Session 7 Divine Affirmation, Memorials, and Communion with God
A Biblical Overview of Eternal Rewards – Mike Bickle
Session 7 Divine Affirmation, Memorials, and Communion with God Page 1
Session 7 Divine Affirmation, Memorials, and Communion with God
I.Review
A.In the age to come, Jesus will give eternal rewards to His people, expressing how He feels about the way we love Him in this age. Jesus’ power and creativity are far greater than man’s, so we can expect far greater glory and diversity in the eternal rewards that He will give.
9Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. (1 Cor. 2:9)
Tonight we are looking at session seven. We are looking at divine affirmations.This is the most precious to me of all. It is the way the Lord is going to communicate to His people,how He is going to express how He feels about the way that we loved Him.
First, review.There are about seven or eight points I cover in the review each week, but this is the one I cannot say too often. For those that are visiting for the first time, eternal rewards—I say this every time—are really about Jesus expressing how He feels about the way we loved Him. Eternal rewards are not about us gaining superiority or status over other people in heaven.
Some people think of it that way and they say, “I am not really interested in eternal rewards.”
Now this is Jesus, the most generous, kind man, very wealthy. He would say, “I can afford it. I want to show you how you moved Me by the way you loved Me on the earth.” Our love is so weak, but His rewards are so generous because His evaluation is so generous.
Then the verse in 1 Corinthians 2. I think we have looked at it every week in the review. Paul says it has not even entered the mind of a man the level of the glory that God has prepared. So it is not just what you think about the New Jerusalem;it is more than you can imagine. The eternal rewards are far beyond what we would casually think when we read these simple, little phrases of Jesus.
Jesus spoke more about eternal rewards than anybody else. He gave these little phrases. He is saying, “Now come and search out the Scripture.” Those phrases are big ideas. They are vast. They are more glorious than you can imagine.
B.Believers will differ from one another in the measure of glory expressed in the rewards they receive.
41…for one star differs from another star in glory. 42So also is the resurrection of the dead.
(1 Cor. 15:41-42)
Again, just repeating this because it is an idea that is new to many people–that every person will have a different measure of the glory of God in a different experience in their relationship with the Lord in the age to come. Yes, we are all equally and freely in the Family. We are all in the City as a free gift. Our relationship,what we do, and our spiritual capacities will all be different just like they are now, different. They will be based on how we respond to the Lord in this age.
II.Divine Affirmation: receiving praise and honor from God
A.The Lord delights to verbally affirm the love and godly choices of His people. After Jesus returns, He will reveal the counsels of the heart,or the deep thoughts in the heart of each believer, and will openly affirm eachone (1 Cor. 4:5; cf. Mt. 25:21; Jn. 12:26; Rom. 2:29; 1 Pet. 1:7; Rev. 3:5).
5The time…the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise[affirmation] will come from God. (1 Cor. 4:5)
29…he is a Jew who is one inwardly…whose praiseis not from men but from God. (Rom. 2:29)
In 1 Corinthians 4:4, Paul says thata time is coming. He relates it to the coming of the Lord, the second coming. Verse 5, when the Lord does return, at the second coming, it says that He is going to both bring to light the things hidden in darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. When we think of Jesus at the second coming, that we stand before Him as He reveals the hidden things of the heart, the things that nobody else sees, the counsels, the deep thoughts, and intentions of our heart, our first thought is, “Oh no!”
Paul would say, “No, no, you are reading it wrongly. At that time each person’s praise will come from God.” The idea of praise here is not worship. It is affirmation. The Lord is going to praise, that is, He is going to affirm His people when He reveals the counsels of the heart. Meaning, you have deep thoughts about how you want to serve God. I do not mean just the “what it would look like,” but the intention to go all the way, to be wholehearted. Yet we find ourselves coming up short of the thing that we set our heart to do.
What the Lord is saying through Paul is that God is going to honor those deep counsels of your heart. He is going to see them. These are not just kind of passing thoughts, you know, spiritual sentiment as in for a few weeks you thought about going hard for God and then you thought, “Nah, I do not really want to.”
When he talks about the counsels of the heart, he means the deep resolve. You have set your heart in this, though you struggled, but the Lord would say, “I see the movement of your heart.” I think some of you are going to be shocked when the Lord praises you for it or affirms you.
Now some people are really uncomfortable with the idea, just the theological point of God praising people. That kind of gives you a spiritual whiplash. God praising? No. Again, it means He affirms. Paul said it again in Romans 2. He was talking about the Jew who is one inwardly, whose praise does not come from men, but his praise comes from God. Again,it is the word, affirmation. It is the idea of affirmation.
B.The genuineness of our faith, our response to God, will result in praiseand affirmation from God. I assume He will affirm people in different settings—privately, socially, and in public ceremonies.
7…the genuineness of your faith [responsiveness to God], being much more precious than gold[money] that perishes…may be found to praise[affirmation], honor, and glory… (1 Pet. 1:7)
Well, this was not something that only Paul and Jesus emphasized. Peter did as well. 1 Peter 1:7, Peter said, “The genuineness of your faith.”Faith in this context means your responsiveness to God. The genuineness of your responsiveness to God is more precious than gold. It is more valuable than gaining money. Gaining money can be really helpful. This is not a put-down on money, but what Peter is saying is that there is something actually far more valuable than money. It is laying hold of the grace of God to have a responsive heart. He means a genuine faith, to have a heart responding rightly.
He said that you are going to find out when the money is gone—and it will be the day we die; we do not bring any of it with us—that genuine faith, responsiveness to God, is going to result in praise in the age to come. It is that same word that we are uncomfortable with. God praising His people, affirming. Peter adds other words as well. He said that it is going to result in honor. I mean, imagine the greatest one, Jesus, the indescribably great one, wants to honor you.He wants the glory of God released in you.
He does not lose anything when He puts honor on you. That is how great He is. That is how big He is. Some people have this idea that, if humans get any honor or any glory or any praise, somehow God is diminished. Now we all know the verse in Isaiah 42:8that God will not share His praise with another or His glory with another. He is talking about that status of being the infinitely supreme One. He will not share the status of His supremacy, no. That is not what this is talking about. The infinitely great One who is filled with honor wants to honor His people for our love, which is so weak, but it moves Him. This is so moving to me that He cares this much about the way we respond to Him.
C.Jesus promised that the Father would honor “anyone” who serves Him. The infinitely great God honorspeople. “We are embarrassed by the intolerable compliment, by too much love, not too little” (C.S. Lewis). Jesus spoke of honor varying according to our response to His leadership (Mt. 5:19; 18:4; 20:26-27; 23:11-12; Mk. 10:43-44; Lk. 9:48; 14:11; 18:14; 22:26; Jn. 12:26).
26“If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.” (Jn. 12:26)
This is almost hard to say. Jesus saidin John 12:26, “If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.” Jesus said, “Not only will I honor him, but My Father will make it His business to honor that person.” Like, O Lord, I do not know if I can take it! The Lord would say, “No, it will be right, and it will be good.” It will not diminish any of the honor of God when God expresses how deeply He feels about the way that we have loved Him.
I love the word, “anyone.” You can be the most ungifted, uneducated, no-impact-on-anybody person—well,I mean there is no such person—lack every opportunity, but you set your heart to serve God. Jesus says, “I assure you, My Father will honor you on the last day. It will be worth it.”
You know this is a great verse, John 12:26, to bring to mind and to say back to God, to say it with your mouth, when you are being tempted to quit, quitting your pursuit of obedience. There is that area. You feel, “I cannot quite get sustained obedience in that area. I am just going to quit.”
You read John 12:26. He says, “If anybody—if you—will serve Me in that area…” Or maybe it is not an area in your character. Maybe it is service,and nobody is appreciating you. It does not seem like it is doing any good anyway. It is what the Lord stirred your heart up to do, but you are a little discouraged because you were thinking it would have more power and more people would appreciate it, but it does not seem to have either.Beloved, you are still serving Him.
When you are tempted to quit in your struggle against sin in that area or to quit because the labor seems too small and too unappreciated, speak John 12:26 out loud to the Lord,“Lord, it is written that You will honor me if I keep serving You. Father, You will honor me. The devil is a liar. It is written,‘Anyone who keeps serving You, the Father will honor.’”
I mean, I just do not know what to do with this verse besides just smile, cry, and keep confessing it. This is fantastic.I do not really do this much, but turn to the neighbor next to you and say, “This is really a good one. I mean, this is that good!” Okay, I am not one of those preachers who tells people what to say to the guy next to them. I like those guys, but that is not typically how I do it, okay.
D.Jesus will say, “Well done,” showing how He generously He evaluates our weak work. Our life vision should include living so as to hear Jesus say “Well done!” at the end of our life. We are called toset our heart to walk in excellence in our relationship with God, refusing to settle for less.
21“Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things…” (Mt. 25:21)
- Good points to godly motivation with a sincere intention to do God’s will.
- Faithful highlights diligence and follow-through of our intention to do good.
Now Matthew 25:21. We know this verse well, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” because we hear it all the time at funerals. Like I tell people, do not get your theology from funerals. Not all those guys are going to hear, “Well done,” and they are not all going to receive “their crown.” That is for people who were consistently faithful to the Lord, who,sure, did fail, they stumbled, they tripped, but they refused to stay down. They got back up and got back on the path.“Well done.” This is a wonderful statement, but not for everyone. I do not think it is so common that everyone can assume they are going to hear this. This is a most wonderful statement. This is the sort of thing that we set our life vision to go after this lifestyle. This is a big thing, not a small thing. Okay, tell your neighbor, “This is another good verse.” No, I am kidding. But that was!
So we have been looking for a moment here at affirmation. There are a few other verses about God delighting in His promise to verbally affirm His people. By the way, I think that affirmation will have many settings just like human affirmation does in this age. I think you will have individual one-on-one conversations with the Lord where He communicates it in an individual way, in however it happens, where He tells you, “Well done.” I do not think He says, “Well done” once, and then a million years from now He says, “Well, I told you already. I have not changed my mind. You know I never change.”No, I think when He says, “Well done,” this is going to be communicated in different ways over and over, forever. I do not think it is a one-time statement where He stamps our passport and we get into heaven.
This is really worth pouring everything out for and resisting all the lies that are in the culture. You know, these lies that are being promoted about the grace of God and that what the grace of God really means is live for yourself and live in carnality and be comfortable with compromise, just coast and do not even concern yourself.No, the grace of God empowers us to be wholehearted. When we fail, it gives us confidence to start over again tomorrow. That is what grace is about.
Well, I think the Lord will communicate His affirmation individually by the Spirit or in person in ways that will move us beyond measure. I think He will communicate it socially, meaning in the context of some of your friends. Maybe a lot of friends. I think there will be ceremonies where there are rewards given. I think there is a ceremonial dimension of God honoring His people because there is a number of these things in the Bible where God initiated these kinds of ceremonies.So they are His idea. He came up with them.
So I think that these statements will be given in different terms, many times, over many years, individually, socially, and even publicly, in ceremonial ways, like when there are banquets where people honor people. All kinds of award banquets. Well, if humans know how to do that, and if humans are moved by that, the most generous, the most powerful, and the most creative One who ever walked the earth can do it far better than everybody else can. Again, there is precedent for all of these things in the Scripture.
III.God remembers: an overview of Memorials in the Scripture
A.One of the great rewards of heaven is to receive a white stone with a new name on it (Rev. 2:17).
I understand the white stone to be related to Jesus expressing His affirmation for His people.
17“I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written…” (Rev. 2:17)
We are going to look at just a snapshot here, but I want to stir you up with this idea of a memorial. You will see at the end of paragraph B that there are quite a few verses in the Scripture on this idea of a memorial. The reason I want you to grasp it is because a number of eternal rewards, are connected to these many, many passages. The principle is in these passages where God declared that certain activities or certain events would be honored, because He said that“as a memorial” it will be remembered forever. It will be recalled over and over and over again. This is His genius. It is His idea. When you see how often this is stated by God in the Scripture, it sets the stage for us to understand some of these rewards.
The reward I am going to emphasis the most in this session has a number of different implications. So I am going to get to it in a few minutes, but I just want it in your mind. It is in Revelation 2:17 where Jesus is talking to the overcomer. He said, “I will give him a white stone, and, on the stone, he will have a new name.” He went on to say thatno one knows that name; it is something He alone knows, and He will speak it to them. There are many implications to this. So this is at the core of it; it is about affirmation and honor. It is like the verses we looked at where the Lord says that He isgoing to praise and honor, release His glory in His people.
B.A memorial is established to honor the memory of God’s activity or someone’s devotion to God. “A memorial is a monument, statue, holiday, or ritual which serves as a remembrance or reminder of a person or an event” (Nelson’s Bible Dictionary). The Scripture mentions many memorials (Ex. 3:14-15; 12:10-14; 13:6-9; 17:14; 28:12, 29; 30:16; 39:6-7; Lev. 2:2, 9, 16; 5:12; 6:15; 23:24; 24:7; Num. 5:26; 10:10; 16:40; 31:54; Josh. 4:7-9; Neh. 2:20; Zech. 6:14; Mal. 3:16; Mt. 26:13; Mk. 14:9; Lk. 22:19; Acts 10:4; 1 Cor. 5:7; 11:25-26). Notethe connection of individual namesengraved on precious stones to a memorial and God’s presence.