The Eternal Reward of all Faithful Servants: Praise from God (1 Corinthians Sermon 14)

So turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians, chapter 4, be looking this morning at verses 1-5. And as I pray just a moment ago, 1 Corinthians 4 is a marvelous chapter in which we’re going to be swimming in the mindset of the apostle Paul as he talks about his own view towards life, and his own view toward ministry. And we’re going to begin by looking at verses 1-5. And as I did this morning as I was praying about this text, and about what I was about to preach, I was consumed by a kind of a unifying theme here to introduce. And that is, I want to ask you the question, just think about human life, what is the fuel that propels the drive for greatness among people? What is the fuel that propels a drive for excellence in every field of human endeavor? What makes an aviator get in a single engine, single seat plane and fly for 33 and a half hours (Charles Lindberg), across the Atlantic to arrive near Paris, France? What motivated him to do that?

What motivates a pharmaceutical researcher to spend long hours in lab, pursuing a cure to a disease like the common cold or cancer? What motivates all of those hours? What motivates an explorer, to be the first to stand on the North Pole? Wherever that is. And one after the other said, “I got there.” And then science said, “No, you didn’t.” Then the next one guy, “I was the first.” “No, you weren’t.” But anyway, that’s another journey for another day. But what motivated all of those explorers to be that one? Or what motivates a physicist to sit in a patent office and scribble out formulas that would change the way that people saw physics for the entire 21st century? What was the motivation behind that?

Or an Olympic athlete? Imagine a female figure skater that gets up way before sunrise and goes again to the rink, and works again on the quad, again and again, hitting the ice more times than she can count, more bruises, more cuts. What is the motivation behind all of that suffering?

There are many motives, but there’s one I have that dominates my mind and that is the love of honor. Love of honor. It’s one of the major drives in human experience toward amazing achievement and excellence in every field. I read some time ago, Napoleon when he was traveling en route to his final destination to the remote island of Saint Helena where he would die, after he had led armies 600,000 strong and more marching over the battlefields of Europe and he built a French empire that dominated continental Europe, and men fanatically followed him across the snows of Russia. Even into burnt out Moscow itself and then on to the blood soaked battlefields of Waterloo. What motivated their loyalty? And he was musing on this, and he said, this, “A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.” For a bit of colored ribbon.

Well, it’s not the ribbon, but it’s the honor that it represents. That’s why his soldiers made those kinds of sacrifices. Charles Lindberg, when he landed, after 33 and a half hours, landed to tens of thousands of cheering Frenchmen. And I know you’ll say a $10,000 prize. So you’re saying that was some of the motivation, but I don’t think that’s what really moved him. In 1921, Albert Einstein was paraded through the streets of New York with a ticker tape parade. The most famous physicist of our day, of their day. Many Olympic gold medal winners have done so to complete that perfect gold medal winning performance, and just stand there, the music’s over and the cheers just come cascading down and then she gets to climb up to the top podium and bend over and receive the gold medal. There’s just honor in all of that.

Now, there are twisted aspects of this. Our love of honor can be perverted. It can be twisted and it all started with Satan’s love of his own honor recorded for us, the primordial movement in Heaven, recorded I think in Isaiah 14, where he said, “I will ascend to Heaven. I will raise my throne above the stars of God… I will make myself like the most high.” And then his servants, human servants, followed in his footsteps with the same mentality. We see it again and again in Scripture, but my mind was led this morning to Genesis 11, the men of the Tower of Babel, who said, “Come let us build ourselves a city with a tower in it that reaches up to the Heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves.” The culmination of this twisted wicked self-focused love of honor, we see in Satan’s temptation of Jesus in the desert where he says to Jesus, “If you are the son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” But then just minutes later, he shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their honor and splendor. And said, “I’ll give all of this to you if you will bow down and worship me.”

Now, how in the world does a creature like Satan was… Creature is a created being, get to the point where he’s saying to his Creator, “Fall down on the ground and worship me.” So that’s the twisted, sick aspect of love, of honor or ambition, would be another way to talk about it. Thomas Brooks, the puritan said this, “Ambition is a gilded misery, a secret poison. Ambition is a hidden plague, the engineer of deceit, the mother of hypocrisy, the parent of envy, the original vice of the angels, and of Adam and Eve. Ambition is the destroyer of virtue, the blinder of hearts. High seats are never but uneasy, and every crown is stuffed with thorns.”

Well, that’s Thomas Brooks, the puritan talking about ambition. So one would think that all ambition is evil, all love of glory or love of honor is corrupt, but not so. The apostle Paul used the word, translated ambition, three times in his writing. The original Greek is literally, “love of honor.” In Romans 15 he said, “It’s always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not named so I would not be building on someone else’s foundation rather as it is written. ‘Those who were not told about him will hear and those who have not heard will understand.'” The overwhelming ambition of Paul’s apostolic life, and ministry was to preach the Gospel in uncharted territories. The word literally is love of honor. “I wanted the honor of doing it.” That’s what Paul’s saying.

But then you get a different use of the word in 1 Thessalonians 4:11, where he writes to Thessalonian believers, very average brothers and sisters in Christ, who are not called on to be frontier, trail blazing apostles to the gentiles, but just to lead normal lives, he uses the same word, “Make it your ambition, [have the love of the honor] of leading a quiet life, minding your own business, and working hard with your own hands so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and you won’t be dependent on anybody.” Same word, love of honor different calling though. Very different calling. And then the one that binds them all together, 2 Corinthians 5:9, Paul says, “So then whether we are at home or away from the body, we make it our aim, or we have the ambition, to please Christ.” My ambition… I would love the honor of pleasing Christ every moment of my life. Love of honor.

Now if the motive is that Christ will honor us for serving him and that Christ will be pleased with us in everything that we do, actually that motive is not evil, it is not twisted. I would say it’s required. The alternative here is not live a life with no ambition at all. Too many people are doing that. We’re surrounded by them every day. They seem to live for nothing. But instead that we would have a burning ambition and the apostle Paul is probably the best in church history to point the way on how to do that. What are the mindsets of servant hood? What are the mindsets that lead to a life that’s going to be lavishly honored and praised by God? But I would say it’s required and there are many texts behind this. For example, Hebrews 11:6, where it says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists, and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him.” In other words, if you diligently seek Him every day, He will reward you. And actually you can’t please him if you don’t think like that.

Or again Romans 2:7-8, the apostle Paul is describing in Romans 2, two different ways to live and this is what he says. In Romans 2:7-8, he says, “To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, to them He’ll give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking, who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.” Those are just the two different ways to live in this world. So the Christian life is a life of people who by persistence in doing good work seek glory, honor, and immortality. Now, we’re not seeking that God would be immortal. He already is. So therefore, it’s immortality for us that we would live forever. That we would seek to live forever. So then the other two are self-referential as well. That we would seek to be glorious in Heaven, to shine like the sun, and that we would seek the honor that God will give to faithful servants. That’s the way you should live your life.

Now, I believe that we are still corrupted in our sin nature. We’re still tempted toward vain glory. We’re still tempted towards selfish ambition, and so we need to be very careful about this topic. But this is really how I see it. It really just has to do with the vertical axis and the horizontal. If your focus is continually vertical and you’re saying at every moment, “All I want is to please and glorify and honor my heavenly Father,” He will reward you and honor you. But if you are focused, horizontally and saying, “What I want is to please this audience, or that audience, the others. I want tens of thousands waiting for me outside of Paris, cheering me when I land my plane. I want a whole stadium of people cheering me when I finish my routine. I want the ticker tape parade where everyone sees that I’m the greatest physicist that has ever lived.”

Now that is the twisted and sick aspect. I’m not saying that any of those individuals did feel that. I don’t know what Charles Lindberg thought when he was landing. I think he was straight exhausted, been awake for 55 hours and he just needed to get to a hotel room and go to bed. And I don’t know what Dorothy Hamill or Peggy Fleming thought when they won the gold medal. I don’t know. I don’t know what Albert Einstein was thinking as he’s driving down surrounded by a ticker tape swirling. I don’t know.

But my concerns with your hearts and mine, so we have to be careful. We have to be that, like Paul says of the true Jew, the one whose circumcision is not physical, but spiritual by the Holy Spirit. Such a person’s praise is not from men, but from God. Praise from God? Is that… Yeah, that’s what we’re talking about today. That you, as a servant would live your whole life seeking to please your master so much so that he will say at the end of your life, not just once but many times and not just once, but for all eternity. “Well done, good and faithful servant.” That’s what we’re talking about.

I. Christ’s Servants: Stewards of the Mysteries of God

And so Paul is our role model. Now, this is the first of three sermons in 1st Corinthians 4, that’s going to set Paul up as a role model for us. And so we’re going to look and sit at his feet, and we’re going to just basically follow his example, so we desire to be faithful servants. We’re going to walk through what it means to be a faithful servant of Christ and we’re going to begin at verse 1, Paul servant… Sorry, Christ’s servants are stewards of the mystery of God. Mysteries of God. Look at verse 1.

“So then men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God.” So the question in front of us in verse 1 is, how should people regard us? Now the us is not us first. We need to stay in the text. It’s how should we regard Paul and the other apostles and the fellow servants of the word of God. That’s what that word us means there. But then we’re going to try to follow him and try to imitate his example as best we can. So how should people regard Paul?

Paul here I think has been walking a tight rope. Remember the problem in 1 Corinthians 1 through 3 has been their overwhelming love for human agency, human servants and workers and all that. They love eloquence, they love gifts, and all that sort of stuff. And so, they were saying, “I follow Paul…I follow Apollos…I follow Cephas…” and all that kind of thing, and Paul’s trying to strip that away, and he does it very vigorously in Chapter 3, where he says very plainly, verse 5, “What after all is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered, but God made it grow so neither he who plants, nor he who waters is anything, but only God who makes him grow.” So if you take all that and boil it down, Paul is saying, “I am nothing. God is everything.” But on the other hand, like I said, he’s walking a tight rope. He has to go the other way and say, “Yes, but however, I am the apostle to the gentiles, and I am a conduit of God’s truth and of the mysteries of God. And you need to not think too lowly of me either.” So don’t think too highly of me, I am just a servant, but don’t think too lowly either and say, “I can’t hear anything from Paul.”

So he’s got to say, “Yes, but I’ve got a special role to play.” And so he has to work against Satan’s work to slander Paul and this is going on all the time. Paul was one of the most slandered people that’s ever lived. And so they’re saying like, “I can hear the word from Apollos and I can hear it from Peter, but I just can’t hear it from Paul. I’m done with Paul.” Paul’s shut down. He’s like, “Don’t do that. You need to regard me properly. And how would you regard me? Well, you have to regard me, us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. That’s how you should look at me.” So he wants them to know that he is a servant, but he really isn’t their servant. He is Christ’s servant. He’s answerable to Jesus. And not ultimately them. It’s really important to understand that. Some churches I think need to understand this more than they do. Now, I thank God that FBC Durham is not one of them.

I think this church has a very healthy esteem for elders and teachers of the Word and pastors and I’m grateful for that, but not every church does. There’s some churches who treat their pastors like employees and though they may not say it, they say, “Look, we pay your salary. You’re answerable to us.” Paul would say, “Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m not answerable to you or to any human court at all. I am answerable to Christ who called me on the road to Damascus, who could have struck me dead on the road to the Damascus, but didn’t. Instead now said, “Now get up and go into the city and you’ll be told what you must do.” I’m answerable to Him. My life is in his hands, my calling is I am Christ’s servant.”

That’s what he’s saying. So people ought to regard us. That’s how you ought to see us. Apostles, me, as would Paul say, the apostle, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God, we serve Christ. He is the master to whom we’re going to give an account on Judgment Day. We’re going to stand before Jesus and tell him everything that we did in the body, whether good or bad. We’re going to talk to Jesus about that, 7 Corinthians 5:10. Not to you. So Christ is the master and we are faithful ministers of the Word and we have to answer to him. And ultimately, Paul says we are also stewards of the mysteries of God. Now, a steward is a servant in a household who manages the master’s material possessions. The stuff that the steward manages doesn’t belong to him. It’s not his stuff. He is under the master managing his money, managing his kegs of wheat, barrels of wheat or of oil, olive oil or wine, whatever it is. He’s managing but it’s not his stuff. It belongs to the master. But he has to give an account for his management. He’s going to give an account.

And he says, we are “stewards of the mysteries of God.” Now we have sung some hymns this morning that have just melted my heart and I just wept, praise God for your gifts, just we’re swimming in the mystery of the cross. How can we fully understand Almighty God dying for us? I mean, do we have the ability to plumb the depths of that mystery? Do we understand the mystery of the incarnation? Paul says, beyond all question the mystery of Godliness is great. He appeared in a body and was worshipped by angels. How do you figure that out? Christianity is a religion of mysteries. What that means is, things hidden in the mind of God, but then at the right time revealed and made known through the ministry of the Word. And so, there are mysteries that are unfolding in Christianity, things that we wouldn’t know any other way, and they focus on Christ. In Christ are hidden all the mysteries of wisdom and knowledge. All of it’s wrapped up in Him. Christ in us, the hope of glory is called a mystery.

There are mysteries about the future that we don’t fully understand, like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, “Behold I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed.” So there is a future generation of people who will not die physically, they’ll be alive when Jesus returns at the second coming of Christ. But they will be transformed, because flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, and so they have to have resurrection bodies. That’s all a mystery. We are stewards of these mysteries, the mysteries of God. The greatest mystery of all is, what’s this all about, what’s the purpose of all of this? He says in Ephesians 1:9-10, “And he made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He first purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment, that’s the end of everything, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head even Christ.” That’s a mystery, that’s what this is all about. So these mysteries will take the rest of our lives and we still won’t plumb the depths of them.

Paul says, “You ought to see us as servants of Christ and stewards of these mysteries. So don’t think too lightly or lowly of me, because you’re going to miss some of the mysteries, you’re going to miss some of the instruction. You need to stay under my teaching as I continue to be a faithful steward of the mysteries of God.”

II. Christ’s Servants’ Requirement: Faithfulness

Secondly, Christ servants requirements is faithfulness. What do we… What does Christ want out of us? Faithfulness. Look at Verse 2, “Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful,” that’s all that Christ wants of his servants, faithfulness, faithfulness. I’m going to set you up each of you, my sons and daughters, I’m going to set you up in a ministry, in a life and it’s going to be in some ways very common and similar to others, but in some way unique to you, tailor-made for you. I’m going to set you up in a calling, and I want one thing from you, be faithful to what I gave you to do. Be faithful. If you’re a husband, be faithful, be a faithful husband. If you’re a wife, be a faithful wife. If you’re a mother, be a faithful… Be faithful to being a mother. If you’re a father, be faithful to being a father. If you’re a pastor, be a faithful Shepherd. Be faithful to what I gave you to do. Faithfulness.

Now for me, faithfulness, just means obedience, just do what I told you to do, you can’t do any better than what Christ commanded you to do. This just destroys all worldly ambitions. There’s so many ambitions that men and women have. It’s like, I want this and I want that and I want to do great, it’s like, you can’t do any better than what Christ wants you to do. That’s the highest calling you can ever have. I actually reject what Martin Lloyd-Jones and some others say, the highest calling is preaching the Word. I actually don’t think that’s true. The highest calling for any servant is what the master called you to do. There is no higher calling than that for you. So just be obedient. What that means is, you’re a soldier, you’re put at a post, stay at your post. Do what your commanding officer told you to do, and don’t get lured by temptations toward treason or cowardice. Stay at your post, don’t give yourself over and become a traitor, having been bought with gold and silver, worldliness. Don’t become a traitor to Christ and don’t be a coward when the bullets start flying, stay at your post and do what you’re… Even if you have to die, that’s what courageous soldiers do. Stay at your post, don’t give yourself… Be faithful to what I’ve told you to do.

Paul met this criteria in amazing ways. He said to King Agrippa, “So then King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,“ “I did what Christ wanted me to do. Everywhere I go, I’m beaten up for the Gospel, and I’m still at my post, I’m still doing what Christ called me to do on the road to Damascus.”

So the question before all of us, just right in the middle of the sermon, I just want to apply this. How about you? What is your calling? What are your spiritual gifts? Where are you positioned? Are you being faithful? Are you being faithful? Now, you may be in a process of preparation, you may not really know what your spiritual gifts are, you might be a teenager, for example, you know Christ as your Lord and Savior, but you don’t know what your spiritual gifts are yet. I understand that, there’s a process, but you know… And it could be even beyond that. You still don’t know, but in the end, what are you gifted, what are you called to do and are you being faithful to your calling? That’s all that the Lord requires of us.

III. Christ’s Servants’ Freedom: Concern Over Human Judgments

Now, Paul’s clarity on this, frees him up entirely from human evaluation. It brings us to point 3, Christ servant’s freedom is concerned over human judgments. This is a very bold verse, I love it. 1 Corinthians 4:3, Paul says this, “I care very little if I’m judged by you or by any human court.” There are a lot of ways I could rephrase that. I’ll try to be careful, not give him an attitude he really didn’t have, but “I don’t give a flip what you think about me.” We are at that point now, I really don’t care. The funny thing is, he clearly does care in other ways, but he doesn’t care like we think he cares. He writes basically, almost all of 2 Corinthians to defend himself and his ministry against the super apostles, so he does care very much what they think about him, but not in the way you and I, through our ego-maniacal ways would, not like that. He says, “I care what you think about me in that I want to be certain you can continue to receive the Word of God from me.” But in an ultimate sort of sense, I have seen the resurrected glorified Jesus. I’ve seen Christ. I know I deserve to die on the road to Damascus. Paul wrote the words, “If anyone destroys God’s church, God will destroy him.”

 “I deserve to die. So my death sentence is a suspended sentence and I’m walking under that and I realize that my life, for the rest of my life, isn’t mine anymore. It was bought with a price. I am a servant of the king. So putting it a little more gently, I care very little what you think about me, and frankly, I care very little what any human being thinks about me.”

It’s a very powerful thing. Because we are so dominated by concern about other people’s opinions. I remember watching years and years ago, one of my first children was a little baby getting a little bit older, starting to be aware of other human beings did something that everyone in the room thought was funny. And he liked that so much, he did it again and again and again until it wasn’t funny anymore, alright? But I was just thinking about that feedback loop from infancy, how we care about facial expressions and expressions of pleasure. And I like you and I’m happy with what you’re doing. And then we become addicted to that.

And we have to have that severed in some very vigorous ways in order to serve Christ as faithfully as we can. So Paul says, “I care very little if I’m judged by you or by any human court.” Now, no one was in my opinion, I don’t know anybody in church history that was arraigned before more human courts than the Apostle Paul. I mean, it’s almost like the last third of the Book of Acts it is court trial after court trial, after court trial. That’s just Paul on trial. So he knew what it was like to be arraigned before human tribunals. But he said, “I’m actually freed up. I’m freed up from what they think, I’m freed up from what Agrippa thinks about me, or Herod thinks about me. I’m freed up from what any of the Romans think about me. I’m freed up from what the Emperor Nero thinks about me, I’m freed up from that. And I’m freed up Corinthians from what you think about me. I care very little. It’s a light thing.” Their judgment of him will mean literally zero on Judgment Day. Do you understand that? Literally nothing. What anybody thinks of you, any other human being will vanish into nothingness when you stand before Christ.

As Paul wrote in Romans 8:31, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Or you could it say this way, “If God is for us, who cares who’s against us.” Or “If God is for us, what does it matter what anybody is either for or against us?” None of it matters. All that matters is God is for us. But so, also, when it comes to evaluation, all that matters is what God, what Christ thinks about us.

And you know, it’s interesting, Paul here includes himself in this. He says, “I don’t even judge myself.” “I don’t even evaluate my own life in ministry. My own evaluation of my life, my deeds, the seeds I planted, the harvest that came from it, I don’t know.” Frankly God hides most of our fruitfulness from us. We are called on to broadcast seed sow, and just sowing and sowing and sowing, and sowing. We don’t know. I have no idea how fruitful I’ve been. And I’m pretty convinced God doesn’t want me to know, because I’m pretty convinced that I can’t handle it if it’s good. If I find out, I’ve been incredibly used by God, I will become an egomaniac, and none of you will want to be around me. So God does a lot of things to humble me, and he does a lot of things to humble you.

Now I believe in heaven we’ll be able to handle the truth and we will see our full harvest of righteousness then. But it won’t matter at all, what any human audience thought or what I thought about myself. All that will matter is what Christ thought about me. Now he says, “My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent.” Do you realize how important a statement that is? Hey, I have a clear conscience. I have a clear conscience. People say that. I have a clear conscience, as though that’s the final word. Friends, it isn’t. Your opinion about yourself is not the final word on you. Christ’s word is the final word on you. And so, just because you have a clear conscience doesn’t mean you’re innocent. Now, don’t go too far. Conscience is important, it’s part of the original equipment that God gave us in the image of God. It’s that internal part of you that presses you to do right and not do wrong, and then evaluates you after the fact of whether it thinks you did right or wrong. And it’s a good thing. And so Paul says, “there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked, so I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man.”

It is a very good thing to have a clear conscience. It’s not a bad thing. As a matter of fact, as a Christian, I can say, I think almost 100% of the time, if you violate your conscience, you have sinned. So don’t violate your conscience, don’t do something your conscience tells you not to do. Now, if you press me and say, “Pastor, what’s the difference between the voice of conscience and the voice of the Holy Spirit?” I’ll say, “Let’s have a long discussion over coffee. I don’t know that I can tell the difference. But I do know that our conscience can be corrupted and hardened, but then it can be healed and redeemed, and the Holy Spirit can use it. So Paul mentions it positively. All he’s saying is, his clear conscience is not the final word on his life. Christ’s evaluation is all that matters.

IV. Christ’s Servants’ Judgment: Secrets Exposed, Rewards Given

Fourthly, Christ servant’s judgment secrets exposed, rewards given. Look at verse 5, “Therefore, judge nothing before the appointed time. Wait till the Lord comes, He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of people’s hearts.”

Well, since human judgments mean nothing, he’s saying to them, “Stop evaluating my ministry. Stop weighing it.” Now listen, it is essential that Paul be proven as a faithful minister of the Word of God, that’s essential. And all congregations should evaluate their teachers, their pastors, their elders continually in some sense. Because it is possible that elders, pastors, teachers of the Word can be wolves in sheep’s clothing. But keep in mind, Jesus said, “By their fruit, you will recognize them.” He taught that you would be able to identify wolf-ish behavior and be able to see the snarling teeth under the sheep clothing. So it is important to evaluate the teachers of the Word, and also Luke in Acts 17:11 talked about the Bereans, you remember the Bereans? He said, “Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness, and then examined the scriptures daily to see if what Paul said was true.”

Let me ask you a question, do you think I’m going to be offended if I find out that you guys went home today and read over 1 Corinthians 4:1-5, to see if what I said was true? No, please do it. Please go back over the Scripture and see if what I said is true, see if this is what Paul is teaching about how a faithful servant of Christ should be. If on some point you think differently, let’s talk about it, etcetera. But that’s exactly what Bereans should do. But once you’ve settled, if the pastors are faithfully expositing the Word of God and are faithfully teaching the Word of God, then be thankful for them. And keep receiving the Word from them. That’s what Paul’s zealous about here. However, ultimately only Judgment Day when Christ returns will we be able to see the final truth. Like was said of George Whitfield, he said he wanted this in this tomb, here lies George Whitfield, what sort of man he was that day will reveal. In other words, that’s all there needs to be said about George Whitfield. At the second coming of Christ, wait till the Lord comes, and on that day, everyone’s works are going to be tested, and there’ll be gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay and straw, there’s going to be all of that, all of that will be revealed on that day.

Final analysis. The Lord alone then can read the human heart. Christ is going to lay bare all of our hearts, he’s going to lay bare our motives, why we did what we did. Some people, we will find serve the Lord from pure motives, as much as sinners can ever do that, love for God vertically, love for others horizontally as best as we can do it, never perfect. Our works all need to be purified. But the motives, why we did what we did will be laid bare. Jesus said to the church in Revelation 2:23, “I am He who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.” So he’s going to test our motives. Why we did what we did? And our works, what we did? So the Psalmist says in Psalm 1:39, “O Lord, You have searched me and You know me.” I think one of the best things we can do as servants of Christ to say, at the end of the Psalm, “O Lord, search me and know me. Try me, and test me and show me myself, and see if there’s any hurtful way in me, any unrighteous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:23-24, do that. Just say, “Oh God search me, give me a fore taste of that judgment, so I can do a course correction.”

V. Christ’s Servants’ Reward: Praise from God

Christ servant’s reward ultimately is praise from God. Now, we come full circle to where I began. 1 Corinthians 4:5 is, in my opinion, one of the most important Verses in the Bible on rewards. If you were to ask me, what are the rewards, what are we getting? I want to boil it down to these three words, in one of the translations. Praise from God. ESV has commendation, that’s fine, but I just like simply praise from God, not praise for God, we’ll be doing that for all eternity, giving God the praise, giving God the glory.

No, this is something else, this is God praising us. And this is not in the sense of fall down and worship me, it’s not that. It’s the sense of a pleased father commending a beloved son, or daughter. This is good fathering, we’ll talk about this at the end of the chapter. But Godly fathers commend their children and say, “Well done.” And so Godly master say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” And I love the rest of that statement. Not so famous, but I’ve talked about it so many times. “Well done, good and faithful servant. You’ve been faithful of a few things. I’m going to put you in charge of many things, enter into the joy of your Master.” That’s the reward.

Come, you and me, Father, Heavenly Father, and adopted son or daughter, let’s the two of us share together the joy that I had over that particular good work. Let’s have a relationship over the time you went into your room, closed the door and prayed to your Father as unseen and I will reward you with how much that pleased me. The time that you gave to the poor and needy, and no one knew what you did, no one knew what your right hand or your left hand was doing, you just did it to please me, I saw it, well done. Enter into my joy over that. That’s the reward, praise from God. And my feeling is, this is the very thing that Jesus told you to store up in heaven. When he talked about your giving and your praying and your fasting, none of those things should be seen by others, to be praised by them. You should do them all vertically that God would see you and praise you and He will and then he said, “Do not store for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also.

Store up, praise from God. Store it up, store it up, every day, store it up this afternoon. Store it up tonight, store it up tomorrow morning, that God would praise you, praise you, praise you, praise you for what you did. Such as, I’m pleased with you, I’m pleased with you, I’m pleased with you. So many Scriptures teach this. Paul says in Ephesians says to find out what pleases the Lord. Don’t you think the implication is to do it. Find out what makes God pleased with you, and just for you to have a father-centered life, and say, “I just want everything I do to please you Father, all the time,” and he will express it to you. And actually, Hebrews 11:6 says that you must believe that He will express it to you some day.

VI. Applications

Alright, so that’s 1 Corinthians 4:1-5, let’s apply it. Let me just start by speaking to you, who are as yet perhaps unbelievers. Maybe you’re invited here today, maybe you came in off the street or maybe you’ve been coming to church for a long time, but you know that you’re not a Christian. Here’s the thing, the Bible makes it very plain in Romans Chapter 2, that we’re either storing up praise from God or storing up wrath from God. One or the other.

There’s no third option. Every single day, if you’re an unbeliever, you’re storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. But here’s the beauty of the Gospel, we’ve already sung it, we praise Jesus for this. God sent His son to stand under His righteous justice and wrath against you and take it from you on the cross, so that He, Jesus stands before you and says, “Give me all of your sin and guilt and I will absorb the wrath of God for that and you’ll be free, there’ll be no condemnation for you.” And all you need to do for that is trust in Him. No good works will merit him doing that for you, He just offers that to you freely by grace through faith. So trust in Christ. And once you do that, once you trust in Him, you will immediately flip and start storing up treasure in Heaven, start storing up praise, praise from God in heaven. That’s a whole different way to live.

Secondly, let me just speak to you who are already redeemed. You came in here, you’re believers, you’ve been listening, I just want to set before you an ambition. Just have an overwhelming ambition all the time. 2 Corinthians 5:9 tells us to please God every moment of your life. Don’t live a flaccid, lazy, pleasure-seeking, indulgent kind of… I could keep going and will next week, American life that seeks a truce with the surrounding Christ-hating world and seeks a lazy, pleasure-seeking, sodded way of life that is so endemic here in the west. Let’s not live like that. Let’s instead live a life of ambition, a life of fiery ambition. I don’t know, some of you might be like Paul called on to go overseas and preach the Gospel where Christ has never been named. There’s still unreached people groups.

Others of you may be more called like 1 Thessalonians 4:11 to lead a quiet life, mind your own business, work hard with your hands and live a glorious life. There’s an honor in that too, but whatever God’s calling you to do, live every moment, a life of ambition. I want to please my master every moment. In order to do that, finally I just would urge you more and more free yourself from care about what other people think about you.

What difference does it make what your acquaintance in the cubicle over there or the person sitting next to you on the plane, or the neighbor diagonally across the street or your unsaved relative thinks about you? What difference does it make? If that’s hindering you from sharing the Gospel with them, get over it. It doesn’t matter what they think about you. Free yourself up and then say, “Lord,” vertically, “All I want in each of these relationships is to please you,” and God will give you power to share the Gospel with each of them. Close with me in prayer.

Father, thank you for the apostle Paul, thank you for the things that he taught us, thank you for the example that he is to us. And Father, I pray that you would please strengthen each of us, free us up from fanatical commitment to self. Free us up from caring too much what people think about us. Free us up O Lord, to do the river of good works that you have prepared in advance for us. Help this church to be on fire for Christ, to be on fire for souls, to see more and more people in the community and even to the ends of the earth, brought over into safety and salvation through faith in Christ. Strengthen us Lord, and fill us with your spirit. Thank you that you’ve loved us enough to tell us the truth in Jesus’s name, Amen.

Love of honor motivates people to make extreme sacrifices

Think of an Olympic figure skater who gets up for years to practice, to hone her craft… think of the number of times she crashes to the ice, the hard bruises and painful gashes from her skates, the early morning cold… all for WHAT? The glory of an Olympic gold medal, and with it the cascading praise that will shower on her head… she can picture the final moments of her gold-medal performance; the music ends and the crowd erupts in overwhelming praise for her skill and dedication

Or think of the extreme sacrifices made by a loyal soldier seeking to please his commanding officer… what he will do to win a medal of honor

On July 15, 1815, the defeated Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, boarded the British warship, the HMS Bellerophon, and was being sent to his final earthly destination… exiled to the tiny volcanic island of St. Helena in the exact middle of the South Atlantic, over 700 miles from the nearest island. This man had thrown the world into turmoil for twenty years… he had led armies of over 600,000 men; he had won battles in Egypt, and throughout Europe; he at one point controlled most of Continental Europe; the Napoleonic Wars resulted in the deaths of as many as 6 million human beings

His soldiers were fanatically loyal to him, and were willing to trudge through the snows of Russia in order to establish his glory

As Napoleon was talking with the captain of the Bellerophon, the ship that would carry him to St. Helena… he was in a pensive and ironic mood. He reflected back over his amazing military career, and the immense sacrifices his soldiers made to win him an empire. He then uttered these famous words:

“A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon”

Medals of honor, medals of valor, medals of glory, medals of achievement, medals of bravery, medals of service…

Napoleon said these motivate men more than just about anything

Why? It is because inside each of us is a yearning for glory and recognition, for honor and praise.

It is essentially idolatrous in the non-Christian, because it is not connected in any way to faith in Christ.

But what then should we do with this… every Christian yearns to hear one statement from Christ on Judgment Day:

Matthew 25:21 ‘Well done, good and faithful servant!

Is it WRONG to yearn for praise and honor and commendation from Christ, our Master? Amazingly, not only is it not wrong, it is sinful NOT to live for this and yearn for it:

Romans 2:7-8 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.

Paul describes the life of those who go to heaven… by PERSISTENCE IN DOING GOOD, they are seeking GLORY, HONOR, and IMMORTALITY

This and this alone is the way to live your whole life!

A life that God will richly reward by grace on Judgment Day

Conversely, one of the greatest idols of the human experience is seeking PRAISE FROM PEOPLE… to seek to please man rather than God

John 12:42-43 Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; 43 for they loved praise from men more than praise from God.

Paul also addresses this. He speaks of what he calls “a true Jew, a true son of Abraham”… the person who’s heart has been circumcised by the Spirit, not by the written code, a person who lives by faith in the unseen God:

Romans 2:29 Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God

In our text this morning, we are going to walk with Paul through his internal motivation in serving Christ

Paul was someone who lived for human glory… for the accolades given by human courts… he sought to please the Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court; to win the approval of the High Priest and his family by his persecution of the church… he was living for the temporary mist of PRAISE FROM MEN

But on the Road to Damascus, Paul was supernaturally weaned from all that The glorious risen Christ called him into his service; and from that day on, he lived only to please his Master… he was set free from human opinion, and lived only to serve Christ

I.  Christ’s Servants: Stewards of the Mysteries of God

1 Corinthians 4:1 So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God.

A.  Basic Question: How Should People Regard Us?

B.  Paul Walking a Tightrope

1.  On the one hand, he has been humbling himself and all servants of Christ, so that none of the Corinthians would think TOO HIGHLY of them

1 Corinthians 3:5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe– as the Lord has assigned to each his task.

1 Corinthians 3:7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.

2.  But on the other hand, he has to defend his ministry to the Corinthians; he has to make them willing again to submit to his authority as an Apostle; he doesn’t want them to think TOO LOWLY of him either

3.  Many of them had been poisoned specifically against Paul… they were willing to receive the word from Apollos or from other teachers, but not from Paul

4.  This is undoubtedly the work of Satan, because Paul had a unique role as apostle to the Gentiles; so Paul was uniquely singled out for attack and slander

5.  So, in this chapter, Paul has to reestablish his authority as an Apostle, and he will do it by appealing to his sufferings

6.  But first, though he makes very little of himself as a servant, and though he has said “All things are yours…”

1 Corinthians 3:21-22 So then, no more boasting about men! All things are yours, 22
whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas

7.  YET… he wants them to know that he is not THEIR servant but Christ’s

8.  He is not ultimately answerable to them but to Christ

Some churches need to understand this more deeply than they do

I thank God for FBC and for the marvelous way this church embraces and encourages the leadership of the elders and of faithful teachers of the Word

BUT there are some churches who treat their pastors like employees, and think “We pay your salary; you are answerable to us! You serve at our pleasure!”

Paul would say, “Nothing could be further from the truth! I was called by Christ to preach the gospel. I am answerable ultimately to him. So while I am your servant to bring you the word and to lead you to spiritual health and maturity, you Corinthians are not my master… Christ is!”

C.  So… People Ought to Regard Us as…

1.  Paul cares how the Corinthians were seeing ALL faithful ministers of the word… but especially HIM

2.  So he begins in the plural… “US” meaning all servants of the word

3.  And how should they regard us? How should they think of us?

D.  “Servants of Christ and Stewards of the Mysteries of God”

1.  First and foremost, we serve Christ… he is the Master to whom we are accountable

2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

2.  Since Christ is the Master, each faithful minister of the Word must ultimately answer to him and him alone

3.  Not only as servants of Christ, but Paul calls him and his fellow ministers STEWARDS of the MYSTERIES of God

a.  A steward is a servant put in charge of managing the Master’s possessions

b.  A steward does not own what he is managing, but has a measure of authority to make decisions about his Master’s estate

c.  Paul has been entrusted with the ministry of the Word of God and the shepherding of these churches he has been planting

d.  As a steward, he knows full well the church and the Word do not belong to him, but to Christ… and he will someday have to give an account for his management

E.  What are the “mysteries of God”?

1.  This is clearly the ministry of the Word, but especially as the full plans of God are being unfolded before their very eyes

2.  Paul uses the word “mystery” many times in his epistle

a.  A Mystery is something hidden in the mind of God but part of his eternal plan for the salvation of his people

b.  These mysteries are now being revealed in the final days, the days since the incarnation of Christ

c.  Christ himself is called the “mystery” of God

1 Timothy 3:16 Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.

In other words, there are aspects of Christ’s mission which were hidden in God for ages past and only now are being revealed through the preaching of the Word

d.  The salvation of the Gentiles as full members of the people of God is called a mystery

Ephesians 3:6 This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

e.  Paul also calls the indwelling of Christ in us by the Holy Spirit a mystery

Colossians 1:27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

f.  And finally, Paul calls the future plans of God a mystery now being unfolded by revelation

Ephesians 1:9-10 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment– to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:51-52 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed– 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

3.  Paul was a steward of these mysteries… they were revealed first to him and the other apostles, so that they could then be preached among the churches and become part of our theology, part of our understanding of God’s purposes for us and the world

F.  People OUGHT TO REGARD US as Servants of Christ and Stewards of God’s Mysteries

1.  Those are WEIGHTY offices, worthy of sincere respect

2.  So, Paul is saying, do not think TOO HIGHLY of me as a servant… put all your focus on God and on Christ

3.  BUT do not think TOO LOWLY of me as a steward of God’s mysteries… I am unveiling to you the fullness of God’s wise plan for the ages, and without that unveiling you would be lost eternally

II.  Christ’s Servants’ Requirement: Faithfulness

1 Corinthians 4:2 Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.

1.    All that Christ Wants from His Servants: Faithfulness

a.   The eternal, complex plan belongs to the infinite mind of God

b.  He alone knows how best to position his servants for maximum effectiveness

c.   He calls a person, equips him or her for the mission, providentially orchestrates the circumstances of his/her work

2.   The One Thing He Requires: Faithfulness

a.   Literally, this is what the Lord SEEKS, DEMANDS from his servants and stewards… faithfulness to himself

b.  This really just means obedience…

John 14:15 “If you love me, you will obey what I command.

c.   BUT a special kind of obedience… obedience TO A SPECIFIC WORK OVER A LONG TIME and obedience DESPITE THE OBSTACLES

d.  Faithfulness means loyalty and trustworthiness… given a task, you DO IT… you SEE IT THROUGH

e.   It also means, in the context of warfare, that the soldier will remain loyal to his flag, his country, his orders, his commanding officer, despite any temptations toward treachery…

a.  Temptations like cowardice under fire

b.  Or allurements by the enemy to become a turncoat, to betray his country

f.   Christ wants all his servants to be FAITHFUL to him, loyal to his Kingdom, courageous in the battle, unable to be tempted to become a TRAITOR

g.  Paul met this criteria in AMAZING WAYS… despite almost incalculable costs, he was faithful to the heavenly vision of Christ calling him into his service

At his trial before King Agrippa, Paul described his calling by Christ on the Road to Damascus, and how the Lord had given his commission to preach the gospel boldly:

Acts 26:19 “So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven.

3.   The Question Before us All… HAVE WE BEEN FAITHFUL?

a.   The Lord has called us into his service… are we serving him or our own appetites?

b.  The Lord has called us to witness to our generation… to our neighbors and coworkers and unsaved family and friends… HAVE WE BEEN FAITHFUL?

c.   The Lord has entrusted us with many blessings as STEWARDS… money, time, strength, spiritual gifts, opportunities… HAVE WE BEEN FAITHFUL?

Paul’s clarity on this frees him up entirely from human evaluation

III.  Christ’s Servants’ Freedom: Concern Over Human Judgments

1 Corinthians 4:3 I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself.

1.    Literally, Paul says “For me, it a very small thing, something of very little importance” whether I am judged by you or any human court

2.   Paul spoke from experience: he had been ARRAIGNED before more human courts and tribunals than any figure in church history

3.   Again and again, he was hauled up in front of the authorities to give a defense for himself, his life, and his doctrine

4.    Paul’s total focus on Christ’s pleasure FREED HIM UP from grave concern about human opinions

5.   That included the Corinthians themselves… he was very aware that they were judging him harshly, slandering him, deriding him

6.   Paul said FOR HIMSELF…it really didn’t matter what they thought at all

a.   Their judgment of him WILL MEAN LITERALLY NOTHING on Judgment Day

Romans 8:31 If God is for us, who can be against us?

7.    Paul actually INCLUDES HIMSELF in this

a.   His own evaluation of his life, his deeds, his motives, his achievements will mean literally nothing if they are different than Christ’s

b.  We must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ, and Christ’s judgment will be perfect and final

c.   At that time, will it matter at all what you or anyone else thought about your life?

d.  Will it matter what your non-Christian boss or neighbor thinks about you? Will it matter what the total stranger sitting next to you on the plane thinks about you?

8.    Even Our Conscience Cannot Vindicate Us

1 Corinthians 4:4 My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.

1.  Paul mentions his conscience many times, and it is a weighty thing to have a clear conscience

2.  The conscience is the part of us that urges us to DO RIGHT and AVOID DOING WRONG and then evaluates our behavior/motives and says “YOU DID RIGHT” or “YOU DID WRONG”

3.  Paul in some sense did evaluate his conscience… as he says here: “My conscience is clear”… AND during his trial before Felix

Acts 24:15-16 I [believe] that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. 16 So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man.

If you violate your conscience as a Christian, you have almost certainly SINNED… and therefore it is a worthy goal to never do anything that causes you to have a GUILTY CONSCIENCE

4.  BUT this is a key verse to say that a clear conscience is not enough… Christ will not be asking us about our clear conscience on Judgment Day… he will simply JUDGE US

I. Bottom Line: All Human Judgment is NOTHING Compared to the Evaluation of the King!

Application: this has the power to free us from fear of man! People are usually so afraid what people will think of them, so they don’t share the gospel, or help a needy person, or stand up for an unpopular cause

Paul’s mindset freed him up from all human evaluation… his enemies’, his friends’, the Corinthians’, total strangers… even his own conscience. ALL THAT WILL MATTER IS WHETHER JESUS FOUND YOU FAITHFUL to what he called you to do

IV.  Christ’s Servants’ Judgment: Secrets Exposed, Rewards Given

1 Corinthians 4:5 Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts.

1.    Since Human Judgments Will Mean Nothing… Stop Evaluating My Ministry

a.   It is essential that Paul be proven as a faithful teacher of the Word of God…

b.  All congregations should evaluate their teachers to be sure they are true servants of Christ, true stewards of God’s mysteries

Matthew 7:15-16 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them.

Acts 17:11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

c.   But the true evaluation of all the servants of Christ must wait till Judgment Day

d.  That day alone will reveal who we really were, and what we really did

2.   The Second Coming of Christ

a.   Paul tells the Corinthians to WAIT TILL THE LORD COMES… the second coming of Christ

b.  That is the day Paul wrote about in the last chapter when our labors will be tested with fire to see if they are gold, silver, costly stones OR wood, hay, and straw

3.   Specifically: the Lord Alone Can Read the Human Heart

a.   On Judgment Day, Christ will lay bare all our hearts… the hidden motives of the heart will be revealed

a.  People may serve God from the purest motives… love for God and for others

b.  OR they may serve God because it suited their fleshly desires…

c.  Christ alone knows the secret motives of a human heart

Revelation 2:23 I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.

Psalm 139:1 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.

b.  So also all the secrets of our lives… the things we did in secret, when no one was watching

c.   Not only that, all of God’s own purposes and plans will be revealed

d.  Conclusion: all human ministries cannot be properly evaluated now… only on Judgment Day will their true value be exposed

V.  Christ’s Servants’ Reward: Praise from God

1 Corinthians 4:5 At that time each will receive his praise from God.

1.    This is the Essence of the Rewards We Will Get on Judgment Day

2.   That God Would EXPRESS His Pleasure to Us personally for our faithful service to him

Matthew 25:21 ‘Well done, good and faithful servant!

Also:

“Enter into the JOY OF YOUR MASTER”

This is the key… that Christ will let you share the joy he had in your secret prayer life, or money given to the needy or to spread the gospel, or faithful teaching ministry a woman did in leading a women’s Bible study for years, or the courage someone showed in sharing the gospel with a neighbor or coworker

Your Master was PLEASED at the time… on Judgment Day, he will allow you to ENTER INTO the joy he had at that time, and he will continue to express it to you for all eternity

This praise will not be said just once on Judgment Day, and that’s it!

Rather Christ will give eternal and heavenly honors to his faithful servants

3.   This Can and Should Be STORED UP in LARGE AMOUNTS by faithful service over a lifetime

Matthew 6:19-20 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

VI.  Applications

A.  Come to Christ!

B.  Live as a Servant of Christ and a Steward of God’s Word

C.  Seek Faithfulness to His Calling on Your Life

D.  Free Yourself from Concern About Human Opinions

E.  Focus Entirely on Judgment Day, When Christ Will Reward You with PRAISE FROM GOD!!