How the Supremacy of Christ Creates Radical Christian Sacrifice — John Piper

The following message is by pastor John Piper. More information from desiring. God is available at www .desiringgod .org.

Renouncing Self-Reliance, Fear, and Sin

Let's pray together father we together now renounce I Do pray that these friends would do this with me. Renounce all self-reliance. We renounce all vain glory. We renounce pride. We renounce greed and covetousness.

We renounce Cowardice and the fear of man. We renounce lust and those pornographic things That threaten to sweep our brains away. Even this morning we renounce Anxiety about what's going on at home and ask for freedom.

We renounce sinful anger and bitterness at people in our church and Spouses who disappoint and mom who doesn't understand at all what I'm dreaming. We renounce Satan in all his works and all his ways and together now collectively We submit to Christ and we submit to your word and we ask for the Holy Spirit to brood over these thousands.

That something Extraordinary would happen here for the sake of the glory of Christ and the good of the church and the reaching of the nations Exceedingly and abundantly. Beyond everything we have dreamed and we have dreamed much.

So come come Holy Spirit I ask in Jesus name. Amen, I invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Hebrews. We're gonna read six passages of Scripture starting in chapter 10. These six passages of Scripture contain the answer to the question posed in the title of this message.

The question is How does the supremacy of Christ create? Radical Christian sacrifice. How does it do that. Now for you to see the answer in these six passages starting in chapter 10, you will need to ask and answer correctly.

What is the great reward? What is the better resurrection? What is the joy set before us? What is the city that is to come? I have to answer those questions in order to understand how the supremacy of Christ creates Radical Christian sacrifice.

So My answer to those questions goes like this. All of those ultimately refer to the supremacy of Christ as This book unfolds it Experienced as the all-satisfying joy of your life forever. I think that's what the answer to all those questions is and I'll try to make that case later.

The Hebrews Passages on Reward and Sacrifice

Let's start with chapter 10 verse 32 to 35. Recall the former days when after you were enlightened. You endured a hard struggle with sufferings. Sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction and sometimes being partners with those so treated for you had compassion on those in prison and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property since you knew that you had a better possession and an abiding one.

Therefore don't throw away your confidence which has great reward. Chapter 11 verse 6. Without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists that he rewards those who seek him.

Chapter 11 verse 24. By faith Moses when he was grown up refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth Than all the treasures of Egypt for he was looking to the reward. Chapter 11 verse 35 middle of the verse. Some were tortured. Refusing to accept release so that they might gain a better resurrection.

Chapter 12 verse 2. Looking to Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him Endured the cross despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

And finally chapter 13 verse 12. So Jesus Also suffered outside the gate In order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore Let's go. This is my message therefore Let us go to him Outside the camp for here we have no lasting city.

This hardly needs any exposition. These verses are crystal clear in answering the question How does the supremacy of Christ create radical Christian sacrifice. Before I Go to those verses and do a little bit of exposition.

A Radical, Risk-Taking Christian Life

I want to put it in a wider context for what my heart is for this moment and this conference. I don't come here for nothing. I want something. I want you to do something. I Want this world to be rocked by your lives?

So I'll tell you what I'm praying what I want to happen and I think the brothers with me would agree. Who lead this conference. My desire and prayer to God is that your life and your ministry would have a radical flavor a risk-taking flavor a gutsy countercultural wartime flavor that makes average American people in your church uncomfortable.

A Strange mixture of tenderness and toughness that keeps people a little bit off-balance. A pervasive summons to something more something hazardous something Wonderful. A saltiness and a brightness about your life and about your church.

Something like Jesus when Jesus said you're the salt of the earth and you're the light of the world. I think he had in mind the verse just before they will persecute you and Revile you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice for great is your reward in heaven. I think that's what makes salt. Salt and light are Joyful embrace of suffering. That's what the world is waiting for. Jesus said Do this be light be salt. My desire for you my prayer and I've been praying this over and over again for you.

Hope you already are ready. I hope you feel God doing this already in your life. My desire is that your life in ministry would have a radical flavor. Reviling comes persecution comes Slander comes and you rejoice.

You don't murmur. You don't complain you quit you rejoice you preach and you live in such a way that over a decade or two or Three the church you're leading becomes bright and salty like this Counting it all joy when they are walking through various trials.

That's your goal in this church. Crazy people who meet cancer and meet death and meet suffering with Unflinching Confidence in Christ and joy in being known by him and loved by him. There is a great reward coming an all-satisfying Everlasting experience of the supremacy of Christ.

You you will have lived it right. You're living this. This is what you want for your life, and I want for you. You will have treasured Christ above all above all the Accumulation of stuff. You will have laid up treasures in heaven and not on earth.

Right, that's what you're doing. Now. You don't lay it up treasures on earth. You are laying up treasures in heaven. You are maximizing your enjoyment of the reward. You have not only fled fornication and Adultery.

You have fled Opulence. You have fled Ostentation. You have fled riches. You Have remembered the story of the rich young man. I have it on a plaque over the door in my study. Remember the rich young man Piper whatever else you forget don't forget him.

You remembered that as you served in these decades and will serve You you've heard the Apostle Paul. And you've taken it into your heart, and you've blazed in it on the brain in your head. Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation into a snare into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge them into Destruction and ruin just to want to be rich.

Does that to you? And you've heard that and you put it on the inside of your brain, and you've led a church another way. That's what will make you salty and bright. You have eaten the words of Isaiah all flesh is like grass and All its glory like the flower of grass.

The flower falls and the grass withers. But the word of the Lord abides Forever. You've put it inside your heart, and that's where you live. That's what you are thinking. My desire and my prayer for you is that your life and your ministry will have a radical flavor.

Why Prosperity Cannot Display Christ's Supremacy

And I say this for the glory of Christ. The world is not going to glorify Christ. Because They see that Christians Are wealthy and healthy and Prosperous. Very simple reason why that's what they live for.

So you use Jesus to get it? They use other means to get it. You're not impressed. Jesus is the ticket. When the show starts you throw the ticket away, they don't need your ticket. They're not impressed.

I'm saying what I'm saying because I want them to be impressed. They're not impressed with us. Prosperous wealthy safe Middle-class. Do what everybody else does. People don't build a church like that.

Don't go there. Don't spend your life like that. It will be Wasted. You will have lived it. My desire in prayer for you. Is that your life have a radical flavor. Some extraordinary love. Something risky.

Some crazy Sacrifice that nobody can understand. Including mom. Something salty and bright. The world may not like it they may crucify it. Stephen's face shown like an angel. Faith shown like an angel.

They could not resist his wisdom and they killed him. They weren't bored they weren't sleeping. And Chapter 8 of Acts says He didn't die in vain. Did his greatest work in spreading the gospel at that moment because God Cleaned house in Jerusalem and sought to it that a persecution caused them to obey acts 1 8.

That's what it cost cost Stephen his life to get them off their butt into Samaria and into Judea and to the ends of the earth and it'll cost you your life. To build a church that doesn't live like the rest of the world.

You've got to live like that. You've got to have a flavor about your life. That is risky and radical. Different. So my desire and prayer for you is that your life and ministry have a radical flavor. Risk sacrifice love simplicity joy freedom.

Precarious adventure. In 1939 Howard Guinness one of the early founders of The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students wrote a little book called sacrifice in which he said this. And now I'm saying it to you.

We're the young men and women of this generation who will hold their lives cheap and be faithful unto death. Who will lose their lives for Christ's? Flinging them away for love of him. Where are those who will live?

Dangerously and be reckless in his service. Where are the men of prayer? Where are the men who count God's Word as more important to them than their daily food? Where are the men who like Moses of old commune with God?

Face to face. As a man speaks with his friend. Where are God's men in this day of God's power? Where are the pastors who say with the Apostle Paul? I don't count my life of any value. Or as precious to myself if only I might finish my course and Complete the work that he gave me to do to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

I'm nothing. I just have a job. God keep me faithful on the job and then let me drop and go to the reward. Where are the pastors who say with? Joab to his brother Abishai surrounded by Syrians and Ammonites.

Brother. Be courageous and let us play the man. For our God and for the cities of our God and may the Lord do what seems good to him. Where is the Joab? Today where where are the women? The single women and the married women and the pastor's wives who say with Esther when Mordecai came to her and said you gotta do this because your people are perishing and she says Tell him to fast and I will go into the king though.

It is against the law and if I perish I Perish. Where are those women? Our church is crawling with them. I love them. I can marry all of them. I'm too old and I'm married and I married one of them. I am asking you these questions.

Suffering as the Cost of Authentic Ministry

Where are you Joab? Where are you Esther? Where are you Paul? I'm asking you these questions because the world desperately needs to see that kind of pastor. A radical willingness to risk. Sacrifice suffer is the only authentic ministry because Jesus said That you if you're serious about him Will suffer not may suffer will suffer.

If anyone would come after me. Let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. If they call the master of the house Beelzebul. How much more will they malign those of his household to given a Servant is not above his master if they persecuted me.

They will persecute you. Did they persecute him. You will be Persecuted. They will lay their hands on you. Persecute you delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and governors for my sake.

You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and Relatives and friends and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated By all for my namesake. Not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives.

Paul took this teaching of Jesus and made it the bedrock of his Discipleship of new believers. You get a little glimpse as he was returning from the first missionary journey. He just planted these churches except 14 verse 22 he tells every one of them through many Tribulations you must enter the kingdom.

That is basic discipleship 101 tell every new believer the path you're on will be trouble. It will be affliction. 2nd Timothy 3 all who desire to live a godly life in Christ. Jesus will be persecuted period.

All who desire to live a godly life in Christ. Jesus will be persecuted period and Then he asked the question Romans who shall separate us from the love of Christ. So tribulation or persecution famine nakedness peril sword and he answers No.

But is the know. Will these things separate us from the love of Christ because the Sovereign Christ doesn't let them happen to us King Kings kids or is the reason they don't separate us from the love of Christ because He ordains that they happen to us and then keeps us in them With him and the answer is given as you know in the next verse as It is written for your sake.

We are being killed all day long. The NIV translation is dead wrong. You're not being exposed to the possibility. This is a fact and it's a fact today somewhere in the world now. Somebody's perishing for their faith and it has always been so we are being killed all day long.

We are counted like sheep to be slaughtered. No. In all these things in all these things. We are more than conquerors Through him who loved us if we are left without divine discipline. We are illegitimate children and not sons.

Suffering for the followers of Christ is a sign that God is their father every kind of suffering. Not only the creation. But we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit even we Grown inwardly waiting for our adoption.

For our adoption the redemption of our bodies. Norman Anderson, sir, Norman Anderson Supported the International Fellowship of Evangelical students for 60 years. He was a professor at the University of London head of the Advanced Legal Institute.

And he got old all three of his children died as young adults. His wife at the end was so Demented that she didn't recognize him anymore and he did one last interview. And he was asked this question. When you look back over your life and reflect on the fact that you have lost all your three children and How your wife of 60 years no longer recognizes you you ever asked the question Why me?

He answered No. I've never asked that question Why me but I have asked the question Why not me? I'm not promised as a Christian that I will escape the problems encountered by others. We all live in a fallen world.

I am however promised that in the midst of difficulties God through Christ will be present with me and Will give his grace to help me cope with difficulties and bear witness to him beloved Together for the gospel attenders.

Do not think it's strange. When you come into various trials as though something Unusual were happening to you. Jesus Paul Peter Hebrews Norman Anderson, they all bear witness. The followers of Jesus Will suffer.

I I don't want to escape from that number. All the followers of Jesus will suffer. I don't want to escape from that number. Must I be carried to the skies on Flowery beds of ease While Others fought to win the prize And sail through bloody seas.

No. How could you ever want such a thing? How could you ever want such a thing? You don't want that you want to embrace it hold it live it and have your lives marked by radical brightness and radical saltiness and risk-taking and sacrifice.

It's the only life the world will regard with anything that might open them to consider the glory of our treasure. My desire and prayer for you. Is that you will not even try to be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease.

There is another way and I'm pleading with you to embrace it so my question is What creates such a ministry. What creates radical Christian sacrifice? How is it created? Every child of God hears texts like this and says yes.

Yes, make me that way now. How does he do it? How will you experience it what things happen in your heart and mind? And what I want you to see is that The aim that I have just articulated for your life is the aim of the book of Hebrews the whole book Is aiming at this?

Hebrews and the Supremacy of Christ

This is the point of the book of Hebrews. I Didn't know that a few years ago. I Shied away from the book of Hebrews because it's got Melchizedek in it and nobody knows What to do with that? Which was a very stupid mistake.

So now let's go back to those texts if you have your Bible Flop it open again, please my aim here is This writers aim and God's aim through this inspired writer. My aim is a life and a ministry for you of Radical risk and sacrificial love for the glory of Christ and the way that this writer creates that for his listeners is By giving some of the most elaborate Magnificent glimpses of the supremacy of Christ in the Bible.

That's the way he does it. Hebrews is one of the most doctrinally sophisticated books in the Bible. We know that. But what we don't as often realize is that it is probably the only instance in the Bible of a sermon delivered to Christians.

All the sermons in the book of Acts are delivered to unbelievers or a mixture mainly to unbelievers in synagogues or Mars Hill or on the street but here we have What most people agree is a sermon because it's called a word of exhortation in Hebrews 13 22.

Which is identical to what the synagogue rulers asked Paul to deliver after the text had been read. In the synagogue give us a word of exhortation an identical phrase here. This is a word calls it a brief word takes about 50 minutes to read this book out loud so a 50-minute sermon is brief in first century standards and That may be why we're returning to those in so many fruitful biblical churches today.

Instead of these silly little things this this sermon was delivered in the hope of creating in the Christian hearer a commitment to radical joyful risk-taking sacrifices of love. That's the point of the book and Then the vision of Christ supremacy that runs through the book is there to serve that Radical practical public aim and I just want to step back and interpret this conference for you if you listen to talks about human inability or about the wrath of God and about Systematic theology.

About the Nature of the atonement if you if you listen to those sermons without this end you should not listen in biblically that message last night concerning all of the Horrific distortions of our precious Lord's work is all about making you crazy for Jesus.

That's the point of messages like that. It's not about fitting you to go home and win an argument. I Love this conference not here by any sacrifice as I can perceive it it just. Why wouldn't I want to sit here and listen to all these incentives to my weak?

Soul to lay my life down for such a Savior so Think of it that way get get your get your brain away from the academic Orientation on to the I'm going somewhere with this and I'm going outside the camp Where Jesus reproach is gonna land on me and I will have now discovered a little more fully why it's worth it To do that.

So here we are at chapter 10 verse 32. We're just going back to the text. I'm not going to do all of them. Just just a few chapter 10 verse 32. Our question is how does this book create radical Christian?

Sacrifice recall. The former days when you were enlightened, I think that means converted. You endured a hard struggle with sufferings sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction and sometimes being partners with those so treated so We're caught either way, you know, they were the ones being put in prison or they were the ones visiting verse 34.

For you had compassion on those in prison. Either you were there or you were going there. Either way, it was risky really risk. Because here's what happened you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property.

So when you went to prison they Trashed your house or maybe it was an official confiscation and. So you joyfully accepted that and then here's the explanation since you knew That you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one so Don't throw away your confidence which has That great reward so some believers had been put in prison, this is really clear as no.

You don't even need Greek to see this. Some believers had been in Put in prison and the other believers were faced with a choice. What should we do if we go to visit them? They will know we're Christians and and they may put us in and then what will our kids do?

As the kind of arguments that keep people off the mission field take your kids they're good grief. You're an American Comfort ease no risk. Love your kids. Don't you what created the radical Christian sacrifice for these people that have their lives plundered?

With joy. Was their amazing? Emotional persuasion. That what they were about to inherit in the great reward was so superior in its value That it made the loss of their present possessions as nothing to them.

Verse 34. Again you joyfully now. There's there's the key crazy transforming impossible. Get on your face and cry to God word. You joyfully accepted the plundering of your property. Since here's where the joy came from.

Something was set before them since. You yourselves had you knew you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Verse 35 Calls that better possession and abiding one. It's better and it lasts better and it lasts a great reward.

So what created the radical Christian crazy lifestyle of risking the plundering of your property by visiting Christians in jail was Profound heavenly mindedness. Concerning the infinite value of this great reward.

So how you doing on that one? Or are you bought into the argument that you're so heavenly minded you're on no earthly good. This text says the only people who are of any earthly good are those who are so radically heavenly minded that they are free from this world free from stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff is killing us.

Houses are killing us books are killing us carpet is killing us cars are killing us computers are killing us. CJ received this. IPhones are killing us. Thank you. Thank you from my iPhone. Get behind me Satan.

That's the right thing to say. So These folks had their iPhones thrown away and they rejoiced. These folks lost their computer in the Airline baggage and they rejoiced. These folks are very strange. And what makes them.

What creates this craziness. What creates this radical risk-taking self? Sacrificial life is the reward it's coming and it is everything to me. That's gonna be a big question what it is. Chapter 11 verse 24.

By faith Moses when he was grown up refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. Verse 26 he considered the reproach of Christ Christ.

He considered the reproach of Christ is Moses. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth Than the treasures of Egypt for Here's the argument just like verse 34 of chapter 10. For he was looking to the reward.

So, how was Moses radical? Loving sacrifice to embrace pain. Created he considered the reward. Present sacrifice is sustained by the hope of future reward. So clear so clear. And I'm gonna argue that This reward is the supremacy of Christ.

Christ supreme experienced as you're all satisfying treasure. Chapter 12 verse 2. Looking to Jesus the the founder and perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.

Despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. So How did Jesus? Bear up in doing radical crazy countercultural sacrifice. He did it by looking to the reward. For the joy that was set before him.

He endured the cross and thus he became a model for us of how motives work in Sanctification and how motives work in creating crazy Christians for the glory of the father indestructible joy Breaks in from the future as a sustaining power in the present.

So it works. If it's not working that way for you, you've got deep heart work to do. Just go on your face this afternoon. And say God do this at any cost. That's why I'm not saying you're an unbeliever because Paul prayed in Ephesians 1.

Open the eyes of their heart that they might see The hope to which they've been called and the greatness of his inheritance among them. Why would he prayed that for believers? Since we don't. It's why we live so like the world that prayer hasn't been answered in so many lives.

May the eyes of your heart be open to see your hope. You just don't see it. If you saw it you'd die for joy as you suffer for Jesus. Chapter 13 last one. We're going to look at verse 12. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate.

In order to sanctify the people through his own blood. So he went out there outside the gate is where pain is. Outside the gate is where Sacrifice is. It's risky outside the gate animals are out there.

Golgotha is out there. The nation's are out there. The inner city is out there. Neighbors are out there. Colleagues and classmates are out there. And that's where he went verse 13 therefore Let's go. This is if you if you if you ask me for a verse in the book to justify the statement that his aim is my Aim, that would be the verse 13.

Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear reproach that he endured and Then one last time The same argument the same way that radical Christian living is created for verse 14 for here We have no lasting city.

It's all coming down. Standing in my window last night on the 12th floor. Mary I looking out at whatever that Big building is kind of like that at the top. I thought that's beautiful. So like the temple, you know Jesus look he's beautiful stones.

Not one stone will be left on another it's coming down. Don't live for this. It's coming down. It's going away. And only what's done in risky love for Jesus is gonna survive that fire. For here we have no lasting city.

Positively, we are seeking a city that is To come. So in the end of this book last chapter comes the summons a radical call to be a risk-taking lover. Outside the gate outside the camp. That's my aim.

Your life and your ministry have a radical flavor. Risk-taking sacrifice. Something outlandish. Got any outlandish plans crazy plans. The world would kind of so question. What does verse 13 mean for you?

Just want you to Real person now therefore. Let us go to him outside the gate. Outside the camp where where is that for you? Because it's just addressed to all of us. So that's. I'm praying that you answer that question.

It's risky. It's sacrificial. It's radical. But I'm saying to God in my heart right now I'll go anywhere. Right. You're saying that aren't you you're whispering it inside your head. I'll go anywhere. I will do anything anytime.

I Yield I submit. I yield I'm yours. This message just makes me want to Be still and say I'm yours. I'm I'll do anything you want. So Would you speak would you just make it plain Lord? That's that's what I think should be going on inside your head Right now because if if we're yielded like that to this call to go outside the camp and bear reproach if we're willing and even eager to to embrace the cost of following Christ.

He will not leave you without direction. He's not like that. He isn't. You'll know how is it created? Verse 14 here. We have no lasting city. We seek a city which is to come. So in all these texts the structure is the same the argument is the same the way God creates radical sacrifice is the same in all of the six texts and the ones I looked At here at the end it is created radical.

Christian sacrifice is created when we treasure our future reward Vastly more than we treasure the comforts and securities of ordinary earthly life. That's the way it's created. We treasure our future reward Vastly more than we treasure this world and our family our wives our children our books our ministry sex food exercise leisure vacations job success friendships acclaim.

We treasure our future reward a Thousand times more than we treasure our children our wives our churches. That's where it comes from. There aren't many in America there are more in suffering places because you Have to be or you're not a Christian.

Here you can fake it. So my answer of how this comes about is that in the book of Hebrews Christ supreme glorious magnificent personal and precious is That reward really. Now it's like you just Fitting that into you.

You just want to make that work really. Isn't he doesn't Hebrews present Christ as Purification for sins and interceding high priest and Becoming the founder of our salvation and the perfecter of our faith.

All of these are means to the end. So were you getting the idea that he's the end? Were you getting this? Because the book seems to read that he's to The one who opens the door to the end with his blood.

And his sympathetic high priestly ministry interceding with God that's that's the Christ he gets us somewhere. It's true. He does Sharing with you now in the next three minutes or so one of the biggest deepest sweetest discoveries of my last say two or three years.

So obvious you could say you're 60 and you didn't see that 62 now. Clearly From the Bible and from this book in particular Christ and his work are a means to something Justification forgiveness Propitiation sanctification eternal life.

Here's the catch in Paul and Hebrews and elsewhere in the very Moment of his supreme means work cross means work he at that very moment became and displayed the supreme beauty of the glory of the grace of God Which the universe was designed to display for our everlasting enjoyment so Christ in his means work Becomes at that moment the clearest focus of the End for which we are made.

We're made to praise the glory of the grace of God. Ephesians 1 6 the glory of God reaches his apex in the display of free grace and free grace Reaches his apex in the display of the blood of Christ poured out that sinners might be freed from their love affair with the world and Everlastingly enjoy him in his display of free grace, which is why.

This would fit al what you said last night and stick this on at the end next time you give that message. Which is why? We will spend eternity Singing about horrible horrible horrible things slaughter of the Son of God will be our song forever.

Worthy are you Oh? Christ because you have been slain and have made us a kingdom for our God. We won't put behind us gross horrible events in heaven the worst Event of history will be the center of our song forever and the supreme expression of his glory and the supreme experience of Satisfaction forever.

That's what I've been seeing. I mean, it's really had an effect on me that in his means work. He becomes my end. Not like the end is something different and the cross is forgotten. Then worked like that in the book of Revelation so I think all the pictures of the supremacy of Christ in the book of Hebrews and that's what you're most familiar with.

It's a glorious all these pictures of his Majesty are Not only To fit him for his means work that for sure. That's the way they're presented by and large. They are presented in the book of Hebrews for that and That in the means work we would see our treasure our Reward just nothing beyond we're gonna do step on him and go somewhere.

I want to go. I'm gonna make him a ticket. Thank you for this bloody ticket. Now. I got some stuff in heaven. I want I want the more stuff. No way. He is the tick and his blood-soaked. I haven't worked out any imagery about a ticket becomes a treasure so just take it.

You preach that next Sunday. Should have thought that one through. But you work on that one the ticket Becomes the treasure. My mind is trying to think of one right now. But if I try it on it's gonna sound so silly you'll so I just want to draw this to a conclusion.

Christ as the Final Reward

By not neglecting the whole books testimony to our great treasure. Everything in the book that it says about him Intensifies our love for him and our desire for him to be our final reward. He is God's final revelation.