Heaven - Paradise Found - Part 4

Alright, turning your Bible today to Matthew chapter 6.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

We're going to continue our series called Heaven Paradise Found.

And Heaven is Paradise.

Are you beginning to see this in Scripture along with me these last three or four weeks?

That heaven is a real place, that it's paradise, that it is spectacular.

God has prepared this place for you and I and for everyone who follows Christ.

And it is going to be so much fun to spend a very long time with a real God in heaven.

Do you agree?

Well, I want to show you something in Scripture today about some activity that's going on in heaven right now.

Some current activity that's happening.

And this is Jesus talking in Matthew chapter 6 in verse 19.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Jesus said, Don't store up treasures here on earth where they can be eaten by moths and get rusty, and where thieves break in and steal.

By the way, the Greek word there for thieve is tax agent.

That's a little known fact.

This is the kind of revelation you're going to get from me, okay?

Very compelling.

Verse 20, store your treasures in heaven, where they will never become moth-eaten or rusty, and where they will be safe from thieves, which means tax agent.

Okay, just keep that in mind.

Verse 21, wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will also be.

One of the challenges that I've been trying to bring to you every week is for us to turn our thoughts toward heaven, to begin thinking more about heaven, begin to imagine what heaven is like.

And many of you have told me that you begin to thinking about heaven, that your children are asking you more questions about heaven.

But Jesus makes some very compelling statements there.

He says that there are treasures in heaven with your name on them.

In other words, there's not just one big pile of treasure in heaven, but there are individual allotments of treasure that you have sent forward, that you are the one that is responsible for this pile of treasure that's in heaven.

And it's being stored up.

And that nothing will ever be able to rob you of this treasure, that this treasure is eternal, that it will not ever rust or decay or and will not be eaten by moss.

And so this treasure is yours.

And isn't it interesting that if we did not need treasure in heaven, that Jesus probably would not have told us to store it up.

In other words, there must be a need for treasure in heaven, or Jesus would not have wasted his time telling us to store up treasure in heaven.

He makes a very strong declarative sentence here.

He says, make sure that you store it up, that you're going to need it.

Now some people say, well, what's the treasure?

Well, there's crowns in heaven.

We know that.

There are at least five different types of crowns mentioned in the Bible.

And we know also that we're going to take that crown off and lay it at the feet of Jesus for his glory, but at some time in heaven, you're going to be handed a crown.

Some people believe that the crown will be symbolic of your assignment in heaven, that there's a possibility that heaven will have a need for leadership, for government, for administration, and that your assignment in heaven, which I do believe you will have assignments, is based on the rewards that you send forward.

But we're not going to talk more about that so much today as we are about how to get the awards, how to send the rewards ahead.

Now, prosperity theology is being taught, has been taught for 20 or 30 years in the church.

And I do believe that the prosperity theology gets it right in that God does reward faithfulness.

God does reward doing the right thing.

However, I do believe that prosperity theology gets it wrong with the timing and location of many of God's rewards.

I believe that we have fallen into a trap, especially in the Western Church.

We've fallen into a trap of believing that all of God's rewards are meant for the earth.

When the Bible does not teach that.

But the Bible is very clear that a great deal, a great number of the rewards that God has for you will not happen here on the earth, but will happen in heaven.

Deferred gratification is a kingdom principle.

Do you understand where I'm headed so far?

Are you with me?

Now, turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 4 because I want to read to you who I believe is outside of Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

This is the most influential person in the New Testament.

His name is Paul.

He wrote two-thirds of the whole thing, or a third of it.

And he is by far the greatest apostle that ever lived on the earth.

But I am convinced that if Paul were alive today, that his teaching probably would not make him so popular.

Paul over and over again expresses that his treasure was not on the earth.

And he gives descriptions of his life that would not make any of us feel compelled to follow him today, I don't believe.

It would be very difficult for us to sign up for Paul's lifestyle and our current Western mindset.

But let's read out of 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 11.

1 Corinthians 4:11

It says, To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty without enough clothes to keep us warm.

We have endured many beatings and we have no homes of our own.

We have worked wearily with our own hands to earn our living.

We bless those who curse us.

We are patient with those who abuse us.

We respond gently when evil things are said about us.

Yet we are treated like the world's garbage, like everybody's trash, right up to the present moment.

Now, according to the prosperity theology, do you believe that Paul has the favor of God on his life according to this passage of Scripture?

There would be something wrong with Paul if we were to apply the prosperity theology to the greatest apostle who ever walked on the earth.

Something must have been wrong with Paul for him to live like this.

That's what we would think today.

What is wrong with Paul?

Why is God mad at Paul?

But God wasn't mad at Paul.

Paul was saying, listen, my treasure is not here.

I don't have treasure on the earth.

I have sent my treasure forward.

This is why when Paul talks about heaven in the New Testament, Paul goes into elaborate detail about heaven.

He longs for heaven.

He says to be absent from my body is to be present with the Lord.

He would talk about heaven over and over again.

And the reason that he looked so forward to heaven is because he had sent his treasure to heaven.

It was waiting for him there.

Let me give you a good field trip.

If you want to take your family on a really good field trip one day, take them out to the landfill, your children or your grandchildren, or take them to one of those, uh, one of those big uh places where they have all the broken-down cars, you know, your next door neighbor, all those cars that are strode out.

And sit there and look at the things that are in the landfill.

Look at the cars in the big car lot.

Those are the things that people stayed up at night worrying about at one time.

Those are things that people worked overtime and neglected their family to buy at one time.

Many of the things that are now rotting in the landfill are things that cause families to divorce.

And yet there they are now.

They have absolutely no value left, or they would not be in the landfill.

It's sitting there rusting, decaying, and completely dissolving, rotting, and that's what people worried about, that's what people strived for, that's what that was people's ambitions and goals on the earth, and it's just all sitting there now, rotting away.

See, Paul was not saying that food and water and shelter and clothing were not important.

What he was saying is, listen, all this is just stuff.

My treasure has been sent forward.

My treasure is in heaven.

Now, before we talk about rewards, I want you to understand that heaven is not a reward.

Heaven is a gift from God.

You must understand that rewards and salvation are two different things.

Salvation is about what God has already done for us.

It is free.

Entrance into heaven is so simple.

It's already been paid for, you cannot do enough good works to earn it.

It is free because of the death of Jesus Christ.

However, rewards are what we are doing for God.

In other words, it is what we believe that will determine our eternal destination, but our behavior on the earth will determine the rewards in heaven.

Beliefs will determine your eternal destination.

Behavior determines your rewards.

Are you following with me now?

So don't get those two things mixed up.

In fact, most people get them completely opposite.

Most people, if you ask an unchurched person, someone that has no idea about the gospel, if you ask them, how do we get to heaven?

they will say to you, if you do enough good things on the earth, and if I'm a good enough person, God will let me into heaven, and then they think that all the rewards of heaven are free when it's completely opposite.

Heaven is free, the rewards cost you something.

The rewards cost you, but heaven is free.

Now I know some of you are saying, well, what if I don't have as big a pile of rewards in heaven as someone else?

Listen, your joy in heaven will be absolutely complete.

You will not walk around in heaven feeling any less joy than anyone else.

It'll be the first time in your life that you are completely happy with a participant's ribbon.

You remember those?

That's the one I got at Field Day at school, the participant's ribbon.

Got a whole stack of them.

Alright, are you, dude, would you like to know how to earn some rewards in heaven?

If rewards are important, if Jesus said that we should send them forward, would you like to know how to earn some rewards?

Let me show you three things today.

The first thing is we will be rewarded for the way we manage our resources.

It is very clear in Scripture that Jesus said, When I give you things on the earth, resources, money, time, talents, the way you manage those things will determine how much I give you in the life to come.

And if I can't trust you with earthly riches, how can I trust you with true riches?

And he's talking about people who which are eternal.

Now, in Matthew chapter 19, verse 21, Jesus has an encounter with a wealthy, successful young man.

Matthew 19:21

This man apparently has influence in the community, he has leadership, he has done very well for himself financially, and he sends, he tends to be, it looks like he's a pretty good moral guy.

In other words, he's his morality is fine.

So Jesus, what he walks up to Jesus and he says, Hey, Jesus, I know if anyone on the earth is going to inherit eternal life, it's probably going to be me.

But I just want to make sure.

How can I have eternal life?

And when Jesus looks at him and he sees right for him, and he says, first of all, you need to follow all the commandments.

And he goes, hey, got that covered.

I follow all the commandments.

But here's what God was about to say.

Jesus, as God, looked right in him and said, Yeah, you're following all the commandments, but you're not following me.

Now I want you to read what he says here in verse 21 of Matthew 19.

Jesus said to him, If you want to be perfect, go sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come follow me.

But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

Let me give you a very simple way to tell if the money, the resources that you have right now belong to you or belong to God.

This is how you can tell.

When God asks you to give those things, the amount of arguing that happens after that determines how much ownership you have.

If you argue with God about giving, it means that in your mind you own it and God's asking for something that's yours.

If you tend not to argue with God when he asks you to give, it's because you see that the resources that God's placed in your lap don't belong to you.

It's like someone loaning you their car, and then then when they ask for it back, you don't argue with them.

You say, Thank you for letting me borrow your car.

Here it is back.

God gives us resources, and then when he asks for us to give them, if you argue with God, it's probably because you think you own them.

There's a man in California that is probably the closest thing to the rich young ruler story that I've ever heard.

And he, when he turned 50 years old, he sold his construction company and walked away with$20 million.

Enough money for he and his wife to retire.

But they were believers.

And they said, We know that we'd like to tithe.

We want to give some of this to the kingdom.

And so they began to pray.

And the Lord took him to the story of the rich young ruler.

And guess what God asked him to do?

Give it all away to help the poor.

Now there's one thing if God asks you to give a couple hundred bucks to the poor.

It's another thing when it's twenty million dollars in your retirement.

They said, Lord, you're asking us to give everything away, all$20 million?

And so for months they've talked, but every time they would pray, they would hear the same thing.

I want you to give it all away to help the poor.

And so one day, out of obedience, he and his wife sat down and were about to sign the papers to give all$20 million away.

And God stopped them literally in the middle of their signature and said, Stop.

You didn't ask me how to give it.

You didn't ask me for specific instructions.

And so the Lord said, Here's what I want you to do.

And they live in a major city in California.

He said, I want you to go to the poorest neighborhood in your city, and I want you to purchase as much property as you can, those slums, those apartments where the poorest of the poor live.

I want you to buy the property, I want you to renovate the apartments, and I want you to charge a fair rent, but I want you to give people a sense of dignity to live in these places again.

So he did.

He went down to the poorest of neighborhoods and bought as much property as he could.

He began to finish out those apartments with very nice furniture, with very nice carpet, with clean paint, and he began to charge a very fair rent, just enough rent to make the payment on the building.

And here was his policy.

If someone failed to pay their rent, instead of sending them an eviction notice, he showed up with groceries to find out how he could help them.

The word began to spread around the community that there was a man who really did care about them.

And there began to be a waiting list for these properties.

And these properties had a hundred percent occupancy all the time.

And he actually began to make a profit from these apartments.

And every time he would make a profit, guess what he would do?

He would go buy more apartments.

And he would begin to renovate them.

Then when people couldn't pay their rent, they knew they were going to get a bag of groceries out of it.

And so they felt so compelled that when they did get money, he was always the first one that got paid.

Word began to spread around this city that there was a man who cared about the poor, and he has led hundreds of them to the Lord.

And he has spent the rest of his life, years now, doing this over and over again.

You see, God gave him resources, and he made a decision.

I don't own these resources.

This is God's$20 million, and I'll do whatever God wants me to do with it.

And he did.

And great is his treasure in heaven.

If you want to get God's attention, take what he has put in your lap, manage it well, and be generous when he asks you to give.

And rewards in heaven will wait on you.

Here's the second thing is that we will be rewarded for our motives.

Our motives are important.

Why you do something is just as important to God as what you do.

For example, one person can do one thing and another person can do the exact same thing.

One will be rewarded in heaven and one will not.

Do you agree that that's possible?

And you know why?

Because one had good motives, pure motives, and one did not have good motives.

It is possible to do the right thing with the wrong motives and get no reward for it.

It is not just because you did the right thing doesn't mean that God is always pleased with the motives of our heart.

In Matthew chapter 6, verse 1, it says, Take care, don't do your good deeds publicly to be admired, because then you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven.

Matthew 6:1

When you give a gift to someone in need, don't shout about it as the hypocrites do, blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity.

I assure you, they have received all the reward they will ever get.

In other words, there are going to be some real disappointed people in heaven.

They're going to say, and I told someone this last night, he said, Do you think when I get to heaven that I'm going to know the things that I'm going to be rewarded for and the things I'm not?

I said, Sure.

I said, when you do the right thing for the right reason, I think you'll have memories of that.

That's no question about it.

But there are going to be some things that you thought you did that you're going to get a tiny reward for.

And then there's going to be some small things, things that you think are small right now on the earth, that God's going to give you a big reward for, and it's going to surprise you.

It is important to God why we do things.

And let's keep reading.

It says, but when you give to someone, don't tell your left hand what your right hand is doing.

Give your gifts in secret.

And your Father, who knows most secrets, all secrets, will reward you.

It's possible to not tell anyone and for God to pay attention.

Do you agree?

Now listen, husbands, wives, if you're planning on giving it all away, let me just tell you there's one person you need to bring into the loop, okay?

Don't do that in secret.

You might want to ask for some counsel on that one, okay?

But when you give something, isn't it possible to be an extravagant, generous giver and not tell anyone?

Wouldn't that be great if the church did random acts of generous kindness, generous acts of kindness, and we didn't have to tell anyone?

We didn't have to broadcast it and make it known to everyone.

One time I went to a friend's church and he had a church, the building was 75 or 100 years old, but it had those wooden pews that each weighed about a ton because they're made of real wood.

Remember the big wooden pews you grew up in?

But when I walked into the church, every single thing in the church had one of those little metal plates on it.

In memory of, or the this belongs to the family of.

In fact, they were on every pew, and I said, are these are these like seasoned ticket holders here?

This is where they this is where they sit every week.

This pew belongs to the family of.

And if I'm a visitor, don't sit here, is what it's saying to me.

I mean, everything had one of those little metal plates, the offerings, and he said that there was the biggest competition in the church was uh there were three ladies who wrestled over who would put the flower display on the communion table.

Remember that?

Because if you bought the arrangement, you got your name in the bulletin.

And so these three ladies, he told me, would just wrestle over this all the time.

Here's the problem with that.

I want more reward than a little metal plate.

Wouldn't it be possible to buy a couple of pews and not put any plates on it?

Don't you think that God has a better reward system in heaven waiting for us than the little metal plate that has to go on the side of the pew?

Let's get over the fact that we need to be recognized when we do the right thing.

Wouldn't it be great if we could just do it for the right reason and then we could turn our thoughts toward heaven?

That heaven would be the motivation for doing it, not what we would get on the earth.

God honors us when we do the right thing for the right reason.

Now here's the third thing is that we'll be rewarded for our attitudes.

You will be rewarded for your attitudes.

Now, if you've been a human being for more than six months, which I'm assuming that that's most of us here, have you noticed that life is a series of tests?

And sometimes we have to take the same test over and over and over again.

And do you know why we're having to take the same test over and over and over again?

Because we keep failing it over and over and over again.

Have you noticed that the same person that you've been hanging around for years and years still causes you to react in a wrong way, and it's been five years since you've known them, and every time you're around them, you still have a bad reaction around them.

Or there's someone you work with that every time you have any interaction with them, it just ruins your day.

I know that what I'm about to say is probably not even possible, but there I think there's a small probability, let me just ask the question.

Is it possible, although very small possibility, that you are the problem?

My grandmother had a saying that if you want to find out what's inside someone, just shake the glass.

That's how you know what's inside the glass.

You know that life is just a series of getting shaked, squeezed, pressurized, and when that happens, what comes out of us.

Is what God is most interested in.

How we respond to persecution, someone lying about you, someone defaming you, someone uh accusing you, how you respond to that is critical to God.

God is most interested in that.

Please look, this is what I'm about to tell you is absolute truth.

This is stuff you can use this week.

Satan is opposing you, but Jesus is testing you.

You have a bullseye on you when you became a believer.

And the bullseye is this Satan will oppose you.

But Jesus and the Holy Spirit, they will test you.

They will squeeze you.

They will find out what they know what's inside of you.

They just want you to agree with them.

Let's read in Scripture what it says.

Matthew chapter 5, verse 11.

Matthew 5:11

This is a very encouraging passage here.

God blesses you when you are mocked and persecuted and lied about.

Because you are my followers.

Now that sounds like a promise to me.

Does that sound like a promise that if you're a follower of Jesus, that these things are probably going to happen?

We see, we don't read.

We always want the promises of God.

Let me give you a promise of God, okay?

If you're his follower, you're going to be mocked and persecuted and lied about.

Isn't that exciting, okay?

But that's a promise from the Lord.

And he said, but here's another promise.

Be happy about it.

Be very glad.

Not just glad, be very glad.

For a great reward awaits you in heaven.

And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted too.

Luke 6.35.

Love your enemies.

Do good to them.

Lend to them.

And don't be concerned that they might not repay.

Hey, you still waiting for that$20 to come back to you?

You're not going to get it.

Let me just, that's a prophetic word to many of you.

You're not going to get the money back.

Then your reward from heaven will be very great.

And you'll be truly acting as children of the Most High, for He is kind to the unthankful and to those who are wicked.

You must be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate.

In fact, I made a joke of it.

Let me just say this to you.

If you'll lay down your offense about not getting repaid, if you'll lay it down today, God will reward you much more in heaven than you could ever get repaid here on the earth.

Just lay it down.

You're not going to get the money back.

And they're not going to apologize.

Some of you have been wasting a lot of time waiting by the phone, waiting for someone to call you and apologize.

They're not.

And if you'll lay it down today, the reward in heaven is going to be much better for you.

And the Lord's going to look at you and say, I'm so happy for you.

I am so grateful that you got it, that you caught it.

That you no longer look to the earth as your reward.

The people of the earth cannot reward you the way that He wants to reward you.

You know, one of the things that has been the biggest highlight of my time at Gateway Church were the miracle offerings, and I think we've had about four or five of them now.

But every time my wife and I, we pray like you do, and we give, and but I watch families come down and give sacrificially, and it's been one of the most powerful times at Gateway Church to see people give and have a joy to give and give sacrificially.

But I also know that many times, because we have such a faulty view of God's reward system, that we expect all the rewards to happen on the earth.

And I've had to sit with a lot of you and help you understand that God's rewards sometimes happen in heaven.

The things that you ask for are legitimate requests, but a lot of times God just wants to reward you in heaven.

God wants to reward you.

Sometimes it'll be on the earth.

Many times it will be on the earth.

But many times it'll be in heaven.

I don't know how many of you today are disappointed in God or disappointed in people, or just disappointed in life and it hasn't worked out.

And you feel like if you had to gauge yourself, if you had to evaluate yourself, you would say, you know, I've been a good person.

I love God.

I've tried to do the right thing every time, but it doesn't seem like that I've been rewarded.

It seems like that other people get the rewards, and I'm overlooked.

We just read a scripture a minute ago that was very clear.

And your Father, who is in heaven, will reward you.

He has kept very accurate records.

It will surprise you in heaven how accurate God's record keeping is.

He has not missed one opportunity to reward you.

And great will be the reward in heaven for you for doing the right thing for the right reason.

Would you close your eyes with me this morning?

I want to pray for you.

I know that there are some of you who are disappointed right now.

Maybe you're disappointed in God, you're disappointed in life and how life has treated you.

Maybe you're disappointed in people, and you're going through a test right now that you need God to help you with.

And you want to pass the test this time.

It seems like this test keeps repeating.

But this time you're making up your mind.

I want to pass the test.

I want to take this test again.

I want to pass the test.

Listen, God wants you to pass the test.

He wants to empower you.

Not only does he want to tell you what the test is, he wants to help you pass it today.

In just a moment, we're going to pray, and then we're going to call for the altar ministry team.

And if you're here today and you need prayer for anything, anything at all, but especially if you're disappointed in the Lord, you're disappointed in life, maybe there's a test that you're walking through right now that you really need the Lord to help you with.

We're going to be here and we're going to pray, and we'll stay as long as we need to.

So when I ask you to stand in a minute, but I want the altar ministry team to come to come right away.

We're going to need all of you here this morning to help us pray.

But we want you to step forward.

Don't leave here today without ministry, without someone praying for you and encouraging you.

Lord Jesus, we thank you so much.

Thank you that great is the reward in heaven.

Thank you that our reward in heaven is going to be great.

Thank you that you choose to reward us.

Lord, I pray today for any person here that is disappointed.

Lord, I pray that, Lord, that you would come today and encourage them.

I pray that your Holy Spirit would comfort them with the knowledge that great is their storehouse in heaven.

That you will reward them in heaven.

Lord, I pray today for those who are walking through a fiery trial, a test.

Lord, I pray you would encourage them, that you would undergird them with your mighty right hand, that you would be the lifter of their head, that you would fill them with the Holy Spirit.

Strengthen us for their life on the earth, Lord.

We know that heaven's going to be perfect.

Lord, we need strength for now, for right now on the earth.

We receive it today.

In Jesus' name.