RESPONSIBILITIES AND REWARDS
THE PARABLE OF THE POUNDS: REWARDS
DR. JIM DIXON
JUNE 9, 2013
LUKE 19:11-27
Would you like to be rich? I mean, would you like to be really rich? Would you like to have a whole lot of money? There are many people who have told us how we can do that. Will Rogers said, if you want to be rich, don’t gamble. Take all of your money, buy some good stock, hold onto it. If it goes up, sell it. If it don’t go up, don’t buy it. That’s not particularly helpful—funny, just not helpful. J Paul Getty allegedly said, if you want to be rich, rise early, work hard, strike oil. Nelson Rockefeller allegedly said, if you want to be rich, rise early, work long, choose rich parents.
But what if money isn’t a very big deal? I mean, what if money really has virtually nothing to do with happiness and fulfillment? What if wealth and riches are almost completely unrelated to happiness and fulfillment? What if happiness and fulfillment came from pleasing God? What if a blessed life could only come from God? Because that’s what the Bible tells us. A blessed life only comes from God. So today we’re going to look at the blessings of God, the blessings and rewards of God, and we’re going to look at the blessings and rewards of God in the life to come and the blessings and rewards of God in this life.
We’re going to begin with the life to come. What are the blessings and rewards of God in the life to come? Now, I want to begin with an acknowledgement. When I study the scriptures it seems to me like the blessings of God in the life to come are primarily blessings of grace. We only get to heaven by grace anyway. So they’re primarily blessings of grace. Having said that, there are varying rewards in heaven. So we’re going to try to just say a little bit about both of these things.
The grace of God is salvation itself. We said last week that Jesus Christ came to our earth preaching the gospel of the kingdom. That’s what the Bible tells us again and again and again. He came preaching the kingdom of God. And Jesus told us that the kingdom of this world is different than the kingdom of God. Jesus told us that the kingdom of this world actually belongs to Satan, that Satan is the archon. He is the ruler. He’s the prince. He’s the king of this world, and his hand is on everything. You can see his fingerprints everywhere. He is the author of sin, and he has led the human race into sin. We are all under judgment because of that. The whole creation is tainted. Even the realm of nature and the very genetics of our human bodies are. All of it is tainted by the touch of Satan.
So that is the kingdom of the world. But into this world the Son of God has come announcing the kingdom of God and inviting us to choose His kingdom, inviting us to leave the kingdom of the world and enter the kingdom of God. We saw last week that, as we enter the kingdom of God, we understand that God is the owner. He is the Lord. He’s the owner of everything. We are simply stewards. And within the kingdom of God, we who are His stewards will one day have to give an account. We saw briefly that this entrance into the kingdom of God is by grace. It comes through accepting Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord—Savior because Jesus died for the sin of the world. He died on Calvary’s cross. He died in substitutionary atonement. He bore the penalty in His body for the sin of the entire world. And so when we accept Him as our Savior, He has power to forgive us. It’s all grace.
We also accept Him as Lord and King, for He has risen from the dead. He’s at the right hand of the Father. He’s going to come again in power and great glory. He will rule the nations. He will judge the living and the dead. So we accept Him as Savior and King. He brings us into His kingdom, and all the blessings of heaven itself are based on grace. It’s not our righteousness. It’s His righteousness. It’s not our sacrifice. It’s His sacrifice. It’s grace.
Of course, throughout church history, throughout Christian history, songs have been written about the amazing grace that we have in Christ and through His gospel. Of course, more recently people have sung praise songs, and we sing praise songs here at the church. These are songs written by more contemporary writers, which are a little different than the hymns of the past. We sing an occasional hymn, but we sing mostly praise songs here.
And I will tell you, I like praise songs. Some of them I actually love. I really find them very worshipful. I’ll also tell you that I prefer hymns. And you might say, well, Jim, you’re the senior pastor. If you prefer hymns, why are we singing pray songs? And the answer is that we’re trying to reach the community. We’re trying to reach the world of unbelievers, and we long to see people fall in love with Christ. And we’ve been told that praise songs relate better.
But for me, even though I love many praise songs, I find hymns theologically deeper and richer and less repetitive. I just, for some reason, it just drives me… when we sing a praise song like, I Could Sing of Your Love Forever, and we sing that same phrase, “I could sing of your love forever, I could sing for of your love forever,” and we sing that 15 times, I find there’s a certain irony in that, and it feels like it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But in any event, I love both praise songs and hymns, and some of the hymns are so rich and so deep regarding the grace by which we are saved. One of my favorite hymns was a hymn written in 1758 by a guy who was only 23 years old. This guy wrote this amazing hymn. He first heard the gospel when he was 17, and he was drunk. And you know, this is because he was hanging out with his buddies and they drank all the time. He was drunk and on a lark because they were drunk. They thought, let’s go to this crusade deal. And so they went to this kind of revival thing. They didn’t call them crusades then, but it was revival and kind of a tent meeting. And he heard the gospel for the very first time. He didn’t accept Christ (he was pretty intoxicated), but the Holy Spirit did convict him that night. And he knew he heard truth.
He didn’t forget that. Three years later, when he was 20, he asked Jesus to be his Savior and Lord. He came into the realm of God’s grace, and he knew it was God’s grace that even led him to that moment. And then at age 23, in 1758, he wrote this great hymn of the faith, which is called, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. And when I sing that hymn, and I sing about the blood of Christ and the grace of Christ, and when I sing those words, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above,” I know I’m singing about grace.
This guy, Robert Robinson, who wrote that hymn at age 23, wandered away from the faith after accepting Christ. He went off the path and God brought him back. He recommitted his life to Christ when he heard a group of Christians singing the hymn he had written. He was led back to Christ by his own hymn.
And I have to laugh at that because I can kind of see, for me as a pastor, so many Sundays that I’m convicted by the very sermon I’m preaching. I mean, it’s true. I’m up here preaching… or even during the week as I’m preparing it… and I’m convicted. I’m convicted because it’s not my words. It’s the word of God. It’s the word of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit attends it and impacts me. I’ve even had some really rare, weird moments where I’ve had some reason I needed to listen to a message that I had previously given and that message then impacted me. I mean, I have a great ministry to me.
Anyway, these things can happen because of the power of the Holy upon His Word. So here’s a guy, Robert Robinson, in 1758. He writes this great hymn at only 23 years old, then wanders from the faith. But here’s the hymn he wrote being sung by Christians, and it brings him back. And that’s just beautiful. He died in 1790 at the age of 54 after preaching a sermon in Birmingham, England. He went to sleep, and in a peaceful sleep leaves this world. He is with the angels, and he is with Jesus. And it’s all grace. He’s in heaven by grace.
When we get to those courts above, I hope you understand we’re going to be declared righteous and we’re going to enter into the glory of heaven—not because of our righteousness, but because of His righteousness; not because of our sacrifice, as we said before, but because of His sacrifice. It will be His righteousness, His holiness, that is imputed to us and clothing us. And it’s all grace, amazing grace.
So you look at the rewards of heaven, the blessings of heaven, and you begin with grace and you think of heaven. And the Bible gives us glimpses. We’d like to know far more about heaven. Alcorn’s book on heaven’s a pretty good book on heaven. There’s some speculation in it, but I think it does a great job of just going through the whole of the Bible and trying to glean everything we can glean on the subject of heaven. We know that in the Bible there are a number of images of heaven. And one of the images of heaven is a park. I mean, sometimes it’s described as a garden, but the real meaning of the word is park. So this is a Persian word, “paradisio,” is borrowed by the Greeks and by the Romans and by the Hebrews. And it’s come into English as the word paradise. It literally means park. “Today you shall be with me in the park.” “Today you shall be with me in paradise.”
So, I don’t know what you think of when you think of a park. I think of national parks. I love the beauty of the creation. I love Grand Teton National Park, one of Barb’s and my favorite places. We love Yellowstone National Park. Our favorite is Yosemite National Park, and we’ve gone there many times. We went there on our honeymoon. And Yosemite National Park has some of the most beautiful waterfalls in the world. Yosemite Falls, Bridalveil, Vernal, Nevada.
You might have read where, just a couple of weeks ago, a kid fell over Nevada Falls. He was part of a church group. A Christian boy passed away as he fell over Nevada Falls. And it is sad that in this world, even in beautiful places, painful things happen. And life is so frail on this earth. But when we get to heaven, if there’s a sense in which it is a park, it’ll be more beautiful than anything we’ve ever seen. You’re not going to have to worry about somebody dying there, because we’re going to be given new bodies. And they’re indestructible. The Greek word “aptharsia” in 1 Corinthians 15 means, “indestructible, no longer subject to decay.” So just swim right over the falls when you get there. And the reality is that that’s just part of the images of heaven.
The second image is the glorious urban view of heaven. This is the view of heaven as a city, a heavenly city, the New Jerusalem with streets of gold and gates of pearl. Again, it’s kind of the millennial image of the lion lying down with the lamb.
And then of course the New Heavens and the New Earth is a third vision of heaven, the cosmic view of heaven, where God says, “Behold, I will create a New Heavens and a New Earth, wherein righteousness dwells, and you’ll rejoice and be glad in that which I create.” So we have these views of heaven, but there is mystery to this. Someday heaven will just encompass all the works of God’s hands. And this is all received by grace.
So maybe you’re thinking, as I know I often have, well, what are the different rewards then? I mean, you know, if 1 Corinthians 15 says, “Hey, our new bodies are heavenly, they’re indestructible, they’re powerful, they’re spiritual, they’re glorious,” those are five attributes. Maybe you only get two. Maybe you only get three of those attributes. I don’t think so. I think that’s all grace. I think that resurrection body is all grace. What are the varying rewards? When you look at a passage of scripture like we have for today it speaks of some receiving the rewards and others suffering loss of rewards, though that they themselves will be saved. What is that possibly referring to? And let me just say, we won’t know for sure till we get there. I mean, what God now knows we’re someday going to find out.
You look at the angels and the angelic realm, and in terms of glory and power and function. I mean, there’s cherubim, seraphim, archangels, and angels. There are all kinds of varieties of angels with different functions and roles. And I have a feeling that rewards will have to do with functions and have to do with roles. Whether you’re in the park or the city or in the cosmos, the functions, I think, will vary.
So you look at the parable of the pounds in Luke chapter 19 and you see the master return with kingly power. And he comes back to settle accounts. He had given 10 pounds to 10 servants, given each one pound. And the first came back and said, I made 10 pounds more. Another came back and said, I made five pounds more to the first. To the first he said, you’ll rule over 10 cities, and to the second, you’ll rule over five cities. And I don’t know how literal to take that since it’s parabolic literature, but there’s some indication there of varying function. You see that perhaps in the light of the promises that we have throughout many passages in the New Testament, where we’re told that we will reign and rule with Christ that He has chosen to share His inheritance with us. As the Son of God, He inherits all things and He will share His inheritance with us. We are co inheritors with Christ. Certainly, that’s His mercy. But He has chosen to let us reign and rule with Him.
I know that in the beginning, as recorded in the Book of Genesis, God gave to mankind the crown of His creation. God gave dominion over the earth, dominion over the beast of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. And we have abused that dominion. We’ve abused it, and we’ll have to give an account. But it appears clear in the scriptures that in the life to come, He will extend that dominion to everything He has made and give it to the people of the kingdom that they will reign and rule with Him with regard to all that He has made. So I don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like, but there are just glimpses of that in the scriptures. Certainly, most of what comes in heaven is grace, but there are varying rewards.
Then just finally, what are some of the blessings in this life? What are some of the rewards in this life? Do you think God rewards people in this life? Do you think He blesses us in this life? And I think there are both rewards in this life and expressions of mercy in this life, all of it mixed together. And you know, God is looking for faithfulness. We saw in the parable of the talents last week (and the parable of the pounds is similar) that we’re stewards. God has placed within our personal enclosures different gifts, different things that belong to Him of which we are now stewards of. So, your body, your soul, your children, your home, your bank account, your abilities, your career… everything is in your enclosure. How you use that is being watched by the King.
The big question for the King is, do you have a heart for the kingdom? Are you trying to prosper His kingdom? You’ve come into His kingdom now, you’ve left the kingdom of this world. Are you trying to prosper His kingdom with the money that He’s entrusted? It’s His money. Everything you have is His. It’s his money. Your talents, your abilities, and your time are all His. Are you using it for the kingdom? He’s looking at that, and I think His blessings and His rewards are so often tied to that.
He tells us He wants us to be stewards who give time, talent, and treasure humbly, even secretly. When you look at the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five, it’s very clear that Jesus is saying that we should learn to give humbly and secretly—without fanfare, without sounding a trumpet, without seeking glory. That’s why when you look around this building, where are the buildings named after people? Well, we’re kind of wanting people to give humbly and secretly and let God bless them in His own way. So, we believe in that.
If you ever read Talmudic literature (and unless you’re Jewish, you probably haven’t) you know that in the Gemara there is this incredible story of the miser. This story is told by Jewish families to their kids and to their grandkids. And the miser is this wealthy, rich guy who lives up on top of a hill in a great mansion, and he’s kind of an old grumpy man and people in the community who are poor and impoverished come up to his door and say, “Give me this, please help me,” and he doesn’t help anybody.
But there’s this other guy down in the village, the shoemaker. And the shoemaker is so loving and so humble, and people learn how he loves people, and they come by his shoe shop and he gives them money. And he just seemed to always have money for people in need. And through the years, he continues to give. And finally, the year comes where the miser dies, and the shoemaker ceases to give. And the people suddenly understand. The shoemaker actually explains that it was the miser giving all the time. He was the one, and he was giving the money to the shoemaker so that nobody would know that he was doing it. He didn’t want people to know, but he was giving it to someone else to give it. He wanted it to be secret.
There’s kind of a beauty in that story, and it does remind us a little bit of the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. But God wants us to give sacrificially, and He is looking for this. He’s looking to see if we will give sacrificially. The problem with most of us who give until it hurts is that we’re so sensitive to pain that we haven’t given anything at all. And so, it’s hard to learn to give sacrificially. I majored in psychology in my undergraduate work, and I’ve always had this interest in the field of psychology and in the study of psychology. And I subscribe to a number of psychological publications. I subscribe to Psychology Today and I read a lot of stuff from the APA, the American Psychological Association. And the APA just came out with its DSM-5, which gives 300 categories of maladies, emotional and psychological maladies. It gives “300 different categories of crazy,” as some people have called it. That’s not necessarily a good word, but there is some truth.
I mean, the truth is we’re all kind of messed up and we all have stuff. And some of these categories, if you look at them, are kind of petty, like caffeine addiction and, and caffeine withdrawal. I’m not so sure that I’ve met a lot of people that fall into that category. Maybe a few, but some of these things are kind of minor and some seem more serious. But they all can tend to produce some dysfunction. But the truth is, the more you get to know somebody, the more you really get to know another human being over a period of time, the more likely they’re going to let you see their basement. It’s more likely they’re going to let you see the basement of their heart and of their soul. And when you rummage around in the basement, that’s where the hurts are. That’s where the wounds are. That’s, in the words of John Calvin, where the depravity is. It’s in the basement. And it affects everything that goes on up above.
Our ability to function and all of our dysfunction is often tied to what’s in the basement. We all have junk there. The only person who had a clean basement was Jesus. We all have stuff there. And one of the things we all have in our basement is greed. I promise you, we all have greed in the basement. Even if you think you don’t, even if you think you’re really not hung up on money and you’re so generous, we all have greed there. And that’s why it’s so hard to give. The needs are so huge in the kingdom of God.
You come into the kingdom of God, and you leave the kingdom of the world, but you realize that the devil has all the money. I mean, wow, the amount of money that the devil has… the power of Hollywood, the power of, of Wall Street… I mean, there’s so much corruption and so much evil and so much greed. But the reality is that you come into the kingdom of God and the needs are super huge, but there’s not a lot of generosity. So across the street is seeking to build a theater arts building where we can develop a love for God-given talent in the arts to the glory of God. Instead of evangelicals abandoning the arts, let’s capture the arts for Christ. So there’s this desire to build this wonderful place. There are so many needs here around this church.
Over at Colorado Christian University, we need to build a new campus. And Bill Armstrong, the incredible president at Colorado Christian University, is doing such a great job. Shannon Dreyfuss, who’s assistant to the president and one of our elders, just here at the last service, is doing such a great job. The school has this amazing ministry. It’s just getting stronger and stronger spiritually and academically. But the campus is really bad. I mean, I don’t want to be overly critical, but if you use culinary terminology, the campus is kind of dog meat. And we’d like it to be maybe at least ground round, you know? And so we’re trying to raise some money to build some new buildings, but, oh man, it’s hard to get people to give because of what’s in the basement and all the fears and the insecurities that are in the basement as well.
And of course, God wants us to give cheerfully. 2 Corinthians chapter nine, verse seven says, God loves a cheerful giver. And the Greek word is “hilaros,” from which we get the word hilarious, and it kind of refers to giving with almost reckless joy. And God is kind of looking for some of that in our lives. And if God sees these things, I believe He blesses us and I believe there are rewards. And I will admit to you that some of the blessings of God in this life and some of the rewards of God in this life will not be known in this life. I think it’s only when we get into heaven and we look back by His grace we’ll see, wow, look what I was protected from. Look at the prayers, by His grace, He didn’t answer. I mean, look at what He protected me from, and looking at what He provided me with. I believe God does protect us. Mostly, He protects our souls by virtue of His promise that He will keep our souls safe and bring us home to heaven. But He also protects us so many times physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and of course even financially.
I believe that God blesses the faithful. And I think there’s evidence of that, strong evidence of that, in the life of the church. And you see passages in the Bible, like in the book of Daniel, where with the lion’s den you see the protection of God. You see Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. You see the protection of God. God does protect His people, particularly when His people are faithful.
I’ve always kind of loved the account of the Battle of Magdala. The Battle of Magdala was a battle that took place in the year 1868. I’d heard the story before, read it before, and researched it years ago. This last week, I thought, I’m going to re-research this story in a deeper way. And I was amazed to find what I’d never known before, that the whole battle of Magdala was based on things involving Christianity. In 1868, the British government had sent to Magdala and to Abyssinia (in 1868, Abyssinia was the name of Ethiopia) five Christian missionaries to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. They arrived in Magdala, which was then the capital of Abyssinia (of course, today Addis Ababa is the capital of Ethiopia, but then it was Magdala). And these five missionaries were incarcerated by the king of Abyssinia, who lived in a palace in Magdala. This was a fortress city. So the king lived in this palace in Magdala. His name was Tewodros II, or Theodore II. And he took these five British Christian missionaries and threw them in prison.
When Queen Victoria heard about it, Queen Victoria sent an emissary, a captain named Cameron, with a small group of officers to go to Abyssinia and Magdala and say, “Release these five missionaries. Let them go and let them return to Britain.” And Theodore II said, no. In fact, he then took Cameron and threw Cameron in prison. And so now Queen Victoria responds with a significant portion of the power of the empire. She sends forth 13,000 soldiers by sea, with a thousand additional soldiers who were part of the royal artillery. And after this long journey, they came to the coast of the Red Sea and began the trek over land to the fortress city of Magdala, 390 miles over rough terrain.
It took two months for the British Army. As they approached the fortress city of Magdala, the king looked out with his 9,000 soldiers, and he was stunned. He was stunned that Britain had sent this power, and he knew that they had the greater weapons of war. The battle lasted one and a half hours. Abyssinia surrendered, and King Theodore II committed suicide. The British took Cameron and carried him to the sea. They took the five missionaries and brought them home. And because the cost was incredible, Queen Victoria said she wanted the world to know that this is a kingdom that has the will and the means to protect its own.
And I’m thinking, well, what about the kingdom of God? What about the kingdom of Jesus Christ? Does God have the will and the means to protect His own? Does Christ have the will and the means to protect His own? I tell you, He does. And I know that there comes a time when He brings us home. And the rewards are great, but in this world, even in this world, He uses everything for good. And there’s no meaningless pain, not if we are loving Him and serving Him. Somehow, He is always at work.
And of course, He provides, and that provision is constantly seen. And I could just tell you, as we come to the table here, that sometimes the provision of God for His people comes in ways and in forms that we’re not looking for. Did you read recently in the newspaper or see on the news about the woman who boarded that American Airline flight in New York City bound for LA? She boards the airline in New York City bound for LA and she’s singing Whitney Houston’s song, I Will Always Love You. And the people are thinking, well, she’s singing away, and that’s kind of cute. And she gets on the plane and she’s singing, I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston. And the people are thinking, well, she’s missing a lot of notes and she’s singing kind of loud. She doesn’t have that that good of a voice. But she still kept singing on the plane, and people on the plane began to kind of be irritated as they began to fly west from New York to LA. And the flight crew became kind of irritated, and then people began to complain to the flight crew. And the flight crew went to the woman and said, ma’am, would you please stop singing. You’ve sung enough. Let’s bring this to an end. But she kept singing I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston.
Finally, they told the pilot. Everybody was in an uproar. The pilot made an emergency landing in Kansas City, midway between New York and LA. They landed in Kansas City and they put her in handcuffs. And as they took her off to arrest her, she was still singing, I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston.
I don’t know what was going on in her basement. I don’t know what was going on there, but I do know that all of us at the deepest level of our soul want someone to always love us. We all want that. Maybe that’s what was going on with her. Maybe at just the deepest level of her esteem and her ego she was just longing to be loved. I know that that’s true of all of us.
But the fact, is there anybody that you really believe will always love you? If you have somebody like that in your life, do you realize what a gift from God that is? What an amazing expression of God’s grace and mercy in your life, that you have somebody who will always love you. I believe that some of God’s blessings in our life are relational. God just gives so many blessings in our life that are relational. The friends that we have are treasures. Our families are treasures. There are so many relational gifts from God. And we’ll only know when we get in heaven the mercy of it all. And sometimes it’s physical and it relates to health (His blessings do). Sometimes it is financial, sometimes it’s spiritual, and sometimes it’s related to ministry and to the blessings that are placed upon service. But God not only protects, He provides.
And as we come to the table, we have acknowledged that we have a great Lord. We have entered His kingdom as we’ve embraced His Son Jesus Christ, and we have received Him as Savior and as Lord. And we know that we are bound for heaven by His shed blood and His body broken. We know that heaven is wonderful. We know that He has promised rewards that vary according to faithfulness. And we pledge ourselves as we come to the table this morning to be more faithful to our Master and Lord, to whom one day we will give an account. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.