Now if you have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 16. Matthew 16 is a remarkable chapter. The person in the words of Peter himself, you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. You are Peter and you're blessed.
It's the Father in Heaven who showed that or revealed that to you. And then not only the person, but his passion. Jesus almost immediately then turns and says, I'm going to suffer. That's what we mean by passion.
I'm going to suffer. I'm going to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed. And then now we have here before us his parousia, a fancy term, but it was a narrative, a fancy term for his coming again in glory. And in between his passion and parousia, between his cross and his coming again in glory, what's he doing?
He's building his kingdom. And at the end of this chapter, as we've heard now, I think for now the fourth week in a row, he invites us to be part of that kingdom, to be a citizen in it, the beneficiary of his messiahship to be a disciple who follows him. He invites you. He invites me.
And verses 24 to 28, as we've seen, Jesus has been piling up reasons why we ought to be his disciple. I mean, why would we follow him? Why would we deny ourselves and take up our cross? Why?
Well, because it makes sense for us to do so, for our own good. Because Jesus is the Messiah. He's the true king of God's true kingdom because he will go to the cross as he did and die for our sins, for our pardon, because he will rise from the dead and ascend into heaven and sit at the right hand of the majesty on high to rule and reign over all things for the good of his people until he returns and sets all things right. And you should be his disciple.
And as we've seen in these passages, in living for him, he says, you will find your life here and now and for forever. And you'll lose nothing following me. That's not worth keeping. Even the whole world, he said, isn't worth it.
If you could accumulate everything for yourself, what profit would you have? He's told us. What gain would you have? If then in the end, you forfeit your soul.
Why would you do that? No. We should follow Jesus. And today he gives us more reasons.
He speaks freely in verses 27 to 28 of his coming again in glory and his repayment of those who live for him and of the coming of his kingdom. And so let me invite you to give your attention to the reading of God's holy and inspired word from Matthew chapter 16 verses 27 and 28. For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his father and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.
Amen. This is God's word. Let's pray together. Our Lord and our God, we bow before you and we ask that by the Spirit of Christ, you would take this word about Christ and show us Christ and unite us to him by faith that we would belong to you truly.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Why become his disciple? Or why if you already are?
Why would you continue being his disciple? Well, Jesus points us to three things here. First his glorious return, that's the first part of verse 27. Then his promised repayment, end of verse 27, and then his public reign in verse 28.
Let's think about these three things. First his glorious return, he says, for the Son of Man verse 27 is going to come with his angels in the glory of his father. Now Jesus, you remember, as we said, just affirmed that he's the Messiah and then he's the Son of God. But then he had just said, and I'm going to go to the cross.
They're going to kill me. And in the face of what could be great discouragement on the part of his disciples, who loved him on the one hand, but also might wonder, is it worth following you, Jesus, if you're going to be crucified? Jesus says, absolutely, it's worth it. Because I am going to come in the glory of my father with all my angels.
And so he holds out to them hope, and he holds that hope out to you. This is what Jesus prayed for. You remember in John 17 in what we sometimes call his great High Priestly prayer. He lifted up his eyes to heaven, John 17 and said, Father, the hour has come.
Glorify your Son that your Son might glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given to him. And this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do, and now Father glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. And God glorified himself in the death of his Son, in the resurrection of his Son, in the rule and reign of his Son, and one day it will be on display for every eye to see in his glorious return.
He will come, he says, in the glory of his Father, with all his angels. There is, he says, personal pronoun there, their mind, he made them, he rules them, he commands them, and the angels do what he says, and Jesus says, I will come with all my angels. And this is a reason for you to be my disciple. I'm going to come, in glory.
Don't be depressed, don't be anxious, don't despair, don't give up. They'll kill me for sure, but the cross comes before the crown, and in your life too, take up the cross and follow me. But Jesus says, I will survive, I will return, I will return as the Messiah you have longed for and hoped I would be. Your hopes are not misplaced.
That's why you ought to be his disciple. He's coming back and you can share in the glory that is to come. Second, because of his promised repayment, this is why you ought to be a disciple. For the Son of Man, he says, is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.
There will be repayment, and every person, each and every person will be repaid by Jesus. And that refers both to rewards and retribution. There are rewards, and he's going to come and repay. Repay his people.
Look, you can't pay for your salvation, you can't purchase your own soul once it's gone forever and lost. But you who follow him now, and because of following him in this world, you lose out in this world. As those in prison in Algeria, as we pray for, the persecuted church around the world knows deeply. Many have lost their lives for following Christ.
And it all seems like a loss, and Jesus says in the end it is not a loss to follow me. But some people think here the idea of rewards is an unworthy motivation. They think following Jesus should be altruistic and idealistic, and that we ought to be ashamed to speak of repayment and reward. But Jesus is not ashamed to hold out the promise of what is coming for God's glory and your enjoyment.
And you're good, you who follow him. Moses is a great example of this kind of faith. Hebrews, chapter 11 speaks of Moses. It says by faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God, than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.
He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. Moses, you don't get the short end of the stick when you follow Jesus. Now, see, as Lewis was right, when we think about this whole issue of rewards in the language of Jesus' repayment, there are different kinds of reward. There is the reward, says Lewis, which has no natural connection with the things you do to earn it.
It was quite foreign to the desires that ought to accompany those things. Example, money is not the natural reward of a lover. That's why we call him an emersonary if he marries a woman for the sake of her money. But marriage is the proper reward of a real lover, and he is not mercenary for desiring it.
Another example, a general who fights well in order to get a peerage, his English, peerage is mercenary, but a general who fights for victory is not, victory being the proper reward of battle as marriage is the proper reward of love. So Lewis says the proper rewards are not simply tacked onto the activity for which they are given, but are the activity itself in consummation, or we might put it this way. The reward of following Jesus now is you get to keep on being with Jesus forever. And the reward of belonging to him in his kingdom here and now is you get to keep on belonging to him forever.
And while his kingdom in this world is not of this world, one day his kingdom will be established forever in a new heavens and a new earth, and he will enjoy him and his kingdom immensely forever. Some have not seen here so much his positive incentive to follow him, but by implication a warning for those who refuse him. My heart has always read this in the negative. Well, Jesus is coming, he's going to repay those who don't follow him.
But you understand that Jesus is speaking to his disciples about the incentives to follow him. And so there's reward. Murali Church, patriarchs, generally got this right. But there is by implication the opposite of course, that if you do not follow him, as he's already said, you will lose your life for whoever would save his life will lose it, whoever loses his life for my sake will gain it.
What would a prophet of man be against the whole world and forfeits his soul? So these two alternatives, rewards or retribution, well, they're spoken of quite plainly by Jesus. And even more plainly, and at length in Matthew chapter 25, and I want you to hear what he says in that passage. It's a lengthy passage.
If you want to turn their goat forward or listen in Matthew chapter 25, beginning of verse 31, Jesus says this, when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations and he will separate people, one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right and the goats on the left. Then the king will say to those on his right come, you who are blessed by my father inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me.
I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him, St. Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink?
When did we see you as a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothed you? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the king will answer them. Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.
So you hear what he's saying. He's sheep. Blessed by his heavenly father will inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. We might gather up some of these great precious promises from other scriptures and put it this way.
You who trust in Jesus now and his disciple, you will be a soul made perfect in righteousness, united to a body raised from the dead, gloriously healthy and whole forever and live in the father's house where there are many rooms and he goes to prepare even a place for you. You will enjoy the reunion of the saints in a world of love, a world of joy, a world of peace. No more tears or death or mourning or crying or pain for the lamb in the midst of the throne will be your shepherd and he will guide you to springs of living water. You will eat from the tree of life.
You'll be given the crown of life. You'll sit with him on his throne. You'll share his authority over the universe. You'll co-rain with him and be a co-air with him of the universe.
Those are some of the rewards with which his sheep will be repaid. Then Jesus speaks plainly of retribution for those who are not his sheep but are his goats. Again in Matthew just immediately following beginning of verse 41, then he will say to those on his left, depart from me. You cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger and you did not welcome me naked and you did not clothe me sick and in prison and you did not visit me. Then they also will answer saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to you? Then he will answer them saying, truly I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.
So he concludes, these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life. When Jesus, as Matthew says, Jesus says, returns. He will repay each person. According to what he has done, my life, your life will be evaluated by the judge of all the earth.
It will be evaluated not by what we say we believe but how we have lived. How have we served the Lord or not served the Lord in how we have loved or not loved? Even the least of these is his brothers, his people. Did you notice the sheep who go to heaven?
Don't boast that they belong there. They're trying to figure out why are we there? But the goats who are punished are sure they don't deserve it. That's the way it is.
People in hell are convinced that they belong in heaven. And people who are in heaven are certain they belong justly in hell. Now you may be asking, I hope that you are asking, pastor, what is what you just said? Well, what does that have to do with the gospel of grace?
Salvation is a free gift to the undeserving. And that's a very good question. Notice here that the scripture plainly teaches that salvation is a free gift. Jesus himself teaches this, Paul in Ephesians 2, he says it is by grace you have been saved through faith.
And this is not of your own doing, it's the gift of God, not the result of works so that no one can boast. It's a gift of God's grace that we're saved. Then how do these things relate? Well, notice Ephesians 2 verse 10, the very next verse for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
In other words, Paul in Ephesians 2 says we're saved by grace alone through faith alone. But faith, true faith is never alone in those who are saved. We're transformed. We're God's workmanship.
We're created in Christ Jesus for good works. We've begun to walk in a new way of life which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in it. So that pardon for sins is a gift Christ purchased upon the cross. And we are accounted righteous in Christ as a gift.
His righteousness accounted to us. And being regenerated given a new heart, being spiritually alive is a gift. The dead don't make themselves a lot. And being transformed is a gift.
Being recreated after the image of Christ by the power of the Spirit. It is a gift. And God repases children with tremendous and everlasting rewards, which are themselves a gift. And these rewards are in accord with what we have done, or how we have lived.
Notice that language in Matthew 16, 27. He will repay each person according to what he has done. Our eternal rewards and the blessings of heaven are according to, but not on account of what we have done. Rewards are not on account of what we have done as if there is some strict justice and equitable payment that's going to balance the scales of justice before God.
If I received from God strict justice and equitable payment on account of what I have done, I would go to hell. You would too. But Jesus purchased heaven and all its blessings for us by suffering the punishment we deserve, satisfying the debt that we have incurred, crediting to us His perfect righteousness, so that our rewards in heaven are not on account of being His disciple, but they are in accord with it. And that discipleship is manifested not merely in words, but also in deeds, as Matthew says in chapter 25.
The rewards are in accordance with the life we have lived by the grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit. Calvin says it this way. How do you put together salvation by grace and judgment by works? Here's what he says.
These two things agree excellently, for we are justified freely because God accepts us irrespective of our merits. And yet, according to his good pleasure, he repays our works with a reward which we do not deserve. But who does he repay? He rewards his sheep.
His sheep are his disciples. And so we have been invited to be the disciples of Jesus. And it is a life here and now of self-denial and taking up our cross and following Him. Why then be His disciple?
Because at His second coming, His true disciples will receive their rewards. While the rest of mankind will receive His just retribution. Heaven and all its joys, or hell in its horrors, lies before each one of us. And so we have an incentive to be His disciple here.
His glorious return, His promise, repayment, and thirdly His public reign. Notice verse 28, truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom. Now a lot of Him has been spilled trying to explain what He means by this. In the compression of verse 27, the Son of Man is going to come with His angels in the glory of His Father.
Is that the same thing as saying verse 28, the Son of Man is coming in His Kingdom? Well, if the first is about the return of Christ, the second coming of Christ, then is that second statement also about that. And if so, well then who is it that standing there then, he says, who will not yet taste death until they see that? And of course, folks who are unbelieving about the truth and faithfulness of Jesus will look at a verse like this and say, Jesus was wrong.
Clearly all the disciples standing there have tasted death. And so your Savior is wrong. And isn't it commendable that you have a book that's honest about Jesus' mistakes and errors and such? And I would just say to you, what a horror it would be if you have a Savior who has to be perfect is wrong about something so basic as this.
But this is just another misunderstanding of what Jesus has said here. Well frankly, you don't have a Savior if He's wrong. You don't have a Savior if He's a sinner. And ignorance, when you ought to know, and teaching falsehood, is a sin.
So the question becomes, what's He talking about? Well, He's not talking about the return of Christ, His unreturned. It's about the reign of Christ. The coming of His reign.
So then the question becomes, well when is the event of the Son of Man coming in His kingdom if it's not to be considered His second coming? Which it isn't. Well the answer is to that, a manifold. And there are lots of answers to give.
I'll give you some of them a couple of few of the major ones. Some see His coming in His kingdom as a reference to the very next passage on the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew 17. And we're going to look at that next week. And there the glory of Christ is revealed to Peter, James, and John in the presence of Moses and Elijah on the mountain.
And it's an extraordinary event. And I can't wait to preach it next week. And certainly His glory shines brightly there. But then of course He comes off that mountain and continues to preach and teach until His arrest and His sufferings and His crucifixion.
And it's hard to see how that event inaugurates His reign as King. Some see His coming in His kingdom as a reference to the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. In AD 70, the temple was destroyed, the Jewish people were scattered. And they see it this way.
They say that the coming of the kingdom is the coming of Christ in judgment by the hand of the Romans against the Jews who refused to embrace the Messiah. In the destruction then of their priests and their temple and their sacrifices. And that event did happen in AD 70, in which case Jesus is saying, verse 28, some of His disciples will still be alive until AD 70 when that event happens. Peter, we know, and James, the son of Zebedee died before then, but most of the rest were presumably still alive, even if we don't quite know what happened to them.
And when they died, others however, tie the coming of His kingdom in verse 28 to His resurrection and some sweep in the following near event of Pentecost. That is two events with the power of God established the kingdom of Christ, one by the exertion of God's power and the raising of Jesus from the dead, and another by the exertion of God's power in the pouring out of the spirit of Christ upon the Jews who gathered in Pentecost. And objection raised to that view is that he can't refer to the resurrection or Pentecost because Jesus says here some will live to see these days, suggesting that at least one won't. And then it is said, well they all live to see the resurrection.
That's the position of objecting to this view that was held out. Well they all lived to see the resurrection, but did they? They didn't. Judas went out and killed himself having betrayed Jesus when he saw that Jesus was condemned.
Judas killed himself before Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. So he tasted death before the Son of Man coming in his kingdom at the resurrection. In support of this view, Romans 1 says of Jesus, he's descended from David according to the flesh, hence the Son of Man language. He was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead.
Not that he became the Son of God upon his resurrection, but that he was publicly and powerfully declared to be the Son of God upon his resurrection. It wasn't the beginning of divine sonship, but it proved an evidence divine sonship. And so in his resurrection, the Son of Man and the Son of God was exalted and came into his reign. And it was public.
He rose, you remember? And he appeared to Cephas and then to the 12, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Acts chapter 1 verse 3 says, he presented himself alive to them after his sufferings by men.
He has been given to me his sufferings by many proofs appearing to them 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God. And then just before he ascended into heaven, he announced to them in Matthew 28, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Not will be given to me, has been given to me. All authority, where in heaven and where on earth.
Jesus is reigning. He is ruling as king of his kingdom since his resurrection. What calling then he is given to the church. For in his very next breath in Matthew 28 after speaking of his own authority, he says to the church, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you.
What comfort then to hear him say, next, and behold I am with you always to the end of the age. The king reigns. The king is building and expanding his kingdom. You ever discouraged by the church?
You ever wonder if the kingdom of Christ is making progress? Of course it is. Jesus will build his church in the gates of hell and not prevail against it. He is building his church all over the world throughout the generations.
All over the world people are being baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. People are being taught his word and taught to observe and do what he commands. People are becoming his disciples all over the world in our generation in this moment in God-smacking numbers in South America and Africa and in Asia. They are becoming disciples and he will never leave them nor forsake them.
So the question for you is, as we close, are you his disciple? Do you long to see his return in glory? Do you have your hope set on his reward? Are you living then in submission to him now under his reign?
Why would you not? Why would you lose your life? Lose your soul. Lose God, the smiling face and benevolent blessing of God for eternity.
Turn away from yourself then. Turn to Jesus. Become his disciple. And every single one of you who do, he promises, he will reward when he comes with his angels in the glory of his Father.
Let's pray. Father, thank you that you have exalted your Son above all things that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We would bow now. And we would glory in our risen reigning and returning king.
Grant us patience to endure. Grant us the hope that would pull us along to that glorious day. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen. Let's stand together and sing.