What is the great reward? What is the joy set before us?
All of those ultimately refer to the supremacy experienced as the all satisfying to your life.
Hebrews 10:32-35, 11:6, 11: 24-26, 12:2, 13:12-14.
Wider context. That my ministry would have radical flavor, a gusts, counter culture flavor. It makes people uneasy because you are pursuing Christ. You live and preach in such a way that your church becomes salty. Crazy people that meet cancer and death with trust in Christ and treasure Him above all else.
The world is not going to glorify Christ because they see that Christians are wealthy and healthy and prosperous. For that is what they live for! Don’t build a church on being safe, middle class. Have a radical flavor! It will cost your life to build a church that is radical for Christ.
Where are the pastors that say with Paul, “my life is not any worth at all, but to proclaim the gospel.” The world needs to see that type of pastorThe only authentic ministry is one that will suffer. Jesus says that all Christians will suffer.
2 Tim 3, Rom 8,
Do not think it strange when you have come in to various trails thinking that something unusually is happing to you .How can you ever want to get through the world safe!?
What creates such a ministry?
Hebrews is a sermon to believers (13:22). The sermon was given to call Christians to radical services of sacrificial love.
10:32-35. What cause these people to accept the plundering was their persuasion of the value of the reward that they would receive. What created this sacrificial service was heavenly minded us.
11:24-26. Present sacrifice is sustained by the hope of eternal reward.
12:2. Jesus looked to the reward.
13:12-14.
In all these texts, the arguments are the same. We are treasure our eternal world vastly more than we treasure this world.
Christ is that reward.
The book seems to show Christ as a means to the reward.
Clearly, from the Bible, Christ and His work are a means to something. In the very moment of his means work he became and displayed the supreme beauty of the glory of the grace God. So Christ in His means works becomes at the moment the clearest focus of the purpose for which we are made. We are made to praise the grace of the glory of God. In His means work, He becomes my end.
Conclusion
Everything in the book that it says intensifies our love for him and our desire for him to be our final reward. This supremacy of Christ is poured into the pronoun “him” in 13:13. The sweetest fellowship that you will ever know with the Savior is the fellowship of His suffering.
The Supremacy of Christ is present, personal, precious treasure.
About Me
- The Reformed Pastor
- My real name is Charlie Albright. I am the pinnacle of evil who God has flooded with His mercy. Declaring my sinful self righteous and holy in His sight! Lavishing His grace upon me by the blood Jesus shed on the cross! Carrying me through this life and giving me satiatfing joy! Anything good about me is only because of His grace!
