Looking Past the Pain to the Prize

Sermon Transcript

If you happen to be anywhere near Cooperstown, New York this weekend, it would be impossible for you to miss all the fanfare that surrounds the two newest inductees into baseball’s hall of fame.  One of our semi-local players, Tony Gwynn gets in with his eight batting titles and then of course, Cal Ripken Jr., with 2,632 consecutive major league baseball games.  That’s consecutive, without a miss.  I mean these two guys, with the way they play the game, have certainly earned it.  I remember hearing for years, the annual inductees to the hall of fame, but this year, when I heard about those guys, I started to ponder the kind of sacrifice that it takes to get there.  Mostly because I am a little league Dad now and I recognize that this didn’t start in the major leagues for these guys, it started when they were little.  And to be able to do this, I mean there wasn’t just major league games you had to work through, but the sacrifice, the bruises from getting hit with baseballs, the Mom having to transport you back and forth to the baseball field, I mean there’s a lot of sweat that went into this, a lot of tears, a lot of blood that actually fueled this type of accomplishment.  And yet, I sat back, I said, you know what?  It’s just appropriate that guys with that kind of accomplishment are honored, its only right, actually, it’s a Biblical principle.  And then I started to think about God’s hall of fame.  He’s got his own Cooperstown, I hope you realize.  It’s called the New Jerusalem, and he is very into honoring the accomplishments of his major league players.  We’ve been looking at Hebrews 11 at a long list, but I want to show you that it won’t stop just in the pages of scripture.  Look with me at Revelation chapter 21, as John is describing the place where you and I will live for eternity, if that is, you are a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ.  And if you are, you’re going to live here, and you’re going to walk by this place a lot, and you are going to see, as its described here, that God is into honoring those who are accomplished in the Christian life.  Revelation Chapter 21, verse number 10, you’ll see that he’s looking from a great and high mountain and he’s scanning and surveying the holy city, the New Jerusalem as it was called at the beginning of this chapter, which had come down out of Heaven from God, its our dwelling place, its where we will reside.  And if you look down to verse number 14, after describing how many gates there are to the city walls and all that, it says, the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the 12 apostles of the lamb.  That’s just impressive to me that God has actually in the home that we will live, inscribed, at least at this particular place, the names of the 12 followers of Christ.  If you look back up, the gates are also named after the tribes of Israel up there in verse number 12.  I mean he’s putting people’s names everywhere, and these are names that have been revered in scripture as being people who were sold out for Christ.  And its amazing to me that God is not a God who sometimes acts like us Christians who think that, you know what, there’s no distinguishing us and we’re all the same.  No we’re not.  There are people in God’s book that are important, who have distinguished themselves, who have sacrificed more than others, and he says, they need to be honored, they need to be recognized.  While we can’t have our names on the 12 foundations, and we may never make it into the 11^th chapter of Hebrews, God is looking for us to step out of the crowd and be distinguished.  And it would sure be important for us, I would think, in our day to say, God, we don’t want to live mediocre lives.  And thirteen weeks ago, that’s where we started.  We said, you know what?  Hebrews 11 is all about that.  Its all about stepping out and saying, I’d like to be considered, in Gods book, as one who’s not just going with the flow and going along for the ride, and just one of the crowd.  We need to have ambitious faith, not mediocre faith.  God’s not into lukewarm, he’s certainly not into cold, he wants us to be hot and on fire for him.  So in Hebrews chapter 11, we’ve taken a lot of time, as you turn back there now to the last section of this great chapter, and it is amazing, I know that we’ve finally arrived at the end of it.  But here we’ve had name after name and story after story, and God trying to motivate us, and prompt us to consider how we might step out with ambitious faith for him in this world.  And then it ends on a note that, at least for me, is a bit unexpected.  I mean I would think we would end with some rousing, positive statement.  And we kind of started like that in this last paragraph, in verse 32, when he talks about these great names from the Old Testament, and he says, in verse 33, how they did all these wonderful things.  They conquered kingdoms, and they administered justice, and gained what was promised.  All of that is fantastic, but it turns in the middle of verse 35.  After talking about some amazing things that God has done for his people that have stepped out in faith, he then says, in verse 35; but then others, you know, they were tortured.  And sometimes they refused to be released so they might gain a better resurrection, that’s an odd statement, more on that in a minute.  But not just tortured, they faced jeers and flogging, people weren’t real keen on their stepping out and being distinguished for God.  Still others were chained and put in prison, that doesn’t sound like a great person, somebody, not just one, but many were stoned, people picked up rocks and they threw them at these great people.  They were sawn in two, they were put to death by the sword, they weren’t wearing nice clothes, they weren’t decked out in crowns and majestic regalia, they went about in sheepskins and goatskins.  And they were destitute and they were persecuted and they were mistreated, and then he breaks in the middle of that list and he says, those are the great people, you realize?  The world wasn’t worthy of these kinds of folks; these people were great men and women.  Bottom of verse 38; they didn’t live in nice houses either, they didn’t have mansions on the hill, God’s hall of famers they lived in deserts, and in mountains, and in caves, and in holes in the ground.  All of these were commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.  And if we just look up to verse 33 again, just so there’s no confusion there, last week we pointed this out, but that is the promises fulfilled, but this, if you could see it in the Greek New Testament, and some of you have them out there, look at it, you’ll see a definite article there.  This is the promise.  They didn’t get what was the ultimate promise of the Old Testament, they received a lot of promises, they took a few hills, as we’ve said, they won a few battles, but the war, for them, prophetically was not won.  As a matter of fact, we though, as new covenant believers, verse number 40; God had something planned that was better for us.  And you want to talk about the opportunities for greatness, we’ve got it now, more than they had it then.  So that only together with us, new covenant believers, would they, these old covenant believers, be made perfect.  It’s a big statement, its an opportunity, its an open door.  But the flavor of the last paragraph, its negative.  And it’s a reminder for us, and we’ve touched on it a few times in Hebrews 11, but don’t make any mistake about it, when it comes to those in God’s hall of fame, which I suppose is not different than most earthly hall of fames, you don’t get there without some blood sweat and tears, its not going to happen without a great deal, unfortunately, of pain in the Christian life.  If you’re taking notes, and I hope you are, you found your worksheet this morning, jot that down.  We need to be reminded, and we need to know that great people, biblically speaking, great people, they always, in God’s economy, they suffer greatly.  It wont be that way in eternity, we’ll have our tears wiped away.  But for now, the greatest of people in scripture, are those that we can count on for sure, are those that have suffered the most.  Its odd how that happens.  I mean you often associate pain with God’s displeasure, but what you find is scripture is that greatness is always associated, in some way on this earth, with earthly pain.  As a matter of fact, Jesus, the greatest of all, was known by the prophets as the man of sorrows, and he acquainted with grief.  I mean he wasn’t the one who was always throwing parties in his nice mansion, he was the one who was despised by men, stricken, we considered him oppressed and opposed by God, yet of course, he wasn’t.  the connection is very clear, and Jesus wants us to understand it.  Especially in our hearts, we start to aspire to greatness.  When we think, okay, I get it God, you want me to step out and do something that’s more than the next person, you want me to not kind of just fit in, you want me to ambitiously step out in faith, well then you need to understand there’s a price tag that goes with that.  The apostles stood around thinking about greatness, they did that often.  Often times it was mislead, sometimes God just took that godly ambition to be great, and he said, you know what?  If it relates to me, that’s fine, but what you need to understand is that there is a price tag attached.  Remember, for instance, there’s a situation that took place in the gospel of Matthew.  Turn to chapter 20; when actually prompted by the Mother of James and John, they were approaching Christ and she was their spokesman and said, I’ve got a request, I know that you picked them as part of the twelve, but you know, I’d like them to be distinguished among the twelve.  I would hope that my sons, it says in Matthew 20, could be honored, and its just a favor I’m asking of you and she asks it clearly in verse 21.  Grant that two of my sons would sit one at your right hand, and the other at your left hand in your Kingdom.  I want them to be great in the Kingdom of Heaven.  Now that just, you know a lot of times they’re trying to pursue the wrong things, but here, we’ve been learning in Hebrews 11, to pursue the Kingdom of God, that’s a godly ambition.  We want to do something that’s distinguished.  Unfortunately, just asking for greatness, Jesus has to make a clarification in verse 22, and he says; if you’re just thinking about this as a wonderful experience, it will just be lined with rose petals, it will be great, there should be trumpets playing for you and all that, you just need to understand the path doesn’t work that way.  Verse 22, you don’t know what you’re asking for.  Because to be great in the Kingdom is great, and God’s all into that, but you need to understand that there is a cup, a bitter cup to drink when you ask for such things.  As Jesus says, can you drink the cup that I’m going to drink?  I mean here’s Jesus, the greatest of all, and his cup was the most bitter, his life was suffering more than anyone else.  And they said, well we can.  And Jesus said, well, you will indeed drink from my cup.  And they will, by the way, have their names on the foundations of the city that you and I will live in.  But, he said, you know, you want to be the top of the twelve, sit at my right hand or my left, that’s not for me to grant, these places belong to those for whom they’ve been prepared by my father.  But you need to understand, to get there, no matter who gets there, no matter who is distinguished, there’s a cup of bitterness attached.  Now, when you think about this, just know there are two sides to this.  If you think about the connection between greatness and the Kingdom and great suffering, just know that part of it is cause and part of it is effect.  I mean suffering is sometimes the cause of greatness, and sometimes it’s the effect of greatness.  Let me show you both, okay?  The cause.  Sometimes God uses the pain to make us great.  Go to John chapter 15, and let me show you that this is just a basic pattern of how God works.  He wants to make sure that you understand that when you suffer in this life, oftentimes it is the training, it is the preparation.  Just like as I watch the coaches on my kids’ baseball teams, and sometimes I don’t think its fair, that sometimes he picks out the kids that seem to be working the hardest and he works them even harder.  Have you noticed that?  Some of you are little league coaches, and you are the people doing this.  And you recognize that some kids that are just there to have a good time, and they don’t really care, and they don’t have a lot of talent, or ambition, or skill and they’re just kind of filling a place on the roster.  Well, coaches, whatever, we’ll hit you a few fly balls, no big deal.  But there are always a few kids on the team that these coaches seem to hone in on, and they’re kids with potential.  At least that’s how the coaches put it, this kid has potential.  But its interesting how the kids with potential, who seem to be distinguished among the others, they get worked the hardest.  What’s with all of that?  It’s the same way in God’s economy.  If he’s going to prepare you for something great, you’ve got to know that the pathway is partly the cause for the greatness, the difficulty the sweat, the training, the pain that you experience.  And sometimes we just need to make the connection in our mind; God is preparing us for fruitfulness, greater fruitfulness.  Take a look at John 15:1, you remember the analogy, he says; I am the vine.  And he’s going to talk throughout this passage about, stick with me, abide with me, hang in there with me, be close with me.  But he says, here’s the deal, there’s another factor here, its not just between you and me, he says, my father, he’s like the gardener.  And you attach to me, that’s great, and you hang on to me, that’s great, but if you attach yourself to me artificially and you don’t bear any fruit, because any real branch is going to bear fruit.  But if you’re just hanging on as a fruitless branch, well, you know, he cuts those off and throws them away.  Now, every branch though, that he sees bearing fruit, there’s productivity, there’s good things happening in your life.  Now look at this next phrase, which doesn’t sound like a pleasant experience, he prunes them, so that they’ll be even more fruitful.  I wish he didn’t, right?  Can’t we just bear more fruit without the pruning part?  And yet, God says, no, if I see you being fruitful, I’m going to prune you, and you’ll bear more fruit.  If I see that the kid can hit, I’m going to put him in the cages and we’re going to work him harder because if he’s got the ability to hit and if there’s some talent there, we’re going to develop that.  We’re going to make sure he can hit even better.  And God may be looking at your life, and you’ve stepped up and you’ve said, I don’t just want to be a mediocre person, I would like to be an ambitious Christian who’s ready to do something in my life, or in my environment, or in the world for Christ.  And then all of the sudden, you’re going through pain, and you don’t know what’s going on here.  What’s going on here is exactly what God needs to do with you to prepare you for that greatness.  It is part of his process of getting you ready.  As a matter of fact, here’s a passage to jot down, you can read it on your own later.  Malachi chapter 3, not a passage we go to very often.  But in Malachi 3, verses 2 and 3, there’s two pictures of God sitting with his people and preparing them for something great.  One picture is him as a refiner, and he takes this precious metal and he’s going to put it in the furnace and refine it, and get all the dross out of it so it will be even more productive or even more precious or even more valuable in his sight.  And that doesn’t sound good, being put through the furnace.  And the second picture is that of someone who’s a launderer and he’s taking soap and he’s scrubbing the fabric so that it can be even more useful in terms of its cleanliness, and that doesn’t sound good either.  I don’t want God scrubbing hard on my life, and yet, that’s the picture of God.  If he’s got people that he loves, he’s going to get them ready, and he’s going to prepare them.  The process, though, whether its pruning, or whether it’s a furnace, or whether its God scrubbing some section of your life, it all sounds unpleasant.  But the Bible says, as it will in Hebrews chapter 12, and we’ll get to that soon, we’re going to talk about the series there soon, and how God’s preparing us for doing the great things in this world.  And one way is through the discipline and the pain in our lives.  And the Bible says, it never feels pleasant, but later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.  And Tony Gwynn or Cal Ripken, Jr., there’s no way they’re going to be in the hall of fame if there’s not that process going on in their lives physically, and with their skills.  And God’s not going to get you anywhere to be distinguished in the Kingdom, without developing your gifts, and working on your heart, and training your spirit.  So greatness, and great pain, they seem to go together in God’s economy.  And as I said, part of it is cause, I mean, the suffering is the cause for the greatness.  And the other side of that, if you look through the list in Hebrews 11 again, jeering and flogging, and stoned and sawed in two, you might say, well, that doesn’t sound like training.  Well, some of it, I’m sure was for the great people in Hebrews 11.  But a lot of it is effect, right?  I mean the suffering is the effect that we have because of this godliness or greatness in our lives.  And the more distinguished you are in the Kingdom of God, and as you try to live for God here, with ambitious faith, the more you will receive the opposition.  Let me show you a clear picture of this in 2 Timothy chapter 3.  You need to understand that a lot of the pain that you experience is the process of getting you ready for doing something great.  But here’s the deal, you do something great in this world, you distinguish yourself in any way, I’m talking in any way in God’s economy, and there will be those, as we’ve looked out throughout Hebrews 11 from time to time; there will be those that bring pain and grief to your life.  You want to go with the flow and be liked by people as Jesus said, whoa to you, when all men speak well of you?  I mean you’re never going to be distinguished or godly without having some opposition.  And it’s going to be raised by the greatness that God has produced in your life.  2 Timothy chapter 3, lets start in verse 10.  Because here’s a list of positives, and we all want these things.  As Paul writes to Timothy, his young pastoral protégée in Ephesus, he says, you know about my teaching, you know my way of life, I’ve taught well, I’ve lived well, you know my purpose, I’ve been sold out to God.  You know my faith, I’ve trusted in Jesus, you know my patience, you’ve watched that, you’ve watched my love, you’ve watched my endurance.  And we get a verse change right there, because after that comma, everything changes.  I’m thinking, all of that’s good, I want that, I just don’t want verse 11, that’s why the convenient verse change here, so I can memorize verse 10 and forget about verse 11.  But the problem is, verse 11 comes quickly on the heels of verse number 10.  Because not only if you develop all of that will you have those things, but you’re going to have what comes after that, and that is, Paul says, you also know about my persecutions.  And you know about my sufferings, and you know what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch and Iconium, and Lystra, and if you don’t, you need to read the book of Acts.  Things weren’t going real well there, they were picking up rocks to throw at him for all this wonderful purpose and faith and patience and love.  He says, you know all the persecutions that I endured.  Yet the Lord, he was gracious to me, he rescued me from all of them, and I’m still here, I’m still alive; I’m still doing something for God on this earth.  In fact, you just need to know, that’s not unique to me because I had a preaching style that they didn’t like, or I was too direct, or whatever, they didn’t like my accent.  Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.  And if you don’t have that verse outlined or underlined, or bracketed or highlighted, that would be a great thing to do.  Because when you open this page of scripture, I want in your Bibles to remember that this is a reality.  If you live a godly life, if you distinguish yourself in being what God wants you to be, there will be the price tag.  It not only is part of your training, it is also a part of the effect that the happens, the part of the thing that comes into your life because of that greatness.  While, verse13, you think its going to get better?  Well, you know what?  That was back then, and everybody, they were all idolaters, and it was terrible back then.  Verse 13; while evil men, don’t miss this verse, and impostors go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.  Do you think its better today for us?  Well, they’re not throwing physical rocks at us, but you might lose your job over this.  You know what?  You may lose friends over this; you may have people in your family oppose you over this.  You want to stand up and have an ambitious Christian life, great people?  Yeah well, there’ll be great suffering that goes along with that.  It’s going to happen.  Now some of us just don’t have the courage for this.  Keep your eye on the goal, and the goal is to glorify God.  And if you want to glorify God, then there will be an innate, godly desire to be distinguished in the Christian life.  Nothing wrong with desiring that.  You want to be in God’s hall of fame?  Fantastic!  At least I’d like an honorable mention.  But you know what?  The bottom line is, if I’m going to be a part of that group, there’s going to be pain involved.  You know the great people, they suffer greatly.  But you know what?  We need to be ready for that, and we need to say its part of the price.  And you know what?  Just like everybody in any field is recognized as distinguished and great, it comes with a price.  Are we ready to pay that price?  I am.  Are you ready to pay that price?  And you know, some of you, distinguished in the Christian life, already you’ve experience that.  Please share that with other people, don’t paint this rosey picture of the Christian life that’s not accurate and true.  Let them know that to stand up, and stand alone in this world for Christ sometimes comes with a price tag.   And we win people to Christ and we share about the Christian faith, and we try and disciple people and bring them up in the Lord.  Please let them know that this is a part of it, because we paint a picture that’s not realistic, unfortunately, these people are quickly disillusioned when, because of their faith, all this opposition rises up.  Lets be honest with those that we’re trying to train up in our families, your kids cant stand alone and endure the ridicule of doing the right thing, they will never be great in the Kingdom of God.  You want greatness for them, right?  Great people suffer greatly.  That would be good for us to hear more often, in Sunday school, around the kitchen table.  It would be good for us to remember as we aspire to ambitious faith.  Now there’s two phrases in this seemingly negative list of things.  One in verse number 35, and one there in verse number 38, that kind of put the silver lining around this dark cloud, which really is inverted in terms of how it should read.  The whole point of the chapter is about greatness, the whole point of Hebrews 11 is these guys are going to have a good eternity, these guys are going to have a great resurrection, whatever that means, we’ll try to figure that out in a minute.  But the point is, that these two phrases help us to recognize that the goal of all this is to be encouraged and heartened in the midst of people throwing rocks at us, and wanting to saw us in two.  Well how do you handle all that?  Well, you need to be heartened.  Number 2, jot this down, be heartened by your future compensation.  Do you think there’s any perks that come along with being great in God’s Kingdom?  There are.  Be heartened by that, because God, in eternity is going to praise and glorify and exalt his servants.  And those that have been willing to go through the jeers and the hard times in the Christian life, those that are considered last on earth, will be first in Heaven.  And you know what?  If I’m going to go through all the being last on earth, and despised and opposed, I’ve got to keep that in mind.  God is going to honor those people.  As a matter of fact, there are some people, verse number 35, that when they were tortured and captured, they didn’t want to be released.  Because they saw that in that suffering and in that sacrifice, that that was earning for them, as Paul put it in the New Testament, an eternal weight of glory.  That there was something that was going to be added to their eternity that was going to make it all worth it.  That they were, look at verse 35, going to gain a better resurrection.  Now, that’s a hard verse for people.  Especially those that have fallen to the myth of what I call a celestial communism, you’ve heard me talk about that?  There is no celestial communism.  You need to recognize, there will be some that will have a better resurrection than others.  Now don’t get me wrong on this, there are two things that are going to be pretty much the stable foundational norm for everybody.  Number one, if you live in the New Jerusalem, it’s going to be a good place to live, right?  No crying, no pain, no death, no mourning, he’s going to wipe away our tears.  Now, you’re going to live in a great place.  I don’t care if you just were one of the crowd, or you were distinguished in God’s family, you’re going to live in a great place.  And you’re also going to, according to 1 Corinthians 15, you’re going to get a fantastic physical body, wont that sound good?  I preached that to the high-schoolers this week and they were like, yah, whatever.  But for us, right?  I’m thinking that’s exciting.  I want that resurrected body.  So I’m excited about that, I’m thinking, now wait a minute, if you get the same kind of resurrected body that I get, that’s impervious to death, its glorified, its beautiful, its strong, its energetic, its all those things we’ve studied in 1 Corinthians 15.  I’m thinking, what more could there be?  I get the same kind of resurrected body you get, you get to live in the same place that I get, how can you have a better resurrection?  How can that be?  Those aren’t variables.  Live in a great place, with a great body.  That sounds good, but there are some variables in scripture, and its important for us to recognize those.  And to know that to the extent to which you were distinguished in the Christian faith, you will have a changing kind of reality in the resurrection, it will be different.  And I think it would be good for us to point those out.  What is some of the compensation?  What is the addition to the resurrection you can have?  I’m so glad you asked.  Let me show you a few from a couple of passages of scripture.  Turn with me to Luke chapter 16.  There will be variables that will make your resurrection better.  And if I could just get us, and I know I’ve tried throughout Hebrews chapter 11, to underscore the importance of this, that would be great.  I want you to care about eternity.  And some of you already are clicking this off in your mind saying, this is crass, this is selfish, this is some kind of spiritual materialism.  You know what?  Read your Bibles, okay?  Because here’s what you’ll find.  Jesus commands up to store up for ourselves treasure in Heaven.  Now I know some of you are too spiritual for that, fine.  For those of us that want to take the Lord seriously, let us store up for ourselves treasure in Heaven.  And I often say, what kind of hypocrites are we when we tell our kids to work hard in school so they can have better paychecks here on earth, how come you don’t teach that same principle to your kids about eternity?  Don’t I want to invest here and now in spiritual things, so that I can earn some kind of better compensation in the eternal state?  I would like that, that doesn’t sound un-godly to me.  Not only does it not sound un-godly, it’s the most godly thing you can do, its obedience to Jesus Christ.  Store up for yourself treasure in Heaven.  What are those treasures?  Five things, so if you’re taking notes, this can be A, B, C, D, and E.  Ready?  Luke chapter 16, verse 10, now again, the context here is what we’re going to get if we compare faithfulness now and God’s reward later.  And he says this; whoever can be trusted with very little can be also trusted with much.  But whoever’s dishonest with little, will be dishonest with much.  If you’ve not been trustworthy in handling, now here we are, on earth, worldly wealth, who will entrust you with, now if I’m comparing worldly wealth, that’s the only kind of wealth I know.  But he says, no, there’s another kind of wealth and its called, I love this, what does he call it?  True riches.  Hmmm.  That sounds good, I mean what is that?  Its not worldly, but it’s a kind of wealth.  It’s a kind of riches.  And I think because the context here is going to shift, I think its clear that we need to stop and at least jot that down.  Lets put that down, Letter A, there is something called riches in the eternal state.  Now riches here change my reality.  Because we can say, oh, I’ve got good health, and I live in the same country you do, so we all have the same experience here, right?  No.  Check our parking lot out, right?  Everybody has kind of a different experience here.  Go to their homes and look at how big their flat screen TV’s are.  Everyone has a different experience here.  We can all be healthy and live in the same country, and have great fellowship, but you know what?  You’re going home to a bigger television than I am.  Some of you maybe, I have a little bigger television than you.  I don’t know, mine’s not very big.  Some of you drive nice cars home; I know that, because I’ve seen our parking lot, some of you are doing that.  Some of you are driving home in cars that aren’t as great.  Does that change your experience?  Oh, it does, it changes your experience.  Now we can all love the Lord, we can all have great fellowship, we can all be in good physical health, and we can all live in a great country, and all that’s great.  And we’ll live in a perfect body in a perfect place, and we’ll all have the Lord.  That will be great.  Is that just all that we care about?  Well, it’s the most important part.  But it would sure be nice to have a bigger account so I can buy a bigger television from the spiritual Costco.  That would be nice, that would be good.  Oh, I won’t care about that then.  Really?  Look me up 1,000 years from now, and lets talk about it.  I think you’ll say, I wish I would have invested in storing up more treasure for myself for this existence.  And I think you’ll say, wow, how do you do that?  Well, you step out and be faithful with what God’s given you, you go after the kinds of things that we’ve been talking about in Hebrews chapter 11 that will require ambitious faith.  Do more for God, step out, take a risk for the Kingdom.  And God says, you know what?  You’ll store it for yourselves, treasure in heaven.  He calls it riches, true riches, I love the phrase.  How can you get a better resurrection?  Well, more true riches would be good.  Verse 12; and if you’ve been trustworthy with someone else’s property, which, by the way is always how it works down here.  So for all you guys in title insurance just know, its kind of a joke, right?  Because here’s the thing, nobody has any property, nobody keeps anything, its all going in the eternal trash bin, it will all burn, right?  Nobody owns anything, its all what the Bible calls, a stewardship now.  You’re just kind of using the world’s property.  Because its got a future date with destruction and all the properties going away.  And though we battle over it, and we have all these lawsuits over it, the property, you’re not going to live there very long.  We looked at that last week, right?  You’re going to give it up to someone else, and after that, they’ll give it up to someone else.  And then God will take it, and one day, light it on fire, and he’ll say, done with that one.  And then you’ll bring down the new earth, and that’s called the eternal state, and guess what?  That property is not going away.  And he’s going to parcel that up, and he’s going to give it to people.  And he says, listen, here’s the deal, if you have been trustworthy with someone else’s property, if you’ve been godly, if you’ve been ambitious about doing things for God with that property, then here’s the deal… if you haven’t been trustworthy, then who’s going to give you property of your own?  Is the New Jerusalem a real place?  Absolutely.  Is it tangible, tactile, can you feel it corporal, is it real?  Yes, it’s real.  And here’s the deal, you’re going to inhabit some of that.  You think you’re going to rent it?  No, God’s going to give you a piece of it. And I’m just thinking 100 acres is better than 1, that’s what I’m thinking.  Oh, here he goes, the spiritual materialism, doesn’t sound very godly to me.  It’s godly.  Store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven.  The problem God has is when we’re so focused on earth, when its all going to burn up one day.  God says, care about eternity.  How do I do that?  I have ambitious faith, and I step out and do something great for God.  I distinguish myself now, because his heroes, he richly rewards them with riches and, Letter B, property.  Now that’s real.  That’s real.  Then again, I don’t know isn’t it see through, clouds and chubby angels and golden harps and you know, endless church services, we’re not even going to need a home are we?  Ahhhh, yes, you will, you’ll have a place to live, you will wear clothing, and we will be transporting ourselves, that’s what the streets are all about, right?  I mean this is a real thing called eternity, the New Jerusalem; you’re going to live there.  And you’re going to want a place to live.  I don’t care about that.  Well you seem to care down here, don’t you?  You care down here, I know how you guys care, we’re all caring about our houses here.  Well, you know what?  God says, don’t even worry about that, that’s small beans, what really matters is your real estate there.  Can you have a better resurrection?  Yeah, 100 acres is better than 1, so true riches, it would be great to have a great account there, and property.  I would like to have some property of my own that doesn’t ever get taken away.  Which, by the way, in the old covenant, do you see the picture, the forecasting picture of that?  Do you know in the old covenant, under Israel’s theocracy, you owned property and kept it?  As a matter of fact, at the year of jubilee, do you remember that?  One thing that was supposed to happen is, if you did rent some of that out, you got it all back.  And you were supposed to keep that property.  There’s a picture of the divine, a picture of the eternal Kingdom, when we will have property of our own, property that won’t go away.  We’re not talking about earth, verse 13 should make that clear.  I’m not talking about this earth, not talking about money down here, cant serve God and money, lets serve God, and then God will entrust us with property of our own.  Okay, what do we have?  A and B?  We’ve got riches and property.  Lets go to Matthew chapter 19 and pick up a couple more.  We were in this passage with the high-schoolers, and we were dealing with this passage that Jesus promised at the renewal of all things.  Verse number 28; Jesus said, I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, that’s what we’re talking about here, the eternal state, when I get my resurrected body, you who have followed me, now he’s speaking specifically to the 12 apostles.  He says, you will sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.  And this isn’t Judge Judy or the Peoples court or anything like that, right?  We’re not talking about gavels and well lets see, did you back into his car, I don’t know.  Judging in the Old Testament concept was you were a leader, you were a prince, you rule things.  You want a cross reference here?  Jot down Luke chapter 19 verse number 17, for instance, and it goes on after that.  Next few verses it talks about the picture of the Kingdom doling out responsibility over cities, remember that?  Here, take charge of 10 cities, take charge of 5 cities, and if some of you are seasoned enough in this life to recognize that riches, property, and, Letter C, power or responsibility, if you cant bring yourself to write down power, because that sounds way to ungodly in church, write down at least responsibility.  But if you’re with me on storing up treasure in Heaven, write down power.  Because you will have a level of power in the Kingdom.  And if you’re seasoned enough in this life to say, well I know riches, property and power, they bring nothing but headaches, then jot down this in the margin, Psalm 16 verse 11.  Psalm 16 verse 11 says; at his right hand, there are pleasures forever.  Eternal pleasures.  And I know if he’s doling out eternal riches and real property of my own, and power or authority, those are things that don’t come with the earthly headaches that usually come with them down here.  Because after a while, you recognize that all of that comes with a lot of headaches.  I don’t want to be in charge of 10 cities.  I’ve served on a city council or whatever; I don’t want to do that, what a headache.  It’s not a headache in the Kingdom, its eternal pleasures.  And you’re going to want more responsibility, not less.  And it will be doled out based upon your faithfulness and your ambitious faith now.  And you’re not going to go, oh I didn’t want to rule 10 cities anyway.  You’re going to go, you know what?  It would have been great to be distinguished in God’s family.  Because that is a place of responsibility for God’s glory that I would like to have.  Its open to you right now.  Right now, its not about, think about this, in this life, its kind of dealt out where everybody’s got different head starts and look at… he’s got the brains, or his Dad bequeathed him this great company or whatever.  It doesn’t work that way spiritually, you recognize that, right?  All of us have a level playing field.  You can be the smallest on earth, and if you are faithful with ambitious faith to step out and stand up for God, you’ve got the same opportunity to have riches, property and power in the Kingdom of God.  Same thing if some guy seems to be born with a silver spoon in his mouth, same opportunities.  That’s a great open door for us.  I would like to be heartened by a better resurrection.  And these guys were saying, bring on the pain, that’s fine, I’m willing to suffer for this because I’m looking to the hall of fame, and there’s a lot of perks that come with that.  What do we have so far?  Riches, property, and power.  We’re still in Matthew 19, lets keep reading, and then he turns to us, basically, not the 12, its going to be true for us too as well and its in other places, too, Luke 19, Matthew 25 verse 21, if we’re still on Letter C, just to kind of bolster that, take charge of many things in the Kingdom.  Lets look at verse number 29 though to go to Letter D.  Everyone who has left houses, we’ve already dealt with property.  Brothers, sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or fields for my sake.  Now, its sandwiched between houses and fields.  In between are all these relationships, it says, if you’ve done that for my sake, and that takes ambitious faith, to leave all that for God’s sake, then you’ll receive as 100 times as much, and inherit eternal life.  Now here’s the deal.  We’ve already dealt with property, if you’re willing to sacrifice for the sake of ambitious faith and the pain that it costs you, maybe a home, some property, or whatever, you’re going to get 100 times as much there in the Kingdom.  But also sandwiched in the middle, are all these words of close relationships.  Look at them, brother, sister, father, mother, children.  If, because of your ambitious faith for Christ, those relationships are strained and you know you are doing the right thing, you’re stepping out for God, and there are people going, you’re really disappointing me or whatever, there’s problems there, and there’s strain and there’s hurt.  The Bible says, you’ll get 100 times as much.  Lets put that down as Letter D, relationships.  Because you could have a lot of riches, a lot of property, and you can have a lot of power, but if you’ve got no one to invite over on Friday night for your barbeques in the Kingdom, that’s not real good.  It would be great to have a lot of relationships and a lot of friends there.  Do you recognize that the opportunity for what you have in that place is based on how you live here?  That sound too materialistic for you?  I keep quoting Matthew 6, right?  Store up for yourselves treasure in Heaven.  It’s all about how you live now.  Don’t worry about earth, that’s not the issue.  God is not concerned with our ambition; he’s concerned about the target of our ambition.  And riches, property, power and relationships are great to go after as long as you recognize the important place to invest in, and that’s in the Kingdom.  One more, and we’ve already looked at this passage, Matthew 20.  Remember what they were asking for there?  Can please my sons sit one at your right hand and one at your left?  Now what’s the point of that?  What’s that all about?  Well, because, in an ancient monarchy, whoever sat at the right and left, those were the prestigious places.  That was about reputation.  That was about people, when they walked into the room, they took their hat off and they said, whoa, here he comes.  That’s about something that really fits in between all of these.  Because I know people, at least from the earthly prospective, with riches, property, power and relationships, but they’ve got a terrible reputation.  I know people that win, but in my mind they’re losers.  Here’s the deal.  In the Kingdom, there is an opportunity for you to have a better reputation.  And so lets put that one down, Number 5, reputation.  Riches, property, power, relationships, and reputation.  Okay, you can have a resurrected body, just like me, and we can all live in a perfect place called the New Jerusalem, but if those are variables, and we have them in varying degrees, I think it would be really good to have more of that.  Now, back to our passage, Hebrews 11, that was a long foundational statement to say this; that there were people, verse number 35, tortured, refused to be released, because in their mind, they thought, maybe I can get a better resurrection out of this.  Maybe, because of this pain, if I’m willing to endure it, I will be better of in the Kingdom.  What possibly could they be thinking about?  Well I think, things like this, eternal riches, property of my own, real power or responsibility in the Kingdom, taking charge of many things, relationships, multiplicity of deep and meaningful relationships in the Kingdom, and reputation.  Which, by the way, is not just Heaven-side, its also earth-side if you look down to verse number 38.  Because in the middle of this list, the people that have suffered so greatly, he steps out and says, you know what?  These were the great people, the world wasn’t worthy of them, what fantastic people these were, these are men and woman who are to be honored.  Now, we’re not in Heaven hearing that, we’re on earth reading that.  And you know what?  For us, we read those stories, those guys were pretty… Joshua, man, he went out there and bold and courageous, man, he’s a hero.  Moses, Abraham, I mean go back to the list there, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, wow, Samuel was a godly man.  Now what’s the deal there?  Lets just put this as a sub-point in the compensation, okay?  We’ve got a package for eternity, a better resurrection, there’s also something you get here and now, and that is a godly reputation.  And is that worth anything here and now?  I think it is.  I think it’s a good thing.  The Bible says, a good name is better than great riches.  And you know what?  Even on earth, it would be good for me to be able to be seen by those, my descendants even, we talked about that earlier, when I leave behind a legacy, I want my grand-kids to say, you know what?  There’s a godly example for me.  And I only say that, because I live with that.  I think of my grandfather.  I would like you to have the kind of reputation my grandfather had.  When I look at him in my daily ministry and I think, here’s a guy who lived with zeal, passion and an ambitious faith for Jesus Christ.  And I look to my grandfather who died when I was in Junior High, and though he’s dead, he still speaks and he speaks to me at least weekly.  And I’m not talking about wooo wooo, speaking to me, I’m talking about the fact that his memory of his zeal for Christ, I say the world wasn’t worthy of men like that.  And in my mind, he’s hailed as a great man, and he is a motivation for me.  Wouldn’t you like to be that for your grandkids?  Would you like your grandkids to look at you and say, grandpa/grandma, we’re godly people, and they spur me on to stand alone in a world that hates the truth and hates Christ, and I’m motivated to put my feet down and do something great for the Kingdom of God, because of people like that.  Hebrews 11, there’s a Hebrews 11 being written every generation, you realize that.  And the people that know you, I wonder if you’re on that list?  I know its an earth bound hall of fame, but I think in the earth bound hall of fame, as it relates to faith in Christ, ambitious faith, I want to be on that list for the people around me.  Oh, that sounds ungodly. Okay, read your Bibles, because its all over the place.  Paul says this, follow me as I follow Christ.  Does he not say that?  He says, you know my faith, imitate my faith.  i’m not ashamed of that, I’m not afraid of that.  I would like my grandkids to say, I want to imitate his faith, he was ambitious about his faith.  I hope the same for you, and I hope it becomes a reality for me, and I hope it does for you.  And you know what?  That’s a reason for me to endure the pain.  That’s a reason for me to say, you know what?  Whatever level of greatness we can achieve as Christians, lets put up with the difficulty of it and just recognize the great suffering, whatever.  I’ll be heartened by my future compensation, which will not only come in Heaven, the primary thing, that’s why we spend 80% of the time on that.  But I think there’s also a little bit of a perk here on earth, because it would be a great thing for those who come after us, to look at us, to look at our generation, to look at this people.  I mean think of this, this generation that founded Compass Bible Church, for instance, that was ambitious about their faith.  I want to be a part of that; I’d like to have that be a part of the future compensation that we receive, even here and now.  Verses 39 and 40.  Hebrews chapter 11, yeah, I am heartened by my future compensation, but there’s another level of encouragement that comes in almost a difficult to define form.  As a matter of fact, he doesn’t spell it out for us here, we have to read between the lines in verses 39 and 40, but we get it.  And we understand, the whole book of Hebrews is about this transition from old covenant to new covenant, we’re talking to Hebrew Christians who have a lot of baggage as it relates to the old covenant, and he’s saying there’s something better now, the shadows have passed.  He says, in verse 39, all of these were commended for their faith, yet none of them had received the promise, what had been promised to them, the promise to them.  See?  And what was the promise?  Ultimately they had the same problems that we have, and that is that they recognize they were sinful people and they couldn’t relate to their creator.  They needed a fix.  That’s why their worship services every week involved a barbeque.  You recognize what that was all about, right?  We killed an animal to show that we needed, really, some kind of intermediary; we needed some kind of atonement.  And if God was going to look on us as holy, he had to take our sin and put it on something else.  And so we had the scapegoat, and we had the bulls and the lambs and the goats being sacrificed, and it was all about a reminder that because of their death, symbolically, we could live.  But it was all a fuzzy picture for them, wasn’t it?  I mean for them, it was just a future somehow God will atone for our sin, we know these are symbols but it’s a shadowy figure of something future.  Verse 40; but God had planned something better for us so that only together with us, they would be made perfect.  Now how were they made perfect?  How were they made right?  Because they are redeemed by Jesus Christ.  What was their view of Christ?  Ahhhh… its out there somewhere, the prophets talk about it, the suffering servant, the coming anointed one, the great King who is perfect.  And we don’t fully understand and the Lord wont put him in the ground, and I don’t get it, but its coming and God’s going to fix our problem.  And you say the word, Jesus or Yashua, and they think back to Joshua.  You say Yashua in the new covenant, and you think of the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.  You say the word, Galilee, and they think, oh yeah, that’s up there in the northern part of the tribes to find the find the tribe of Dan, and oh yeah, whatever, Galilee.

And you say Galilee to us and we think, ministry of Christ.  We think the Decapolis, we think the Capernaum, we think of Jesus walking on water, we think of Jesus calling his disciples, we think of Jesus on the shore, building a breakfast of broiled fish for Peter saying, do you love me?  And we picture something completely different.  You say the word, Gethsemane to an old covenantcy, and they go well, what’s that?  That’s somewhere over there by the Mount of Olives, isn’t it?  What’s that all about?  Yeah, some nondescript olive grove.  You say Gethsemane to us, what to we think?  We think of Christ in the garden saying, not my will but yours be done.  And the focus of our faith is crystal clear.  You say the word Golgotha, and half of them have never heard of it.  Some say, well I think that Aramaic’s call that little place over there Golgotha, the skull I think, yeah, whatever, we try to avoid that hill.  You say Golgotha to a new covenant believer, what do you think?  The place where your sins and mine were nailed to the cross, in the shadow of the Temple Mount.  You say Mount of Olives, yeah, I know that, it’s off to the east of the Temple Mount, near where Solomon built his temple.  Think of us, you think of the angel saying, just as you saw him as sin, he’ll come back just the same way, right here, Mount of Olives.  You see how different this is for us?  The focus of our faith can be crystal clear if we know our Bibles.  We can say this is what its all about.  Hebrews chapter 12, this is something the old covenant saints couldn’t do.  Jot this down; number 3, you and I need to be encouraged by Christ.  We have the anointed one in our memory banks, we have the quadraphonic graphical picture of the anointed one, we know Jesus.  They heard the teachings about a future coming Messiah.  We have a focal point; we have a place to put our gaze.  Hebrews 12:1; since we’re surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, and we are, we just got done with Hebrews 11, and its amazing the people that are templates of ambitious faith for us.  Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles us, which, by the way, is the whole theme for chapter 12.  And let us do what?  Let us run with endurance or perseverance, the race that is marked out for us.  Now you could say in the old covenant, period, done. Hey, Moses, Abraham, Isaac, look at those guys, now run the course that’s set out for you, stop sinning and thus, make a difference for Christ.  But, he goes on for us.  Old covenant saints couldn’t do this, underline this, and let us fix our eyes on Jesus.  Okay?  Now Jesus, by the time the book of Hebrews was written, Jesus is gone, he’s ascended to Heaven, he’s not talking about our physical eyeballs looking at somebody.  Jesus is gone, he sent the Spirit now into our lives and what he’s saying is, get your focal point in your mind on Christ, fix your eyes on Jesus.  Who, by the way, you want to talk about ambitious faith, he is the author, and he is the perfector of our faith.  And then you want to talk about Bible stories, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning and shame, and he sat at the right hand of the throne of God and in that picture is the entire ministry of Christ, and you and I, if you’ve been to Sunday school, if you’ve read your Bibles, can flood with a volume of examples from the life of Christ.  And that is, our focal point is fixed on Christ as it motivates us to walk our path; we’re empowered by that.  Old Testament saints, by the way, couldn’t do that.  They couldn’t, verse number 3; consider him, who endured so much opposition from sinful men, so that they wouldn’t grow weary and lose heart.  But we can do that, because we know exactly about Christ’s temptations, we know about the pinnacle of the Temple, we know that in the desert and fasting, we know about him being opposed and smitten and smacked on the face by Roman soldiers, we understand that.  They don’t, they didn’t get that.  All they knew was that there was a coming atonement.  I’ve said it many times, to the old covenant saints, this was a credit card for them, their sin was paid for on credit.  Ours is paid for on a debit card.  Its out of the riches of Christ, I’d much rather be looking back at the cross than having some fuzzy picture through the prophets prophesying of the future Christ.  Now think about that.  Do you take advantage of that, full advantage of that?  We should.  And then we should stand back and say, man, we’re blessed.  You want to talk about the opportunities for ambitious faith?  Here’s a big line coming up.  You want to talk about opportunities for ambitious faith, with Christ as your focus, you and I have more potential than anyone we read about in chapter 11, because we have a focal point, Jesus Christ.  And that, for us, ought to be more than encouraging.  It ought to be a power boost for us to say, we’re going to stand up for Christ, we’re going to stand up for the Kingdom, we’re going to do something great and ambitious for the Kingdom of God.  Thirteen weeks, one point, and that is, what are you and I going to do for Christ with our lives?  You going to be mediocre, or are you going to step out of the mediocrity?  And are you going to stand up and say, I’m investing in eternity, I’m going to live for the glory of God.  I’m not going to be just a floater in the Christian life, just kind of going with the flow.  I’m going to step up and I’m going to do something for God.  That’s what the series has been about.  Do not be a hearer of the Word, who does nothing but hears it and says, well, that’s interesting.  The Bible says, if you do that, you deceive yourself.  God wants in this church, and every other church that preaches the word; he wants people to be doers of the Word.  What’s it going to be for you?  Thirteen weeks, one chapter, its all about this moment.  What are you going to do?  Lets do something for God.  Lets not be content with just kind of going along with it, lets step out, lets step up, lets be ambitious about our faith.

Lets talk to God about it for a minute.  Talk to him about this series.  We’ve been talking about ambitious faith.  I assume there’s been some challenge here.  Been some templates that we can get motivated and inspired by… but it all comes down to what are we going to do?  Bible says, you know what?  You can be someone who hears all of this, and if you are, and you don’t do anything about it, you’re like the foolish man who builds his life on the sand.  But if you’re willing to put this stuff into practice…  he who hears my words and puts them into practice, I’ll tell you what he’s like, Jesus said, he’s like the wise man who built his house on the rock.  And when the storms came, you know what?  Nothing happened.  Immovable.  When the floodwaters rose, the house was still there.  When the wind beat against the house, no problem, nothing fell.  That thing was solid.  You and I, we want to have that kind of solid reality when we get into the Kingdom of God?  Here’s the deal, you and I, we’ve got to be doers of the Word.  What are you and I going to do for Christ?  I know you’ve been thinking about it.  I mean if you’ve been with us the last thirteen weeks, we’ve been putting it right there.  Not going to be mediocre.  Maybe a job change for you.  Maybe a geographical move for you.  Maybe a volunteerism for some kind of ministry that you’ve been afraid to jump into.  Take the step and lets do it.  Talk to God about it.