At this time, I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to Matthew 10. We'll be looking at verses 40 -42.
So just three verses today. If you're using a red Bible in the pews, it's on page 969. This sermon is titled, The Unworthy Remarkably Rewarded. The Unworthy Remarkably Rewarded. And we'll begin by reading these verses.
These are the words of Jesus. Whoever receives You, receives Me. And whoever receives Me, receives Him who sent Me. The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward.
And the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person's reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.
Here's our big idea. What this sermon is calling on each of us. Understand that God loves to reward His own. Understand that God loves to reward His own. We're going to see two practices how in these verses.
But before we jump in, let me give you a little recap of where we were one week ago. Last week we saw Jesus continue to talk about the trouble that Christians should expect to face as they follow Jesus.
There are many blessings in this life where trouble is not experienced. But that has not been the focus of Jesus in this section. He has focused on the trouble. The trouble of following Jesus in this world.
Last Sunday, He explained that we are to anticipate troubled relationships for following Him. And we saw three consequences how this will be experienced. The first is by understanding that peace does not come through compromise.
The second is by experiencing tension with unbelieving family. The third consequence is that we are to anticipate troubled relationships by continuing your highest allegiance to Christ. So you can see clearly, Jesus will not take second place in our life.
He wants all of us or He wants none of us. So maybe listen very carefully to those sobering words. Now this leads us back to our text at the end of chapter 10 here. We already read verses 40 through 42.
But let's zero in on verse 40 as we begin. Jesus says once again, whoever receives you receives me. And whoever receives me receives him who sent me. So as we read this, you may remember that we already saw a passage similar to this in this chapter.
In verses 12 through 14 of this chapter, Jesus told his disciples as you enter the house, greet it and if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.
And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. We have to remember the context of this chapter. This is the chapter where Jesus calls the full number of his disciples.
All 12 of them. And he's sending them out into a hostile world to share the gospel. To tell people about who Jesus is and the reality that people need to believe in the King if they are going to enter the kingdom.
If they are going to enter this kingdom, they need to repent of their sins and put their trust in Jesus the Messiah. Jesus is telling his disciples if people will not receive you, what they are saying is they do not receive the King.
And if they do not receive him, they do not receive God the Father. All these go together. Receive the Messiah, you have God the Father, you have the kingdom. You reject the Messiah, you get none of it.
The most heartbreaking group in the New Testament that rejected Jesus were the Jewish leaders. These were the ones, as I mentioned in the intro, they thought they had an in with God. They thought they were the godly ones.
They thought they were the model that people were to follow. Later on in Matthew, in chapter 23, Jesus condemns the scribes and the Pharisees. The self-righteous religious people of the day. And what he tells them is they are forfeiting the kingdom and also leading others to forfeit the glorious future kingdom.
In Matthew 23, verses 13 -14, Jesus said, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.
Strong words. The scribes and Pharisees are the kind of people who rejected the kingdom. Many other common Jews who the disciples were sent out to proclaim the gospel to also rejected it. Once again, by rejecting the disciples, they rejected the king.
And by rejecting the king, they forfeited future residence in this future glorious kingdom. Now in verse 41, Jesus talks about the reward of the worker. The reward of the one who is sent out to spread the truth wherever one goes.
Jesus says once again, the one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet, will receive a prophet's reward. And the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person's reward.
As we see here, Jesus uses two different titles to describe His disciples in verse 41. He calls them prophets and He calls them righteous. Now when we hear the word prophet, all different kinds of thoughts come to our minds.
The first thing that probably comes into our minds is that a prophet is one who tells the future. This is partly true. In the Old Testament, prophets predicted the future, but they also proclaimed what the Lord had already said.
This is where it is important to understand the difference between two different words. To foretell is to tell the future. To foretell is to proclaim what the Lord has already said. And the prophets in the Old Testament did both.
Now in the New Testament era, there were believers who functioned like the Old Testament prophets. These are the eleven disciples minus Judas, whom Jesus is talking to right here. These disciples were also called apostles.
There were a few apostles later added like Matthias and Paul and Barnabas. Every follower of Christ is a disciple, but only a very small few were apostles. To be an apostle, one needed to be a witness of the bodily resurrection of Christ and be appointed to that position by Jesus.
The apostles would foretell, that is, proclaim what had already been communicated to them either from the Old Testament or from the very mouth of Jesus. And in their writings, they also told the future like Old Testament prophets did.
Think of all the future predictions. They told the people, this is what's going to happen when the end of the world comes. They functioned like a prophet. The apostles did. A prophet or an apostle, they had a very important role.
They were not to offer their own opinion. They were to tell people exactly what God told them to say. We don't need your clever creativity. Just say what God said. This is what is so remarkable about the Bible that we hold in our hands.
Think about this book. There's over 100 million books that have been written in the history of the world. There's no book like this book. It's the only book that God has written. The Apostle Peter wrote this in 2 Peter 1, verses 20 and 21.
He said no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. This is what's so wonderful about Sunday mornings.
During the week, you go on your social media and you read the newspaper and you turn on the TV. Probably most of what you hear and read is wrong. You come on Sundays. As long as I'm interpreting the text right, all you hear is the truth.
The true prophet, who was faithful to do what God had called him to do, would be rewarded. Not only the prophet or apostle, but also the common Christian. Like us, who are called to faithfully do what God has called us to do.
Jesus addresses the common Christian in the second half of verse 41 when he says, the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person, will receive a righteous person's reward. The Lord loves to reward His saints.
His servants. Hebrews 11 .6 tells us that without faith, it is impossible to please Him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him. He rewards those who exercise faith in Him and seek Him, living a life of faithfulness to Him.
This is what He does. So how do you think about your life as you're going through your journey here on earth? Are we aiming for a reward at the finish line of our lives? We should be. Now, if you're a genuine follower of Christ, you will receive entrance into heaven.
We're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, based on what Jesus did at the cross 2 ,000 years ago. He died on the cross for our sins. He was raised gloriously from the dead. If you believe that, if you sincerely believe that, you're saved and you'll be in heaven one day.
And that's a huge reward right there. Heaven will be wonderful for everyone, but the experience in heaven will not be the same for everyone. God is going to reward His people. The ones who are more faithful will receive more reward.
And the ones who are less faithful will receive less. A very sobering passage describing the different levels of Christian faithfulness and how God looks at one's faithfulness comes from Paul's letter to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 3, 11 -15.
In that passage, this is what Paul wrote, no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become manifest.
For the day, that's the final judgment, the day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire. And the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 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, but only as through fire. So as this passage tells us, some believers will gain more reward than others. And some will squander more reward than others.
For the ones who squander much, it doesn't mean there was no faithfulness. There's some evidence that this person was saved, but the fruit will not be what it could have been. And that is somewhat of a tragedy.
And this person will be saved as through fire, as the text says, but there will be much loss based on a lack of faithfulness during this life. However, some will build the right way off the foundation of Jesus Christ.
They built largely with gold, silver, and precious stone, which stands the test when tested by fire. You can see this picture of fire here, right? Wood, hay, straw, this is going to burn right up. Gold, silver, costly stone won't burn up.
Everything will be tested. It's no mystery how we are to build. That's the great thing about it. It's not difficult. We are to build off the foundation of Jesus Christ. And we build off the foundation of Christ by closely following His Word.
We are not only to believe and articulate what the Bible says, but we are also to live it out. James says we're not only to be hearers of the Word, we're supposed to be doers of the Word. Those who listen closely to what God says in His Word and live lives devoted to what He has called us to do, these are the ones who will receive the greatest reward in the age to come.
This is the whole goal of our church, that we follow the Bible closely and live a life that is pleasing to how God has called us to live. And I'm just excited, because I see, as the years have gone on here, it just seems like, yes, I'm seeing more of this.
And let's just continue in that direction. There's nothing more exciting in this world than to see God working in a place. Churches think they need to manipulate things in order to build excitement. They think they need a slick public speaker, a rock band, a smoke machine, a coffee shop, an arcade.
Doing this inevitably attracts a crowd, and somehow this shows that God is working in a place. In the middle of the 20th century, theologian A .W. Tozer, he was concerned about how churches were operating in America.
And he noticed that churches were trying to entertain in order to show that a work of God was taking place as masses of people flocked to these places. And he was troubled by this, and he called what these churches were doing worship-tainment.
Okay, so entertainment. Worship-tainment. Tozer said, and I'm paraphrasing, do you want to know how God is working in a place? He said, get the most unexciting, uncharismatic, unexpressive Christian in your church.
Have this person tell you some glorious truth about God revealed in the Bible, and see what this does to the heart. If you're not moved, then it isn't God that is building excitement in your heart, but entertainment.
Think about that. If you just hear a truth of God, without any music, without any big crowd, any outside excitement, what does that do to your heart? We don't want our hearts to be manipulated. We want our zeal to come from the right place, to truly be a work of God in our hearts.
A true work of God in a person's heart comes from understanding the Word, understanding how wonderful God is, understanding how glorious are His great works in history, understanding what a joyful life it is to follow His ways, understanding what a life it is to be a blessing to others.
If we understand this, that's how God's working in our hearts. This happens not through getting your emotions manipulated by entertainment, but understanding the Word of God and living out the Word through the power of the Holy Spirit.
You know how we know a work of God is taking place in Eureka? People's lives are changed. That's how we know. People no longer want to go to the bar, but they want to come to church. That's one way. People, instead of watching a movie, you want to read your Bible.
Instead of doing something you normally do, you want to pray. You want to spend time with other believers. This is how we know that a work of God is happening. Not that you get some thrill, experience.
He rewards those. God rewards those who are lit on fire by His Word. So does this describe you? Ask yourself that. And if you feel dry when it comes to the things of God, pray that He would light a fire in your soul.
This is what Paul writes in Romans 12, 11. He says, do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. What happens as God does a true work in your heart is that you will serve Him. You notice that?
It's not necessarily that you'll feel this great emotion, but it'll change the way you live. And yes, there will be joy in your life. But it's a consistent joy that is carried out over time. And one of those things that He calls you to do is to proclaim the Gospel to others.
The faithful are evangelists. They're soul winners. They want to see unbelievers become believers. Do you notice that in this verse here? Because this is what he says, right? The one who receives a prophet, because he's a prophet, will receive a prophet's reward.
And the one who receives a righteous person, because he is a righteous person, will receive a righteous person's reward. The prophet and the righteous person, they're going to people. They're sharing the Gospel with these people.
And some are receiving them and some aren't. But the one who receives them is the one who's blessed. But do we have this in our heart? Do we want to see others come to faith in Christ? 19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon once said, you have no concern for lost souls.
You are not saved yourself. Be sure of that. Very convicting words. One clear mark of a true believer is that you are concerned about the spiritual state of others. And when I see professing Christians with no concern for the souls of others, that concerns me.
Do you have that concern? Showing true faith in God. Now, not only is the righteous person who proclaims the Gospel rewarded, but so is the one who receives the righteous person. Remember from Hebrews 11 .6, God rewards those who have true faith in Him.
Some more than others, based on the level of faithfulness. But He will reward all the righteous, as Jesus says in this text. Now in verse 41, what Jesus means by receiving the person is not just that you are kind to the messenger of Christ.
Like you don't blow them off. You don't persecute the person. What he's saying here is that the one who receives the messenger is the one who receives the message. These are the ones who are blessed. These are the ones who share in the righteous person's reward.
What Jesus is saying is that everyone who comes to faith in Christ, when they hear from the messenger, will be rewarded just as the messenger is rewarded. It's remarkable that God rewards His people. I explained that in the introduction.
And He dangles the reward out there, right in front of us. God could have saved us from punishment and not given us heaven. Have you ever thought about that? When a prisoner is released from jail, they are no longer serving the punishment for their crime.
But it's not as if their life is all rosy. They don't get richly rewarded when they leave. In fact, life is hard because they have to build up all over again. But when God releases us from our prison, from our bondage to sin, from captivity to Satan, from a future in hell, He gives us heaven.
Hell is the worst possible place you could imagine. Heaven is the best possible place you can imagine. Think about that transfer that takes place when you come to faith. It's a night and day difference.
What a wonderful God we serve. He wants us to experience how wonderful He is. And He does that by allowing us to dwell with Him forever. It's a gift. But as I already mentioned, He also gives us what we deserve.
Now, in one sense, we all deserve hell. But once He saves us and we can do true works for Him through the power of the Holy Spirit, He's going to reward us for that. The more faithful you are, the more reward you will receive.
The less faithful you are, the less you will receive. And at the end of the day, the only works that will be rewarded are the ones that are done for the glory of God. Out of our love for God, we do good things on His behalf.
2 Corinthians 5 .10 says that 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. That verse is not talking about unbelievers.
It's talking about believers. The judgment seat of Christ. It's a judgment of works based on how we lived our lives. When we live out our faith, including advancing God's kingdom by spreading His gospel, we are in the business of accumulating reward for ourselves and putting others in that same blessed position.
And you might say, well, that sounds greedy. Well, it's not if you do it for the glory of God. No, at the end of the day, when God rewards us for our faithfulness, we're not going to say, Lord, You own me.
I deserve this. We're going to say, Lord, the only reason I was able to do anything good for You is because of Your grace. There's a big difference there. And when we share the gospel with others, this text is focusing on here, receiving a righteous person's reward.
The one who receives a righteous person will receive the righteous person's reward. When we do this, we are throwing people a life vest and saving them from the judgment that awaits apart from Christ.
But we are also bringing them into a feast where they can eat and drink and be satisfied forever. In this way, they will receive a righteous person's reward, as verse 41 tells us. So understand that God loves to reward His own.
And the first practice, how? Is by receiving God's messengers and message. To do this is to be counted among the rewarded and not the cursed. Here's our second practice, and this one is a little shorter than the other one.
This is the second practice, how? We are to understand that God loves to reward His own, and that is by helping with the needs of your heavenly family. Helping with the needs of your heavenly family. So to this point, we have seen the messengers of God's truth are rewarded, and the one who receives the message of the messenger are rewarded.
One way that faithfulness is shown that God rewards is by helping a fellow believer. And we'll see this in verse 42. Let's look at this. And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.
So in this verse, the word whoever is describing one who helps another and will be rewarded for offering that help. So the whoever is describing a genuine disciple of Christ who gives a cup of cold water to another.
Of course, he's just using an example here. A kind act to someone who is in need of help. But who are the little ones described here? The little ones in verse 42. To understand who the little ones are, we get help later on in the Gospel of Matthew.
In Matthew 18, verses 10 -14, Jesus says this, He says, See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven, their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.
What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search for the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray.
So is it not the will of My Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish? And of course, the answer is no. In this passage, the sheep that have gone astray is an immature believer.
Someone young in their faith. Someone struggling in their faith. And what Jesus is saying is do not despise these little ones, but pursue them. In Matthew 25, Jesus also uses the phrase little ones. This is a familiar passage in Matthew 25, verses 36 -40.
He says, I was naked and you clothed Me. I was sick and you visited Me. I was in prison and you came to Me. Then the righteous will answer Him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you drink?
And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you? Or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the King, Jesus, will answer them. Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to Me.
So based off of what Jesus says about helping the little ones, later on in Matthew, as we've seen in these two passages, Jesus is telling us to help our fellow believers who are in need. Now, we are of course to help anyone in need.
The second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. And this isn't just believers, it's also unbelievers as well. But here, the focus is on fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. And He communicates this by saying, give them a cup of cold water.
So how do we do this? How do we see this playing out in our lives? We see it play out every time you encourage someone who is discouraged in his or her walk with God. Every time you give an encouraging word to a fellow believer who needs encouragement.
Every time you share the Gospel with someone who will become a believer. And they'll become a little one. Every time you provide a physical need, you are doing this. Someone may be going through a difficult season financially and you offer that person help.
Someone may need a place to stay and you offer your home. Someone may need a friend and you pursue a friendship. Someone may need help with a project and you take the time to help that person. Even though you have a busy schedule.
This is what believers do for each other. Church is so much more than just meeting on Sundays. We are to be there for each other as we go through the challenges of life. We need to know each other enough to know that there is a need.
And someone needs to be comfortable enough to know that if a need arises, others in the body of Christ are there to help. What Jesus is saying clearly here is that the one who provides for the little one who needs help will be rewarded.
God notices everything that you do. Every help that you offer. And we should understand that. Because sometimes nobody sees it, right? We do something for someone else and no one in the world has any idea that you did that.
But you know who knows? The only one that matters. God. His opinion is the only one that matters at the end of the day. And He is a rewarder of His people. He will reward your faithfulness. So as we wrap up here, understand that God loves to reward His own.
And in this text, we've seen two practices how. The first is by receiving God's messengers and message. Then you are counted among the rewarded. The second practice how is by helping your heavenly family in need.
The little ones. The ones who are struggling. Help them. It is incredible that we serve a God who loves to reward. He not only delivers us from punishment, but He delights in rewarding His children. We are unworthy servants that became His servants by His sheer mercy and grace.
And yet, He still rewards us. May we be encouraged by this wonderful reality that all of us who know Christ find ourselves in this glorious position. May we also be encouraged to pursue more faithfulness to Him in our lives.
God sees everything that you do. And He will reward you in the age to come. Now next Sunday is Easter Sunday. What we're going to do is we're going to take a one-Sunday break for Matthew. And obviously, when you come to church on Easter Sunday, we've got to hear about the resurrection.
So we will hear about the resurrection next Sunday. And we're going to look at John's Gospel. And I look forward to celebrating the resurrection of our Lord with you. And then we'll resume with Matthew once again two Sundays from today, Lord willing.
At this time, let's bow our heads together. Father in heaven, I thank you for your word. And Lord, nothing of eternal value can happen, Lord, unless the Spirit does the work in the hearts of each individual here.
Lord, we can throw the seeds out there of the Word of God, but you're the one who does the work. You're the one who gives the growth. You're the one who transforms the heart. For some, Lord, it might be coming to faith in Christ for the first time.
And I pray, Lord, if anyone here does not believe in Christ, that they would put their trust in Him. They would be on this path. That they would have a future residence in heaven and be among the rewarded.
And for those who are on this path, Lord, may we strive, Lord, to live lives that are more and more pleasing to you, not for our own glory, but for yours. And it's remarkable, Lord, that you are one who rewards faithfulness.
It's your character to do that. And we praise you for that. As it says, you will give to each one according to what he has done. So, Lord, may we be those who built on the solid rock of Jesus Christ. May we not live lives engulfed in human wisdom, but only with the wisdom that comes from the Word of God.
And may we see the fruit of that. And may we long, Lord, to please you. And one day, Lord, as we do that, you will reward us. For that faithfulness. Pray for all this in Jesus name. Amen. We have the greatest relationship in you.
You are our treasure to have full allegiance to you. And not only that, Lord, but you also give us your family, our brothers and sisters in Christ. And that sweet bond, Lord, that sweet fellowship, that fellowship with you and that fellowship with one another.
That's your design. And so may that be our commitment as a church, Lord. May you be supreme in our lives. And may we experience that rich fellowship with you and that rich fellowship with others. And in that way, Lord, as we anticipate these troubled relationships, we will not agonize over them.
We will not be discouraged over them, realizing, Lord, that you told us it would be this way in this life. And may we hold you in the highest place. And it's in your Son's name we pray. Amen.