Recognized, Received, and Rewarded - Matthew 10:40-42
Unrecognized Authority: Matt 8-10 • Sermon • Submitted
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· 1,853 viewsThose who recognize Jesus will receive his gospel, and they will receive a great reward.
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If you have your Bibles please open them to Matt 10:40
Tonight, we come to the end of our series through Matthew 8-10 that I have titled “Unrecognized Authority”.
The big idea of this series has been this: Even though Jesus demonstrated his authority over all creation through his many mighty works, there were many people who still failed to recognize him as the Christ, the Son of God, who came to save his people from sin and death...
And this is an important concept for us all to learn. And it’s important for two primary reasons…
The first is this: as Jesus disciples, we are commanded by Jesus to go tell as many as we can about the good news of Jesus sinless life, his sacrificial death in the place of our sin, and his victorious resurrection from the grave… but it’s really important for us to realize that there will be many who will not believe this message or recognize Jesus as the Son of God. And their lack of faith is not due to any insufficient amount of evidence of Jesus life death and resurrection, nor is their lack of faith due to your poor proclamation of the gospel. For in Matthew 8 and 9 we heard about those who had seen Jesus and heard the gospel many times from Jesus, and yet, they still did not recognize Jesus. So we should expect the same response from others as we ourselves go out to share the gospel.
The second reason this I want us all to learn about the many people who saw and heard Jesus and didn’t recognize him, is because there are many of us, who might assume that we recognize Jesus even though we don’t fully recognize him as we ought… Remember, it was the disciples themselves who saw many of the mighty works of Jesus done who later marveled at Jesus having calmed the wind and the sea wondering who Jesus actually was… and so too, many of us, though we have grown up in the church, and have heard all the stories of Jesus countless times, there are some of us who still do not recognize Jesus as we ought to… for we are still fear man, and we fear other troubles of this life more than we fear God… or we love man, or the things of this world, more than we love God… And if this is true of you, then you do not recognize Jesus as you ought to…
So much of the focus up to through these chapters has been on those who do not recognize Jesus… but scattered through these chapters are incredible moments where Jesus identity and authority are recognized… and in this week’s text, and our final few verses in this series, we get to hear of those who do recognize and receive Jesus as the Christ, and the Son of God.
40 “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. 41 The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. 42 And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”
Let’s pray.
The last few weeks have been particular challenging passages that should have caused us to examine our lives… And it was summed up when Jesus said:
38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
These are heavy and sobering words…
Last week we saw, if we love anything, yes even our own life, more than we love Jesus, then we are not worthy of him and in the end we should not expect eternal life, rather we should expect judgment, and eternal death.
After last week’s Scripture, I hope we better understand why Paul says that we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. And while I hope that the every week we go away having heard the gospel, I also hope that some of us who do not recognize Jesus fully would hear these sobering texts and would begin to work out your salvation with fear and trembling as well. But this week we get a beautiful assurance that is meant to comfort those of us who might be worried that we are not saved…
So if after hearing the last few sermons, you doubt your salvation in any way, or if you simply want to know for sure that you are saved and secure in Christ, then I hope that tonight’s Scripture would be sweet and encouraging for you to hear.
Let’s look at what Jesus says:
40 “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.
Now remember, Jesus is addressing his disciples as he sends them out to announce the kingdom (that is to preach the gospel) and repeatedly he tells them that they will be rejected.
But here Jesus tells the disciples that not everyone will reject them. For there will be some who receive them. Now this should be a huge motivation for us to go and share the gospel with as many as we can. Sure there will be many who reject it the gospel, but there will be some who receive us and the gospel that we proclaim as well. And Jesus says, that those who receive the gospel message and the gospel messengers will also receive God himself.
1. If you receive Jesus’ messengers, then you also have Jesus and the Father.
1. If you receive Jesus’ messengers, then you also have Jesus and the Father.
Now just a word of caution on this concept, as discernment is needed when it comes to receiving Jesus’ messengers.
We are not to receive every person simply because they claim to be a messenger of Jesus… in fact Jesus already warned us in the sermon on the mount:
15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
When we hear the word prophet, we often get this idea that a prophet is some sort of wizard that tells the future… but that’s not the biblical concept of a prophet. Rather, a prophet is simply a person directed by the inspiration of God to proclaim His will.…
or to put it more simply, a prophet is a person who says what God says…
So a false prophet, is a person who claims to speak on God’s behalf, but really what they say is not from God at all…
So a false prophet is a false messenger who does not speak for God, and we are to not receive them…
But that’s not what todays text is about, rather Jesus is saying that we are to receive his messengers, and when we receive them, we also receive Jesus and the Father.
This is what he is saying in this verse:
40 “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.
So if I, or any other person for that matter, tells you about the gospel in a way that is faithful and true to the Scriptures… then the way you respond to that message has everything to do with whether you recognize and receive Jesus himself…
But the opposite is also true and is recorded in Luke
16 “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”
So when the Jews rejected Jesus in the gospels accounts, and the apostles through the book of Acts, then what they were doing was rejecting God himself.
And if you deny the gospel message and gospel messenger even today, then this rejection makes it evident that you have neither recognized nor received Jesus.
But if you have recieved the gospel messenger then you also have received Jesus and the Father as well.
This is good news, and a great encouragement for all who might wonder if you have Jesus… for if you have recieved the gospel message, then with in you received God.
Let’s continue to see what makes this news so good:
41 The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.
Here’s that word prophet again that we spoke of earlier from Matt 7
Jesus is referring to the the ones who are sent by him to say what he says.
And Jesus says that those who receive the prophet because he says what God says, then the one who receives him will get the reward of a prophet…
and very similarly:
The one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.
What are we to make of this verse?
We are to see this as an assurance that we have Christ. In fact we should see here that the one who receives those who are being sent out by God will share in their great reward.
And I want to remind us… who else is a prophet, and righteous person? Jesus is… for he too is a messenger sent by God the Father to announce the kingdom, and he alone is the one who has perfect righteousness… so you’ll know a true prophet, because they are going to look and sound like Jesus....
So too, we see that when we receive the gospel message that is delivered by an upright person who says what God told them to, then we also receive God with them.
That is what Jesus is saying here
It says that those who receive Jesus’ messengers, will receive the same reward as the messengers themselves. Hear it again:
41 The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.
2. If you receive Jesus’ messenger, then you will receive a great reward.
2. If you receive Jesus’ messenger, then you will receive a great reward.
In fact, this is the very thing that even Jesus’ disciples did, for they recieved the righteous prophet who is in a class of his own. For they recieved Jesus himself who was sent by the Father to announce and bring the kingdom of God to the earth..
And we should go further to say, that the reward that we all receive as we recognize Jesus and receive him and his gospel is one that we neither earn, nor deserve.
When we receive the prophet, we also receive the prophet’s reward… that’s what Jesus says… even though we weren’t the prophet going to announce the kingdom, we share in the reward that the prophet will receive
And when we receive a righteous person, we also receive a righteous person’s reward, even though we weren’t the righteous person and therefore do not deserve the reward of a righteous person. But none the less, this is what Jesus promises for all who receive faithful messengers of the gospel
This is true of every one of us that is a Christian. Though we are sinners, who have done nothing to deserve anything good, when we received the good news of the gospel, we receive every spiritual blessing…
hear the way Paul puts it:
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
Understand that right now, at this very moment, there is no poor Christian who lacks a single spiritual blessing, for each of us who is in Christ has already received every spiritual blessing! And it’s not because you did anything to deserve it. For all you did was receive the gospel by faith…
The only reason we get a righteous person’s reward, is because of the one righteous person, Jesus, who credited his righteousness to us.
21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Any reward that we will receive is all because of the work of Jesus who alone was perfectly righteous, who came to the earth as the perfect prophet who not only announced the kingdom but brought the kingdom to earth.
And we could spend our entire night speaking just of our great reward… but to for the sake of summarizing all the benefits that we will receive, recognize that the reward that you receive is all found in Jesus himself, for he is our greatest reward.
for he is the source of all life, all joy, and all satisfaction
he is the one who gives us his righteousness and takes our sin
he is the one who can and will defeat death
And when we get Jesus as our great reward, all that he has accomplished becomes ours!
Let’s finish and look at the last verse:
42 And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”
Who are the little ones?
They are the disciples, who are despised and looked down on by the world
And Jesus goes on to talk about those who will give one of these little ones even a cup of cold water… stop there for a moment
What is the meaning of this?
A cup of cold water is a very small token of reception. It is far from being expensive to most people, but it is a measure of caring for the disciple, and welcoming them…
And why will these people give them a cup of cold water? Because the is a disciple Jesus says…
They give them a cup of cold water, because they have recieved the little disciple, just as those before have received the prophets and the righteous people
So if you even welcome a the messenger of the gospel in the most humble and seemingly insignificant ways Jesus says, he will by no means lose his reward…
Notice he doesn’t say that you’ll get a reward, rather, he says that he will by no means lose his reward.
Here Jesus says that the reward is one that is stored up in heaven and it is secure and cannot be lost.
3. The most humble reception of Jesus is enough to secure your great reward.
3. The most humble reception of Jesus is enough to secure your great reward.
This is an incredibly comforting and beautiful truth for us to reflect upon:
Especially after last weeks closing verses.
Remember last week what we heard Jesus say these words, and note the repeated word “whoever” in these verses....
English Standard Version Chapter 10
37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
last week we saw that those who love Jesus must be willing lose everything for the sake of Jesus… you might lose your family, and you might even lose your life, but in all the loss, you will find something far greater… for in all the loss you will find your life.
It’s a scary Scripture in a way, but a comforting one all the same for it speaks of finding life amidst all the loss. But it’s scary, because it speaks of the great cost of following Jesus…
but if we would just keep reading into tonight’s text you would notice notice the word whoever from last week’s text continues into this weeks…
English Standard Version Chapter 10
40 “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. 41 The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. 42 And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”
Here’s what I want us to see, and it’s a tension that I want us all to feel…
Last week we saw that following Jesus will cost you everything.
But this week Jesus reminds us that receiving him costs you nothing.
It will cost you everything to follow Jesus, because you will be hated, and rejected by men, just as Jesus was. And so if you take any stock in the things of this world, then you are not worthy of following Jesus. But if you love Jesus, because you recognize his beauty, and you wish to have him as your great reward. Then be assured he is yours. For it is the simplest reception of him and love for him and faith in him that makes him yours.
You don’t need to pay for the gospel reward
you don’t need to earn the gospel reward
you don’t need to become good up in order to receive the gospel reward
you simply need to see Jesus, love him, and receive his gospel message…
And if you recognize Jesus, the be sure of this… you will by no means lose Jesus.
Do you love Jesus, then you have a great reward waiting for you.
Paul says it best, for he loved Jesus and forsook all else, yes even his own life so that he would obtain Christ. Listen his words:
8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.
If you love Jesus, then know that the crown of righteousness is yours…
This is good news, and its reason enough for us to give thanks and rejoice for all that Christ has done.