"Persecution's Rewards" Matthew 10:40-42 Sunday Morning Worship Service

This morning, Matthew 10, the last paragraph of the chapter, verses 40 through 42, Jesus says, Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.

The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward.

The one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person's reward.

And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.

Church history is really littered with stories of persecution, some obviously more extreme than others.

One of the most memorable, uh one that my heart is drawn to, especially in the study of Matthew 10 over the last few months, has been that of Lady Jane Grey, the teenage queen of England.

She was a queen who reigned for nine days, as a 17-year-old girl, but her troubles in life started long before that.

When she was 15, she's uh Protestant and evangelical, following uh the gospel.

At the time, King Edward was the king of England, the boy king.

Edward was, you know, 14 or so at the time.

He had taken over from Henry VIII.

Henry VIII had pulled uh England away from Roman Catholicism out from under the authority of the Pope.

And Edward, with his own evangelical convictions, wanted to solidify that and banned that the Mass be taken anywhere in England.

Forbid the Mass.

Edward's cousin was Mary, who would later be known as Queen Bloody Mary, but now she was just Princess Mary.

Princess Mary was convictionally Catholic.

She had a Spanish mother, and she had the Mass celebrated repeatedly in secret in Spanish.

Well, one day when uh Jane Gray, Lady Jane Gray, was I don't know, probably 14 or 15 years old, she was visiting her cousin, uh cousin Mary, and Mary's nurse uh walked through the room where Jane was and genuflected, and Lady Jane assumed that uh Princess Mary must have walked by.

And she asked the nurse, why are you genuflecting?

Did the princess walk by?

And the nurse said, No, no, I'm I'm bowing before him that made us all.

And Jane, the evangelical that she was, was unsure about what was happening and realized that the host, the mask, the bread, was in the room.

And as a nurse walked by, she genuflected and bowed before the bread.

And Jane wondered at her answer that she bows before the one that made us all.

And Jane said, How could it have made us all when the baker made it?

It's a pretty witty response in the moment for a 15-year-old, although knowing 15-year-olds right now, they are good at witty responses.

I'll I'll grant that.

The nurse left and told Princess Mary what Jane had said.

This is not the sole source of their dispute, of course, it's politics and 10,000 other things, but this event laid the seed in Mary's heart.

It would take a few years, but eventually, when Lady Jane became queen, she'd reigned for nine days and was overthrown by Mary.

Mary had her imprisoned for over a year, and eventually Mary had offered her life and said, You can live if you take the Mass.

How Jane responded to that, we'll circle back to the end at the end of our sermon this morning and talk about how Jane responded to that.

That story is often in my mind as going through Matthew chapter 10.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 10 describes division in the church, it describes persecution in the church, and certainly it describes division at the family level, where a willingness to stand for Christ and defend the integrity of Christ leads to persecution.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

It leads to division in the family.

That's been the theme of all of Matthew chapter 10.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

Now, I want to, before I wrap up Matthew 10 this morning over verses 40 through 42, I want to zoom out and kind of give you the big picture teaching of this passage because verses 40 through 42 are the culmination of Jesus' teaching on persecution.

That illustration is about to be illustrated in the next chapter, by the way, which we'll get to maybe later on in the summer, Matthew chapter 11.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

But John the Baptist is going to be put to death.

But for now, Jesus wraps up Matthew chapter 10, giving a picture, an instruction, probably the Bible's longest teaching and most thorough teaching on persecution.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

So verses 40 and through 42 bring it to a conclusion, but to understand the conclusion, you really do need the big picture teaching of the whole chapter.

We've been going through over the last several months, but let me kind of zoom back out and recycle what we've been saying.

There's six big picture truths regarding persecution that are taught over this chapter.

And I want to give them to you at kind of a macro or a high level here before we get into the weeds of verses 40 through 42.

The first big picture truth here is that Jesus sends us to evangelize.

Jesus sends us into the world for the purpose of evangelism.

It's sometimes easy to miss the forest for the trees and to get lost in the in the trees or the weeds of Matthew 10 and miss the main thrust of the whole chapter, is that Jesus is sending Christians out into the world as evangelists.

Don't lose sight of that.

He sends the 12 in this conversation, but obviously this conversation telescopes beyond the 12 because the 12 don't experience what Jesus describes in this chapter in their own sending out.

It's going to be the second time they're sent out with a 70, they start to run into persecution.

And then again, at the end of after the resurrection, before the ascension, the Great Commission, Jesus kind of incorporates these truths to the whole church and sends the whole church into the world for the purpose of preaching the gospel.

So this whole thing is a very high-level, big picture command by Jesus, that the church is sent into the world as evangelists.

You have to frame the teaching of persecution around that because it is so easy for us to be just hyper-aware of persecution, hyper-aware of any cultural slights or anything, any anti-Christian sentiment in the world or in the culture or in the workplace or in the family to just be super sensitive to that and respond very negatively.

Like, can you believe what the culture is doing to Christians nowadays?

Ra, rah, rah.

It's very easy to fall into that, and I know you know what I'm talking about.

That's so easy to slip into.

But you really have to understand your sensitivity about persecution has to be justified by your mandate to be an evangelist.

It's almost unfair for you to be very sensitive and offended by what the culture does against Christianity, war on Christmas and whatnot, if you're not evangelizing, if you're not actively evangelizing.

The idea is that the persecution you face is because you were sent out as an evangelist with the good news to the nations.

If you're being an evangelist and you receive persecution, that's what Matthew 10 is talking about.

So on the one hand, you shouldn't be that bugged by persecution if you're not active in evangelism.

On the other hand, you should draw encouragement from this kind of chapter because it almost presupposes that Christians will be evangelistic.

If you love the Lord, you're going to be opening your mouth.

I mean, understand, your friends, your coworkers, your neighbors, those that you interact with, how are they going to know how to be saved unless somebody tells them?

I mean, what's known about God is evident to all people, but people suppress that truth in unrighteousness.

They exchange the truth of God for a lie.

How are they going to know about the one who died on the cross for their sins unless there is a messenger who tells them?

And so you really should feel compelled to open your mouth and tell the gospel to people.

Not everybody will believe you, of course, but that leads to the second point.

Jesus sends us to evangelize, and Jesus partners that command with a promise of persecution.

He does promise persecution.

He describes it as normative through this passage.

Now, before I give you kind of an overview of the passages where he says that in here, I've said this almost every sermon in the series, and I'll repeat it again here.

This is not to say that every culture has the same kind of persecution.

I know you're not going to be likely made to have the same choice as Lady Jane Gray did, you know, take the mass or die kind of thing.

We're in the wrong century for that.

You're not going to face the kind of persecution they do in North Korea or Bhutan or in Iraq or wherever.

You don't, you don't, we don't have that in our culture.

That being said, there is persecution implied in every culture, but it looks different culture to culture.

And in our culture, we'll talk more about that later this morning, but in our culture, it's most often in the family, it's most often in the workplace, it's most often in the realm of compelled speech or in, you know, that kind of stuff.

It's a different category than what you're seeing in Bhutan.

At the same time, it is a real category.

And remember, it's hard to tell somebody who's, you know, being passed over for promotion because their unwillingness to go along with the LGBTQ world, or somebody who's losing family relationships because of their stand for Christ, or somebody whose siblings won't talk to them because they view you as holier than thou because you know you're you're staying sexually pure until marriage.

Like those are the kind of things that are very frequent in our culture.

And it's hard to tell somebody who's going through that in a real way.

Hey, you know, cheer up, buckaroo.

At least you're not in North Korea.

You know, granted, I'm not in Chad.

Granted, I'm not in Algeria.

Granted, yet it still hurts and is still difficult to navigate in our own scale, as minimal as that scale may be.

So as you hear me give the summary of Matthew 10 this morning, please don't think I'm comparing, you know, losing a job to, you know, being, you know, executed in a place like Chad or Algeria.

I'm not, um, but I recognize this thing is scalable.

But Jesus nevertheless does promise persecution.

Verse 13, it's the first hint of it.

It says you're going to go out in the world as an evangelist, and you'll find some houses that aren't worthy of you.

Well, that means they invited you in at first, but then they heard what you had to say, and after they listened to you a little bit, they're like, Yeah, no, thanks.

That's a very low bar here to call that persecution.

They're just like, they're done with you.

Thank you.

I was interested.

Now I hear what you're selling.

I'm not interested.

Move along.

So Jesus says, go ahead and move along.

That's a low bar of persecution.

Verse 14 just says they don't receive your words.

So you've explained the gospel and they say, no, thank you.

So go ahead and move on.

That doesn't really count as persecution, but that's how it's introduced here.

And then it steps up.

In verse 16, I'm sending you as sheep among wolves.

Wolves don't just say, hey, no, thanks, sheep, I'm full.

Move along.

Verse 17, he describes you as being delivered over to religious leaders.

Verse 18, dragged before courts.

Verse 21, people will be put to death for the gospel.

Verse 22, you'll be hated by all for my name's sake.

Verse 23, city to city, this thing will be global.

And verse 25, remember how they treated Jesus, they won't treat you better than him.

So there's this expectation of persecution that will mark those who go into the world as evangelists.

Thirdly, the chapter teaches that you don't have to fight every battle.

You don't need to make every every encounter into the hill that you're going to die on.

Of course not.

Jesus uses this kind of language of, you know, they reject you in one place.

He says, go ahead and move along.

They reject the message, go somewhere else.

Dust the sand off your sandals and get moving.

It's you have a precious commodity, the gospel.

It's in a sense a limited commodity.

It's narrow is the way for eternal life, and few there are who find it.

Wide is the way to destruction, and there are many who are on it.

So there's, when I say limited commodity, I mean very few people have the gospel, and there's a lot of people in the world.

So don't spin your wheels in one place for a long period of time trying to evangelize the same person over and over and over again.

I recognize when it's your family, you spend more time.

Like I get that, somebody you know and love, you spend more time.

Just as a general principle, Jesus is saying, get move in here.

There's a lot of people in the world, a lot of ground to cover.

So somebody rejects you, or to use the language of the Sermon on the Mount, somebody rejects you, don't cast your pearls before swine.

Go somewhere else.

It's okay.

He repeats that instruction again.

To be wise as a serpent.

Remember, we talked about how serpents know how to get themselves out of trouble.

They know how to navigate a situation that you might think some people might dig their heels in and make that their water loose, so to speak.

But if you're wise, you have wisdom how to get around certain situations.

In the example I gave back then, I know a lot of government workers now are saying they take vacation in June.

So they can avoid the LGBTQ, you know, rodeo they have to go through.

They just find ways to, they have a lot of doctor's appointments in June.

It's funny how that works.

You can be deft in how to get out of certain situations.

Okay, that's just a silly example.

I know there's more extreme examples.

I'm just trying to illustrate my point here.

And then Jesus says in verse 23, and persecution rises up in one town, there's no harm in going to the next town.

Either after you in one place, go somewhere else.

You know, again, you don't need to make every hill your last stand.

If you die on every hill, you're dead on a lot of hills.

I don't know if that's exactly how the expression goes, but fourthly, Jesus forbids you from compromise and from worry.

So don't misappropriate what Jesus says about being wise like a serpent or moving town to town or leaving when somebody's not worthy.

Don't misappropriate that because some people misappropriate that, and lo and behold, they've never found a hill worth dying on.

You know, they've never found uh opposition they're willing to endure.

They always can justify compromise.

But Jesus here clearly forbids compromise.

For example, in verse 16, you're supposed to be innocent as a dove.

You never say anything that's untrue.

Yeah, if there's a death way out of a situation, you can take it, but you would never lie.

And by the way, innocent as a dove here, I remember when I preached in that passage, I talked about how it's a simplicity of speech.

There's no duplicity in your speech.

You're always speaking clearly and directly so people understand what it is you're saying.

The serpent-like way out of something isn't through convoluted speech.

You have to be clear and direct in your speech.

You speak, as verse 19 says, what the Bible tells you to say.

You're in a situation where you know you risk persecution, and Jesus says, Don't worry about what you'll say.

Speak what I tell you to say, which is this idea of scripture.

You know enough of the Bible and have enough convictions to get yourself into this problem.

Draw on that well of convictions.

Use Bible language to get you through that.

And sometimes getting through it doesn't mean getting out of it, it means enduring persecution.

But you're drawing on what the Bible says.

You speak like the Bible speaks.

Verse 33 flatly forbids you from denying Jesus.

Do not deny me, Jesus says.

You deny me, I deny you.

Meanwhile, Jesus also forbids you from worrying about what to say.

And you think, I don't know how these two get along.

Don't ever compromise, knowing that they can kill you, and don't worry about what you'll say.

Well, how?

How can both of those be true?

Well, they just are.

You're not, verse 19 says, Don't be anxious about what you're gonna say.

Why aren't I allowed to be anxious?

Because the Lord will give you words, fall back on his words.

Verse 28, don't fear those.

Now, earlier in verse what I think 17, he said, be aware of them, because they're gonna hate you and deliver you.

Be aware of them.

And then in verse 28, he says, but don't be afraid of them.

Know they're out there, but don't fear them.

After all, Jesus says, Don't be afraid of them, because the worst they can do is kill you.

I don't think Jesus would have made a good counselor.

Verse 29, he says, They're of more value than a sparrow.

You're of more value than a sparrow.

You think God lets sparrows fall and doesn't know what's going on with them?

Don't be don't be afraid.

He knows what's happening to you.

You have more value than a sparrow.

Verse 31, he brings up the sparrow again.

Fear not, because you are more valuable than sparrows.

That's the imperative.

Fear not.

So, don't die on every hill, but don't compromise and don't worry about it.

Just be faithful, in other words, which leads to number five.

There is a reality that Jesus divides families.

We looked at that last week.

He didn't come to bring peace to your family, he came to bring division.

What that means is he's gonna set people in family relationships against one another.

And that's because the gospel separates.

Truth divides.

The word of God is described as a sword.

It separates truth from error.

It is truth.

It's a light, it shines into the darkness, and people in the darkness don't want the light exposing their deeds, and so they run from the light.

That creates a division.

You love the light as a believer, you want to go to the light, you want your sin exposed because you want sanctification.

The non-believer does not.

The non-believer likes darkness, does not want their sin exposed, certainly doesn't want it called sin.

And so there's going to be a natural division and a natural hostility there, and that's just, there's just evidence.

And this is probably the form of persecution that is most acute in our country.

Today, I talked about this this last week, where there's division in families.

The, you know, some of it is the um, you know, if you don't accept me as I am, then you don't accept me at all.

If you don't love me for who I identify myself as, then you don't love me at all, that kind of tension.

Uh, but some of it isn't even that.

Some of it's just, you know, you're a Christian and you're uh staying sexually pure until you're married, and your family's like, what are you doing?

You think you're holier than us, or you're, you know, you're using your money and you're just building your life around different priorities than the rest of your family is, and it's offensive.

It comes across as self-righteous, and you don't mean it that way, but of course it does.

There's just natural divides that happen in the family.

And so it's so hard if you idolize family with the language family is the most important thing to me ever, kind of language.

All I I love the Lord, and all I want him to do is to give me a nice, happy family.

I mean, that's the idolization of family, and that will end in disappointment.

Jesus makes that clear.

There will be divisions in a family at the most core place where you'd expect support.

You expect the family to be the safest place of all in Christ, it doesn't necessarily turn out that way.

So that's the the last uh few months of teaching on this.

That leads to point six.

Jesus does reward his followers.

He divides families, but he rewards his followers.

And that's verses 40 through 42, and that's our passage this morning.

And I wanted to take the time to walk you through all that because I think these final three verses are the capstone of this, and they make so much more sense in light of the theme of all that is gone before them.

Jesus makes the point that he rewards his followers.

He tells you when you receive persecuted believers, you're actually receiving Christ.

And as you're receiving Christ, you're receiving God who sent Christ.

And then he says, anyone who receives a prophet or a righteous person, verse 44, receives the rewards that those people receive.

Receive is a very active word here.

Receive in English can come across as passive, can it?

Like you received blows or you received a letter in the mail.

It's a common way we use the word in English.

It sounds so passive.

It is not a passive form in the Greek.

It's a very active form in the Greek.

And it's hard in English to imagine what active receiving means, but the my best illustration for it is a wide receiver.

A wide receiver doesn't passively receive the ball.

You know, it's overthrown or it's too high.

He like builds a ladder out of air and climbs, he climbs on top of dudes' heads and gets his fingertips to it and grabs it.

I mean, that's the kind of image of receiving Jesus.

When you know Jesus came to his own, his own didn't receive him, but to all who did receive him, he gave the right to be called children of God.

That's the same kind of language.

It's a very active reaching, straining, grabbing, doing anything I can to take hold of Jesus.

That's this idea.

Uh it's Paul saying, I pressed forward to the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

I'm straining with all of my energy, everything in me reaching forward to Jesus.

That's the kind of biblical instruction about this.

And here Jesus says, you're doing that for those that are persecuted.

You're reaching out to those who are persecuted, and when you receive them, you're actually receiving Jesus who sent them.

When you receive Jesus who sent them, you're receiving God who sent Jesus.

So God in his triunity, Father, Son, and Spirit, the three persons of God, they designed the plan of salvation where they send Jesus to the world.

The Son of God, the second person of eternity, takes on a human nature, is born to the Virgin Mary, leads a human life, never sins, a sinless life.

At the end of his life, our sins are given to him.

He's killed on the cross.

God's wrath is poured out on him for our sins.

He pays, atones for them, takes away the wrath of God from our sins, goes to the grave, proclaims liberty to those who died with faith in Christ, the Christ that would come, rises from the grave on the third day, ascends into heaven where he is right now, but he was sent by the Father to the earth.

Through his ministry on earth and his ascension, he now sends the Holy Spirit.

So the Father and Son send the Spirit who seals our hearts.

So when anybody with the Holy Spirit in them, which is in the sense the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God, is in them, and they're persecuted for being a Christian, they're persecuted for their evangelism.

That's the context here.

They lose their family, they lose their job, they lose their resources, their family won't talk to them anymore.

There's division in the family, they've lost because of Christ, and you in turn receive that person.

So this is somebody in the body, in the church, and they're going through a hardship for Christ, and you receive them, you are receiving, in a real sense, Jesus.

Now there's an ontological connection between you and your brothers and sisters and Jesus.

And I said that sentence to somebody this week, and they said, nobody knows what the word ontological means.

Stop it.

Yes, but I can explain it.

Ontological is just a fancy word that is like the quality of being or your essence.

We don't have a better word for it than English.

It's like it's like the essence of who you are, your ontology, the essence of your identity and who you are.

That's your ontology.

There's an ontological union between you and others that are in Christ.

Because you both possess the Spirit of God in your hearts who seals you.

There's a union between you and Christ.

His Spirit is in you.

You are hidden in Him.

You're adopted into Christ.

So when the Father looks at you, he sees Christ because there's a union between you and Christ.

That union extends to an ontological union between you and others who are in Christ.

So that other person is persecuted.

They lost their job.

There's division in the family, and they come to church sad because of the persecution.

And you reach out to them and you receive them.

You're not only receiving them, you're receiving Jesus because Jesus dwells in them.

And you're not, this is where it gets crazy.

You're not only receiving them and Jesus, you're receiving God who sent Jesus to begin with.

All of that you receive by opening up your arms to persecuted believers.

That's what it means to receive rewards.

When you open up your arms to them, Jesus then rewards you as if you had endured their persecution.

You get their rewards.

Now we've seen this principle elsewhere in Matthew's gospel.

When you give your money to a missionary, Jesus describes later, and he goes and buys friends for you in heaven.

You're going to get to heaven, you're going to meet some Algerian believer, and you're like, I don't even know an Algerian, but here's an Algerian believer who's thanking you, and you're like, how did that happen?

Well, you gave money to the missionary Telgeria who gave the gospel to them, so he's stoked with you.

You received that missionary's reward even though you didn't go on the mission field.

So we have that kind of system elsewhere described in Matthew's gospel, but here he's talking about receiving your own church those who are persecuted, you receive their reward.

And he even elevates it.

He says a prophet's reward or a righteous person's reward.

And don't get you know distracted by the nuances of those words.

A prophet is anyone who speaks the word of God.

I think the charismatic church has diluted that word in our world.

You know, we think a prophet means somebody who knows the future.

That's not the way the Bible uses the word.

It's just a generic word for somebody who speaks the word of God.

They're prophesying, they're proclaiming the word of God.

Or even a righteous person, a very generic word.

The prophet is persecuted because of their speech, the righteous person is persecuted because of their ethics.

The righteous person might not even be saying anything.

They're persecuted because of the way they live their life.

They're just righteous and unrighteous people don't like them.

So you receive the righteous person, or the prophet is persecuted because they've opened their mouth and they've said the word of God and they're persecuted.

It's so we like to second guess those people.

We're like, man, that righteous person could have figured out a way to get out of that.

Or the prophet, he could have said things differently, or more winsomely, or whatever, and of course he could have, because we're all fallible, and of course, with our speech, we say dumb things all the time.

Granted, I know this very well.

Nevertheless, you recognize at a basic level, that person, even though maybe he could have said things differently, he's at a basic level being persecuted because of his faith in Christ.

Maybe he could have handled it differently, whatever.

The bottom line is he's persecuted because of his faith in Christ.

You receive him, you receive the prophet's reward.

You receive the righteous person who didn't say anything.

They're just leading a godly life.

You receive them, you receive the righteous person's reward.

By the way, Matthew 13, Matthew 23, uh they use those phrases together.

Again, the Pharisees persecuted the prophets and the righteous people, um, both.

Uh, there's other uses of those two words paired in Matthew's gospel.

It's not unusual to see them paired together.

The prophet is the one who's persecuted for speaking, the righteous person, the one who's persecuted for their ethics, and Jesus says, receive them, you get their rewards.

Now, how does that work out?

Let me illustrate it this way.

God in his triunity sends Jesus, Father, Son, Spirit, sends Jesus to the world to be the Savior.

Jesus comes to the world, the God man, truly God, truly man, two natures, one person, leads the sinless life, dies on the cross, resurrects, etc.

He then sends his spirit to you.

His spirit dwells in you.

So God sends Jesus.

Jesus sends you through Matthew 10, sends you into the world as an evangelist.

This is the Great Commission.

You're sent as an evangelist.

You then give the gospel to others.

Those others are sent in the world.

It's a multiplying effect here.

Others are sent into the world.

So you're tracking this way.

That's the that's the that's the flow chart here at church.

You know, there's the hierarchy there.

We all uh, in a sense, have a debt of gratitude to the one who gave the gospel to us, but all everybody who gave the gospel to each other is under Jesus, who is sent uh by God himself.

Now that's going on in the world, and then the reality is that Christians are persecuted.

So the others are sent into the world, the body is sent into the world, so God sends Jesus, who sends you, who sends others.

So people are in the world, and as they're going in the world, some are met with persecution and division and loss in family, et cetera.

So that happens, and when that happens, those people who are persecuted go back to the church, victims of persecution, losing family, losing jobs, etc.

And then you receive them.

So you open up your arms to them and you receive them.

This demonstrates the realness of the family in the church, brothers and sisters in Christ, that you have your brothers and sisters in the Lord that are part of your church, you receive each other.

As you receive each other, you are received by Jesus.

Because as you receive that person, they're being persecuted because of their faith in Christ.

So you receive them, you're receiving not just them, but Jesus who's in them.

And as you're receiving Jesus, you are also receiving God who sent them.

So it's a boomerang here.

God sends Jesus, who sends you, who sends others.

People are persecuted, it swings back around.

Those people who are sent by you come back to you, you receive them.

It's receiving Jesus who sent you to begin with, it's receiving God who had sent Jesus to begin with.

It's a whole boomerang effect.

I think it's really cool to understand the way the church works that way.

Your brothers and sisters in the Lord by receiving persecuted believers, by recognizing these are my people.

These are my people.

I might have done something differently than them, but ultimately they are my people.

I receive them, I received the Lord who sent them.

And when you receive them and the Lord who sent them, guess what?

You get rewards.

That's exciting.

Who doesn't want rewards?

And somebody says, Yeah, but you shouldn't receive persecuted people just to get the reward because then you're just doing it for what's in it for yourself.

Okay, but I didn't write this, Jesus did.

You know, it's like the kid who's like, should I do my extra credit?

And the parent's like, Why do you want to do your extra credit?

If you're doing it just for the extra credit, that's not the right reason.

Well, there's no better reason.

It's the teacher who said, Do it for extra credit.

It's a good motivation.

And so Jesus says, when you receive the persecuted believer, you receive the rewards.

Well, what rewards are we talking about here?

He's already mentioned this in the Sermon on the Mount.

You can send your treasure to heaven.

You can live in such a way that your money is in heaven and your time will be rewarded in heaven.

You stand before the judgment seat of Christ to receive a reward for the deeds done in the flesh, both good and empty.

It's 2 Corinthians 5.

That kind of language, you know, understand that when a person dies, just anybody dies, they stand before God for judgment.

If they're not in Christ, they are condemned to hell because of their sin.

So God is a judge, he finds them guilty for their sin, condemns them to hell.

If they are in Christ, their sins have been atoned for by Christ, the record of wrongs has been nullified, ripped up, canceled, nailed to the cross, atoned for.

You don't owe anything.

Jesus paid for your sins.

But you are still there in front of the judge, and now the judge rewards you.

Thanks.

See you next month.

When you stand before God for judgment, your sins have been atoned for, paid for, nullified, found not guilty.

Great.

But you're still standing there.

And as a Christian, God does what the traffic judge doesn't do is he goes beyond that and says, Now I'm giving you rewards for the good things you have done.

Now, what are the rewards?

Treasures in heaven from Matthew 7.

Eternal life is a reward for being in Christ.

You rule with him in his kingdom.

Revelation 2 says, those who overcome, they receive the tree of life, meaning they'll never die.

They'll live forever.

They receive no second death.

They receive hidden manna.

Revelation 2 says, your reward in heaven is hidden manna, which means God will sustain you every day for eternity, with a food you don't even know anything about right now.

He gives you a white stone, which is, I don't know exactly what that means, but on that stone is your new name that nobody knows.

Don't ask me what it means because it says nobody knows.

You'll rule the nations, Revelation 2 says, with Jesus.

You'll be with the morning star.

That's a reward.

You'll be clothed in white.

Your name will never be blotted out of the book of life.

Revelation 3 says there's a reward for those who are in Christ.

You are kept from the hour of trial that will come upon the whole earth.

You will be made a pillar to be in the temple of God.

You will live in the city of God forever and ever and ever.

You will sit with Jesus on his throne, Revelation 3.21 says, To those who overcome, they will sit with me on my throne and rule the nations.

Those are rewards.

Why do you get those rewards?

Because you're in Christ.

And how do you see that you're in Christ?

You receive people who are persecuted, they're in Christ.

You don't receive them in order to be in Christ.

You receive them because you are in Christ, and then you're rewarded for receiving them.

This is why the ontological unity here is why John can say, listen, if you say you love God but you don't love your brother, you're a liar.

How can you say you love God but you don't love your brother in whom God dwells?

It's just not possible.

Everyone who says they love God but hates their brother is indeed a liar.

The flip side of that is if when you receive your brother because he's persecuted, or your sister because she's persecuted, you're receiving her, you're receiving Jesus, you're receiving God, and God rewards you with the rewards he gives to Jesus.

You'll reign on the throne with him.

Now notice even more narrowly here.

Jesus says, Whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water.

That's such a minimalistic thing.

That's like the because what does it mean to actually like practically, Jesus?

Here's somebody who's persecuted.

What does it mean to actually receive them?

Jesus doesn't give you practical examples except the water one.

And the water one is meant to be so minimal.

It's meant to be like, that's the least you can do.

That's why it says in in the Greek, even a cup of water.

Like that's like the most basic, and maybe you've had this kind of conversation, you know, somebody's like, I've lost my job because you know, I'm a Christian and I lost my job, and my family won't talk to me, and my dad won't talk to me, and my sisters won't talk to me, and I'm, you know, I'm neglected, and it's just like crying, and you're like, I want to receive you.

What can I do?

Can I get you a cup of water?

Like that's honestly sometimes what you say at that time.

Can I get you a glass of water?

I don't know what else to do right now, except to say, My heart breaks for you.

I'm with you, I'll pray with you, I put my arm around you.

Can I get you a cup of water?

It's like the most basic minimal thing.

Like, I can't get them another job right now.

I can't restore their family.

I can't do that.

I can get you a glass of water.

That's the example Jesus uses, the most minimal thing possible.

Now, in practicality or in real life, you're probably going to do more than that.

As the weeks give way to months, you'll probably have more opportunity to serve them, maybe even give them a meal, like stepping up from the water.

There's a friendship and a family that develops, and the church is the point.

And notice verse 42 says you're giving them because he is a disciple.

And I underline that in my own mind here because this verse gets so misused in the social justice world.

Like if you give water to the poor or to you know the immigrant or to the marginalized, like I've heard this verse used by so many social justice preachers to justify that kind of outreach.

Um, that's not what this is talking about.

It says you're giving them water because he is a disciple.

Obviously, some immigrants are persecuted for their faith.

That's why they're an immigrant.

I get that.

And that's you know, that's what this would be talking about then.

The point is, somebody is a disciple and they're receiving persecution in your body.

You receive them.

And you receive their reward.

I had a friend who is a Mormon who went on his mission and he came back and he was telling me that on his mission, whenever they're invited to somebody's house, he says it's very common for people to offer them water, and they always have to say yes.

Uh, and he tells me the reason we had to say yes is because even if you reject the Mormon message, we know you'll get a reward because you gave us water.

So, not what this verse means, by the way.

Not what this verse means.

Don't be a Mormon.

And if you're witnessing to a Mormon, don't offer them water, is your practical takeaway.

I'm glad you laughed at that.

The point is, when you receive believers, you're receiving Christ.

And Christ rewards you.

The most foundational part of this is verse 40.

Receiving Jesus.

You receive others because you receive Jesus.

Lady Jane Gray, when she was put in prison, was forced to watch her husband be killed.

She was married at 16.

That's a different sermon at a different point.

She was forced to watch her husband beheaded.

She didn't have to see the actual thing beheaded, but she saw him carried by her window, heard the sound of it, then saw the carriage, watched the carriage bring his body, followed by the head back by a few minutes later.

It was then that the priest took her out of her cell and told her that she could extend her life if she would take the mass.

She told the priest who brought her the news, and this is was widely reported at the time.

There was, you know, large crowds here.

It's in the you know the London Tower.

Uh she told the priest, he told her she could extend her life if she would take the mass.

Quote, Alas, sir, it was not my desire to prolong my days.

As for death, I utterly despise it.

But if it's her majesty's pleasure as such, I will willingly undergo it.

That's a very serpent and dove-like answer, isn't it?

Like, I'm not, I don't want it.

She's very honest.

I don't want to die.

I despise death, she says.

She's 17 years old.

She doesn't want to die.

I despise death.

I can't take the mass.

You know, if the queen desires my death, I guess it's gonna happen.

What a clever way to answer the question.

You know, they I won't bring you through the whole exchange.

It's very much worth reading.

It's described at length in Fox's Book of Martyrs and other biographies, but the bottom line through her exchange, she'll she'll pray for the queen.

She she became friends with the priest.

By the end of their dialogue, she and the the priest were friends.

Um and the priest respected her.

She wouldn't compromise.

The Lord provided for Lady Jane Gray through the ministry of the Spirit uh eternal life, as well as the right words to say at the right time.

We're not going to be in Lady Jane's situation.

We all find ourselves in our own situation.

I hope stories like that give you the courage to live out the instruction in Matthew chapter 10, to be wise, clear, bold, effusive, humble, and receive the reward the Lord has for us.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

God, we know that we are a family of believers.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, you've made us this way.

We live for you.

We want to honor you in our life.

We pray for wisdom about how to navigate this fallen world.

We are in many ways thankful that our country has given us freedoms that are unusual in world history, even unusual in the world today.

We also know that we face persecution differently than other people do.

So we pray for wisdom about how to navigate it.

Pray for encouragement as we go through it, and pray that our church would be a church of compassionate people who receive the hurting.

Our hearts are knit with yours, our lives are knit with yours.

We are bound up in you, Christ.

We're grateful for the good news of your death and resurrection that we celebrate on this Palm Sunday.

We give you thanks for it in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to iBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.