Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of understanding the 20 rewards promised by Jesus to those who overcome, as outlined in the letters to the seven churches in Revelation. He urges believers to pursue these rewards with passion, recognizing that they are not automatic but contingent upon our obedience and love for God. Bickle highlights that many Christians are unaware of these rewards, which can serve as motivation for deeper devotion and commitment to Christ. He stresses the importance of being attentive to the Holy Spirit to grasp the depth of these promises and encourages believers to make it a priority to learn and internalize them. Ultimately, the sermon calls for a shift in focus from earthly pursuits to the eternal rewards that await those who faithfully follow Jesus.

Father, we ask you for the spirit of revelation and the spirit of understanding. I ask you for impartation on this glorious subject of the rewards that you've promised, those that would press in in obedience and love before you. And I thank you for that in the name of Jesus, amen. Well, we're continuing on our study here in the seven churches in the book of Revelation, Revelation 1, 2, and 3. And we've looked at each of the seven churches and now what I'm doing, and I've mentioned the rewards for a moment or two during each of the, as we've done our study on the seven churches. But in this teaching, I want to take all of the rewards. There's 20 of them. And I guess you could count them up several different ways, but there's 20 different rewards that Jesus mentions with his own lips that he promises those that would obey him faithfully, they would walk in mature obedience. Now, most believers, I'm not saying this as a rebuke, but I'm just saying this kind of to alert you, most believers are nearly illiterate of these rewards. If you ask somebody just randomly, give me five of the 20 rewards that Jesus spoke with his own lips. I think that most believers would be, they would be stumbling. And my point isn't to give that as rebuke, but to give that to sort of wake us up. We're talking about the uncreated God, Jesus, fully God, fully man saying, if you will press into me, this is what I will give you forever. And the church not even knowing what it is that he is beckoning us to enter into in terms of connection with him, the level of the connection. The point being that after tonight, I'm trusting you're gonna go out of here, making it one of your passions in your life to know these 20 rewards and to take them serious and to know that if Jesus offered them, they are not irrelevant, idle or meaningless. They're real and they mean a lot. Jesus wasn't a little bit off base by offering this as a motivation. And every now and then I run into somebody says, well, I'm not really into the rewards. I go, wait, stop, before you say something foolish, remember it's Jesus that's offering them. And he wasn't a little bit off base when he offered us rewards. You know, he didn't lose his noble motivation. He knew how important they were. Let's look at introduction, Roman numeral one, and then we're gonna read the 20 rewards. And two of them are mentioned twice, the garments and the positions of authority on the throne. Those are the two that Jesus repeats two times. But let's look at the introduction first. Revelation one to three is unique and significant in this regard. Jesus gives more insight on eternal rewards and he describes himself. He gives titles and descriptions about himself with his own lips. He does it more in this passage than in any place of the Bible. He gives 20 different rewards and a number of descriptions. We're gonna go through those as well. We're gonna spend a week, maybe two weeks on the rewards. I don't know, just not sure what we'll do next week. But then after that, we're gonna go through all the names that Jesus spoke, revealing his own character and his ministry and his passion for us. We're gonna put them all in a row too from the seven churches of the book of Revelation. Now, paragraph B, Jesus is not speaking here to believers about receiving the gift of salvation. He's talking about receiving eternal rewards. That is really critical because as I've read commentaries about on Revelation two and three over the years, I'm surprised how many commentaries reduce these rewards to automatic dimensions of the gift of salvation. If they were automatic, Jesus would not have offered them to the church with conditions. They are not automatic. And they're not given to the church guaranteed. They're given to the church based on the condition of wholeheartedness. They're not automatic. They're only given to the people who fulfill the conditions. These rewards are given in various degrees, in various measures, meaning you may, according to the measure of your loving obedience, you may receive a certain measure of one of these rewards and somebody else may receive a greater or lesser measure of the rewards and somebody else may not receive any of this reward. It's based on the measure of our obedience or the obedience of the measure of our love. The next thing I wanna say is these rewards have various levels of fulfillment. Each of them have a measure of fulfillment in this age by the Holy Spirit, a little bit of it. They were not meant to be understood to have their full fulfillment in this age. But there's a little bit of a fulfillment now. Like Jesus says, I'll give you the hidden manna, which speaks of feeding us on the word of God. And we receive that now a little bit, but we receive it a lot more in the age to come. He says, I'll have you sit on a throne. We operate in authority a little bit now, but we will literally, there will be those that sit on thrones literally in the age to come. And so there's a varying measure of fulfillment in this age, but it's a small measure, but it's still worth going after. But in our quest to go after the small measure in this age, don't lose sight of the fullness of what Jesus is offering us in the age to come. But in the other respect, don't get so locked into the future reward in the age to come that you don't enter into at least a token, prophetic token expression of it in this age. Now paragraph C, I want you to pay attention to this clearly, is that when speaking about these rewards, Jesus says this one phrase every time. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says. Now he says this in relationship to each of the rewards. Now he says it in relationship to the whole message that he gives each of the seven churches, but particularly he says it related to the rewards. You'll see that in a moment. It's always next to the rewards. Now when Jesus says, he that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says, what Jesus is saying, this will require special attentiveness to understand what I'm telling you. When Jesus says, he that has an ear, let him hear, he's saying, you're not going to get what I'm saying if you only read this in a superficial way. There's more than meets the eye. That's what he's saying. So again, I'm not trying to be critical at various commentators, but many of them, they violate the Spirit of this, and they give the most superficial meaning to these rewards, the very thing Jesus warned us not to do. He said, if you're really listening, listen to what I'm saying. There's more than meets the eye. Be attentive and go deep. And the next thing it means, when it says, he that has ears, let him hear what the Spirit's saying, it will take the aid of the Holy Spirit to grasp these things. Meaning, as I've read and studied these 20, I ask, Holy Spirit, show me what these things mean deeper. I want a deeper understanding. Stir up my holy imagination. Use the Word of God. I want to stay within the boundaries of the written Word of God. But beloved, there's a whole lot in the written Word that will give us significant hints to these 20 rewards. Significant hints. But we have to have a heart to go after them. I want to encourage you to make it your passion to really grasp these 20 rewards in the next couple of years. Meaning, I mean, start now. I don't mean wait for a couple of years to get around to it. I mean, you're gonna say, Lord, I'm gonna go after these. This is my destiny. This is my story written in advance. This is my future. Beloved, Jesus gave us the revelation of these rewards so that we would put them before us as a goal for our life that we would lay hold of. I can't imagine how many believers on the last day the Lord's gonna say, I beckoned you to understand this. You were not interested in it. You were interested in gaining more in this age and just having more fun and recreation and just kind of hanging out and wasting time. I gave you the invitation to understand great things about your life that I wanted you to lay hold of. Again, my point isn't to correct and to shame people. My point is to alert them because this is God talking to the human heart. So I've made it a passion. I want to know all 20 of these. I want to know them at a deeper level, a deeper level, a deeper level. And the Lord would say something like, well, pray and fast and ask me to unlock them to you. I want to challenge you. A couple of you will actually do this to memorize all 20 of these. I mean, it is your life destiny in the balance because if you're focused on where God wants to take you, there's a better chance you'll get there. If you're not focused on it, you might stumble into it, but there's the chances of actually arriving at your goals are far greater if you aim at them and pray and fast and ask for God to help you get there. Some people, many people, they just are saying, well, I'll just kind of love God and take my chances when we have this kind of revelation and understanding. So there's more than meets the eye. Now let's read these rewards. Oh, by the way, I have a six-page handout, but on the internet, I have a 12-page handout because I can't finish all the 20 rewards tonight. And I might do it, take it up next week. I'll just kind of see how it goes. But I have a double the handout on the internet. And of course, our copyright's the right to copy. So you could make it, get it, make your own handout out of it, put your own name on it, elaborate on it, make your own Bible study. That's what I hope you'll do with it. So our goal is never to get through the notes, but use the notes as a chance for you to do some more study and outside of the Encounter God service here. Well, let's read these 20 rewards. Now there's 22 in one sense, but two of them are repeated, the promise about garments and the promise about thrones. They're mentioned twice. So it's 20 rewards, or you could say 22. And you could break it down and add it up, break it down more specifically and say, maybe there's 24, 25 rewards, depending on how you organize your thinking on this. Let's read this. Revelation 2, verse 7. Jesus says, he that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the church. To him who overcomes, I will give him to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. We're on page one. I'm just gonna read them all. Eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the garden. It's the tree of life in the midst of the garden is different than all of the eating that goes on in the eternal city forever. So that's just a little tip off. It's more than just the food supply of the eternal city. He's talking about something very specific here. He says in verse 10, chapter 2, verse 10, I will give you the crown of life. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death. He won't lose anything when the judgment of the second death is administrated upon human history. It's the most terrifying day of human history, the day when the judgment of the second death is administrated to human history. You won't have anything to fear in the most terrifying day of human history. Everything that you've done in obedience will hold up in the most terrifying day of history. You won't lose a thing. That's powerful. Now, because most don't think much about the day of the second death, it doesn't seem like that big of a promise. But I guarantee you, when we get near that day, I mean, even the city of God will tremble when the wrath of God is fully released against all humans who did not obey God. We will say, thank you for the blood of Jesus. And Lord, how much of what I did stays? How much of it's... And the Lord Jesus said, I want you to know on that terrifying day when the whole human race witnesses God's wrath against rebellion in its fullness, you won't lose anything that was done in obedience, no matter how small. Chapter two, verse 17. Now notice, every time that one of these promises is given, it says, he that has an ear, let him hear. In other words, there's more than meets the eye. You have to be attentive to get it. It's gonna take Holy Spirit revelation to go down below the surface. It says in chapter two, verse 17, he that has an ear, let him hear. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. Some of it. There's hidden manna in the age to come. I will give him a white stone. Think of a white stone as like a gold medal. It's a, you know, like the guys win the, you know, the championship game and they get the ring. The white stone is the medal or the ring and it has a name written on it where the Lord will write about you to describe your devotion to him. So you'll receive a white stone. Don't think of just some little pebble. It's a precious stone that's filled with the glory of God. It will far surpass any championship ring the greatest athlete gets or the gold medal of the greatest performance. It's a white, precious, and the word white, by the way, is bright and shining precious stone. It's what it's talking about. It's a diamond plus a lot more than a diamond. And it'll have your name. It'll have your story written on it of your devotion. And it's a name that nobody knows, meaning only you and the Lord will know the fullness of your story of your devotion. There will be things about your devotion to the Lord in this age that nobody can fully grasp besides you and the Lord. And even you will begin to grasp them at a whole nother level in that day. What a glorious thing. So that your name is your story. It's your testimony. The testimony of your love before God from this age will be carried over in the age to come. Chapter 2, verse 26, he that overcomes, I will give him power over nations. I will give him the morning star. Now, Jesus says, he that has an ear, let him hear. The spirit says, you know, sometimes he says he that has an ear, let him hear before the reward. And sometimes afterwards. Why? I don't really know. Got a few hints here and there, but go find out. You've got maybe, maybe you got a few years, maybe got a few decades before you meet the Lord. Maybe you got longer than that. You got time to go search this out. Lord, why did you say it sometimes before? Why did you say it sometimes after? And these rewards, by the way, I forgot to mention, these are the rewards that Jesus knew the church would need in the crisis of history when the events of the book of Revelation are unfolding. When the events of the book of Revelation are unfolding, there's great crisis on the earth and there's a great release of the spirit of glory. There's a positive and a negative. And Jesus knew these 20 rewards would stabilize the human heart in the crisis and in the glory. As they stabilize us in the glory. Now, history tells us when the glory of God's poured out, many of God's servants get off base when they're used in the glory of God. They trip in pride and they get more focused on the power than they do on the Lord. Many of them lose their way. So we need even the rewards in the realm of the glory, not just in the realm of the crisis and the trouble. Jesus, who knows the human heart better than any man, said these 20 rewards will stabilize you at the time when the crisis and the glory is at its all time high in human history. And I trust his leadership. I trust his insight into my heart. He's saying, Mike, this is what you need to stabilize your heart in the glory and in the crisis. I go, Lord, I don't know why you chose these 20, but one thing I'm sure, you're right and I need them. And I wanna feed my spirit on these 20 truths. It says in chapter two, verse 28, I will give him the morning star. And of course, the morning star in its fullness is Jesus himself. He says, chapter 22, he goes, I am the morning star. I am the morning star. Chapter three, verse five, he that overcomes will be clothed in white garments. Again, the word white is the word bright and shining. Don't get locked in to just white. White is more than what we think when we think white. Think of shining and bright like a diamond. You'll see that in a few moments. You know, I say this kind of tongue-in-cheek, a little bit humorous, but I'm really trying to disrupt a mindset that people have. They get stuck and everybody knows about, they're gonna have the white garments, gonna have the white gown. They kind of imagine that several billion saints forever, for billions and billions of years, trillions, more, you know, that's just the beginning of eternity. So for billions of years, billions of saints will all have the same white T-shirt they'll wear every day forever. That's it. God thought of all the beauty of the city. He thought of the beauty of the fragrance of the city, the colors, the music, the throne, the crowds. He forgot everything, the food, the fellowship, the mansions, everything, but he overlooked the clothing. Everyone has a white T-shirt forever. That's it. Same one. No, no, that's not what's gonna happen. You will have an array of garments that you will use in every different circumstance. You will have different garments, just like in life now. Different occasions, different garments. And your heavenly wardrobe will reflect your devotion to the Lord in this age. So yes, we all have the basic robe of righteousness. It's true. And we get that as a free gift. The free gift of the robe of righteousness. Beloved, this white garment has many different colors and hues and many different dimensions to our garment. It's not one white gown forever. That's it. End of story. No, there's a whole array of garments of different fabric and texture and fragrance and color and design for every different occasion forever. We're talking about the God of glory that has no limitation of wisdom or resource who's designed these clothes for his people. And these clothes will show forth their devotion to the Lord. You just study the clothing of the angels in the Bible. Their clothing is diverse. The clothing in the priesthood that was God's ideas. I'm getting ahead of myself. God is the one that revealed the clothing of the priesthood as a token, an insight into his value of clothing in the age to come. Well, chapter three, verse five, he that overcomes will be clothed in white, bright garments, many different types of garments. Don't get locked into the white T-shirt. Because if that's all there is and everybody gets the same, well, who cares? Well, it isn't all there is and everybody doesn't get the same and it's diverse, very diverse in what God will give people. They will wear and express their devotion to the Lord forever. The quality of our life in God will be expressed in the garments we wear, our love for him. He says, I will not blot your name out of the book of life. In other words, your story, your name is your story. He's not talking about losing your salvation here. He's talking about your story that's recorded in the chronicles of heaven will never, ever be negated, ever. He says, matter of fact, I will tell your story before the Father and the angels. Well, to confess your name doesn't mean one time as you're going through the gate, you know, the Lord says, Mike Bickle, pass. Hi, Jesus. Hi, Mike. Come on, move on. Next. That's not what this verse means. Like one time in eternity. It means he will tell the story of your devotion to the Father and to the angel time without number. He will tell your story because it moves him and it moves the Father and it will move you every time he confesses your story. I mean, one of the things I love to do is I love to talk about my friends. I love that, you know, I've been doing IHOP nine years. I've been in the ministry a lot longer than that. And so it'd be beyond IHOP. But certainly in the IHOP world, I love to tell people about so-and-so's dedication. I love it. It moves my heart. It moves their heart. It moves the hearts of other people when you tell people's story. And I love to do that here at IHOP. But, you know, I think of some of the ones that have walked with the Lord that I've known years before IHOP. And I love to still tell their story. I read a biography of a dedicated man or woman and I tell the story of the biography. That's the spirit of Jesus confessing your name. He's telling your story. It'll be told many, many, many, many times. And then the angels will tell it. I'm just reading into that. And others will tell it. Because, you know, I read another guy or gal's biography and I'm telling you and then you buy the book, then you tell it and the thing keeps going on. Well, that dynamic won't stop. They'll go on forever. The story of your devotion that moves the heart of Jesus will move the heart of the Father, will touch the angels, and it will just reverberate mouth to mouth throughout eternity as people are inspired by the people who obeyed the Lord. You know, that's what Jesus meant. John chapter 20, when he spoke to Thomas and he said, Blessed are you who believe without saying. You only get to believe without saying for one moment in history, your time on the earth. You get 70 years on the earth, Moses said. You only get to believe without saying once in billions and billions and billions and billions of years. And there's a blessing on believing without saying. And the blessing is you get eternal rewards for it. That God stamps it on your life, your character, your name forever. He looked at Thomas, he goes, There is a great blessing. If you believe and you obey with abandonment without saying, because that's the time in history of the great exchange. There's a great exchange. The exchange rate is really high when you don't see. But in the resurrection, when you see eye to eye, it's still meaningful, still powerful, but the exchange rate's just real different. And so that's what we get right now in eternal rewards. What a blessing. How many of you want the blessing of obeying? Believing means obeying. Responding is what it means to believe, to respond in confidence, to respond in confident obedience, to respond wholehearted, not to get halfway there and then to decide, I don't know if I want to follow through on my obedience. To be blessed without saying means to be confident in your response to the end. The Lord says you do that. There will be a blessing beyond anything you can imagine forever. Imagine chapter three, verse five, the Lord confessing your name, telling your story. Again, it's not a one-time deal. It's not, again, it's not the moment you pass through the city. He says hi to you once, that's it. He tells your story forever if there is a story to tell. Is there a story to tell? Everybody's life has a story. That's not what I mean. Everybody has a story, good or bad. I'm saying, is there a noble response? I don't mean you did something that made you famous. I'm not talking about that. Not something that got the attention of man. Have you lived in a way that gets the attention of God? Because you've obeyed him in secret. Do you have a story that's worth telling that will move God and the angels? I tell you what moves him is obedience in secret. That's what moves him. When no one's looking, it's the way that we express our love to him. It's the arena in which we express our love to him. It's our obedience in secret. He says, I'll confess your name. I'll tell your story. I'll tell to the angels and the saints will hear it. Again, just like we hear each other's story. I mean, I read the first Samuel. I read the life of David. I hear his story. You know, the Bible, when I read the life of David, in one way, it's Jesus telling the story of David because he got it in the Bible. He put it in the Bible. It's that same spirit. It's that same idea. The Lord says, no, I haven't. I'm not going to stop this. I'm not going to change my personality. I'm going to tell your story forever. Chapter three, verse nine. Now, this is the church in Philadelphia. Boy, he really piles them up. He gives seven rewards to the Philadelphia church. That's the church he doesn't give any correction to. He says, they will worship before your feet. The people that persecute you on the last day, they will bow their knee to me. It doesn't mean they'll be saved. They'll bow their knee. Every knee will bow to Jesus. Believers and unbelievers, they'll say, you're God, you're God, you're God. Some will be on the way to the lake of fire. Others will be on their way to the eternal city. But every knee will bow, every demon. And Jesus said, the people that persecute you, I will see to it. They bow their knee to worship me before your feet. And in that, I will vindicate you in front of them that you chose me and it was wise that you chose me. Now, you say, well, what's that about? Jesus is, it's his zeal. It's his zeal to vindicate the people who love him. Because during our time on the earth, we love him. And the others don't value the love. So they mock it and they oppose you. And Jesus is silent, so we think. He's recording it all. And he goes, you know, it's almost like the principle, if we don't worship God, the rocks cry out. Lord, it's in essence of him saying, when I see that you love me, if you didn't love me, the rocks would cry out. But you did love me and I appeared silent. No, I will shout it from the rooftops in front of the people who mocked you. That's my zeal for you. And I will let them know that I loved you. It's not just they'll bow down before you when they worship Jesus. Jesus says, you see that guy over there? He'll say, name your name. I love him and I'm the king of kings. And he'll, you know, he'll call you by name, look you right in the eyes and say, I love you. And the person that persecuted will say, oh, worst thing I ever did, besides ignoring Jesus, was getting in the pathway. And it's not about making the persecutor feel bad. It's about justice in the realm of love. He loves us. And it's not just in his eyes that we would love him and he would not proclaim it, his value of it. So the point isn't, you know, to goad the ones that missed it. It's to vindicate with justice those who did it right. And it's justice requires that it's in the sight of the one that mocked you for justice to be done. Isn't that amazing that Jesus even thinks this way? Every single act of obedience is recorded, will be alive, remembered forever in his heart. It says in verse 12, I'll make you a pillar in the temple of God. And you'll not go out anymore. I mean, like that's an example. You could make that two or three promises. You know, you're gonna be a pillar, number one, in the temple, number two, never go out. But yeah, I just make it one. It's just one of the 20. I mean, you could break it down in several different ways and number these if you wanted to. But you will have a place of honor in God's city forever. It'd be a place to have a place of authority. He says, I will then write on you the name of my God, the Father. I'll give you supernatural understanding of my Father. I'll write on you the name of the city. I'll give you ownership and authority in the city. And I will give you supernatural understanding of how the city works. And he says, then I'll write my own name on you. I will tell you things about my heart that you have no idea of. When the Lord writes his name on his people, that means that he releases not only understanding, but the ability to feel it, the impartation of it. You say, well, why do we need the name of the city? Have you ever been in a 1,500-mile city before? You know how far 1,500 miles? It's from here to the east coast. That's the city. You can get out in the middle of the city and say, now, where am I at? How does this thing work? This is a big city. It's not only 1,500 miles one direction. It's 1,500 miles high. You're going to want the authority and the understanding of that city in your spirit. Trust me, you're going to want that. He says, I'll write it on you. I'll put the compass right in you and the understanding of the glory of the city and the authority to move about the city. That's what it means to have the city written on you, the name of it written. It's the authority to move about the city. Everybody will have it at a different level and the ability to understand the city. I've been in a few big cities over the years, and I mean, they're overwhelming. I mean, you can get lost in them. It's like, what is going on in this city? Cities are mysterious. But there's a city that he says, I'll write. And this will have a varying degree to everybody. Everybody will have this given to them at a different level of authority and understanding to have the city written. And then he'll write his own name on us, his own new name. And that means that there's facets of his heart that he's not made known yet that he's going to make known to you. Because the name means his heart, his function, his emotions. And there's dimensions of Jesus that he wants to unveil to us forever and forever and forever. Chapter 3, verse 18, he says, buy for me gold refined by fire, so you'll be rich, rich in the age to come. Now we get gold in this age, it's called faith. And faith isn't just believing, faith is responding. Faith is obedience. Faith and obedience are identical. Some people say, you know, I have faith, but my obedience lacks. No, faith and obedience are identical. Faith is confident responsiveness to God. It's you have confidence while you're responding. He says, get gold. And so gold is our faith or our response to God in this age. But there's gold in the age to come. And you can buy it by your obedience right now. What do I want gold for? Well, you'll have gold in your mansion. You'll have gold in your clothing. You'll have gold in your crown. You'll have gold in the precious stones that God gives you, the trophies, so to speak. And trophies is not necessarily the best word. You know, a wedding ring is a trophy of sorts, of love. There'll be gold in many facets of our life. And he says, I will put, I will give it to you. I'll give it to you in your dwelling, your clothing, your crowns, the medals I give you, so to speak. These precious stones that depict our love relationship together. You'll want that gold. He says, I'll give you white garments. Here he says it again now. This is the second. In chapter 3, verse 5, he mentions the white garments. But now he mentions it again. Instead of white, put the word bright, bright, shining garments. There's many facets of the garments, not just one layer. Many layers, many different types of the garments in the age to come. He goes, and why do you want those garments? That you'll be clothed so that in eternity, the shame of your nakedness, it means that the shame of having an incomplete obedience to the Lord will not be seen. Now, people won't, in the eternal city, be pointed out as sinful. Like somebody won't point out. Someone says, oh, that's the guy that did this and that. No, it won't be the pointing out of the overt sin. But it will be the lack of the garments that depict their dedication in the age, in this age. I don't want to be in the age to come, lacking the garments that depict my love relationship with the Lord. Everyone has the gift of righteousness and everybody has the robe of righteousness, free gift. I want garments that depict the value I have for Jesus in this age. And he said to lack those garments is shameful. At that age, people say, hey, how you doing? They won't know what you did wrong. They will just know you live selfish. Like, oh, that's shameful. Here's an amazing thing, that most of the saints that I interact with in the West, because we're so, which is glorious, we're so grounded in the Reformation, the justification by faith message of Martin Luther, which is, well, it's really the message of Paul, which is the message of Jesus. But we're so focused on justification by faith, which we need to be, that there's a really low revelation in the Protestant church of the value and necessity of our obedience. We're so locked into what we get free in the city, that we lose sight of the value of what we do after we're born again. And the idea of having shame in the age to come is an idea that most Protestants never grapple with, but it's in the Bible a number of times. We would live this way and that way, so we would not be ashamed as believers in that day. And I don't believe people will be ashamed because what they did will be unveiled. I believe that what they did not do will be apparent in terms of their devotion to the Lord. And the shame is almost always related to garments. The eight times in the book of Revelation that garments are mentioned, several times when the garments are mentioned by Jesus, he puts the element of shame. You'll be ashamed if you don't have the garments that depict your devotion to me. As believers, he's talking about. And as Protestants, most of us in this room are Protestants in our background, we typically have a glorious view of the freeness of salvation, our entrance into the kingdom, which you cannot overemphasize the value of that. But in that, we've ended up, I'm talking about the whole church in the West with a very minimal insight into the value of what we do, our obedience after we're born again. And the idea of standing before the Lord with remorse is not in the mind of most Protestants. Because we're aware we will not be penalized and kicked out of the city as a free gift, but we assume that means that we will be fully happy with all of our decisions. And we won't be. There will be remorse in the body of Christ, though no fear of expulsion from the city, none whatsoever. The gift of righteousness will be ours. There'll be no sense of being kicked out of the city. But we will have pain when we see his beauty and how much he wanted us to walk in love with him and how much he loved us and how much he wooed us and how little so many responded. And so he talks about that. He says, you want white garments. This is Jesus talking. Jesus has really good doctrine. He says, you want white garments. He's talking to the born-again believers here. He's not talking to unbelievers. Why do you want white garments? That the shame of your nakedness, nakedness in eternity means lack of rewards in the realm of garments. That's what nakedness means. It's talking about lacking the garments that depict reward of our love for God. He says, you will have shame on that day. You really will. Then he says it again in chapter 16, verse 15. Jesus, again, he speaks up and he goes, you don't want to lose your garments. You really don't. Because you can actually gain garments. I'm talking about beyond the gift of salvation. I'm talking about the response to our obedience. And we can lose them. We can gain them and lose them. You can walk in obedience for four or five years, real responsiveness to the Lord, real fresh walk with God. I've seen it happen many times. In the 30 years I've been in ministry, I've seen a lot of people go hard for five years. And the next 10 years, they're just walking in compromise and they've lost their freshness in God. They're not in the word anymore. The spirit of prayer is gone. That earnest desire for obedience is something in the past. And they're still in the church. They still might still be a leader in the church. But their freshness with God has been gone for 10 years. That's how a person loses their garments. And it's not because they have a bad day or a bad month. It's because they go for a decade of unresponsiveness. So whatever the time is. And so Jesus warned, was warning them. Because you don't want the nakedness of your faith to be revealed. You don't want the nakedness, the lack of your faith to be made known in that day. Again, it's not that a deed will be pointed out. It's covered by the blood of Jesus. The deed is. But the lack of responsiveness, the nakedness of our faith, instead of the fullness of our responsiveness. He goes on in verse 20. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come unto him. I will dine with him. Can you imagine? Now, we can dine with the Lord in this age through worship and prayer and fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit. We dine with him in that limited sense, which I think is awesome. I mean, I say limited because I'm only thinking of how open-faced it will be in the age to come. It's glorious in this age. And it's the most glorious thing we can do in this age is dine with him. But compared to where it's going, it's only a token in this age. But it's a glorious token. And I want more of it. So we dine with him now. But, beloved, we're going to dine with him, not figuratively. We are literally going to eat meals in the presence of Jesus and talk to him. I mean, face to face. He goes, you'll dine with me. Now, I don't want to just sit in the cafeteria where Jesus is a billion tables away talking to you. Like, I look over there and I see you, you know. You wave at me a billion away. Hey, Mike. Hey, bro. It's awesome over here. Well, I guess I'm technically dining with him. I'm in the room. I'm in the city. No, I want to be there next to you, next to Jesus. That's kind of cute, but it's actually real. Because, you know, Jesus, in the age to come, throw this out. I say this all the time. It disturbs people when they hear it for the first time. Jesus, in the age to come, will be a man in a human body. Jesus will be omnipresent through the person of the Holy Spirit. We will say, Jesus, and we will fill his presence, no matter where we are in the city. But in actually seeing him in his physical body, we will go to him. He will be at one place at one time, like he was in his earthly ministry. He will be a human forever in a human body. He won't be walking with you in the park and walking with me in the park at the same moment in the flesh. He'll only be walking with one of us in the park that moment. Now, by the Holy Spirit, we'll say, Jesus, and we'll fill his presence. He'll talk to us. We'll talk to him. But I want more than that. I want to be actually talking to him. There's going to be several billion people who want to talk to this man all the time. Think of the 12, and the 170, and the 120. We'll now make it several billion in the resurrection. Jesus will really have a human body sitting really on a throne, and we will be called to talk to him, and we will be summoned to his throne. We will dine with him. This will be awesome. But I actually want, and I want to give you the vision for this, physical, personal contact and interaction with him, not just by the Spirit way over on the edge of the city. I want to be in the room talking to him like Peter, James, and John did, because, beloved, he will have a physical body forever, forever. It's not figurative. It's real. And again, by the Holy Spirit, we'll all be able to commune with him. We'll fill his presence. We'll know his mind. He'll hear our heart. But I want to look at his, I want to touch his arm, and I want him to touch my shoulder and say, hey, Mike, how are you? Oh, I love it. Jesus, I love you. I know you do. I've been receiving that from you for years, Mike. Oh, I just want to tell you again. Lord, do you love me? Oh, Mike, I love you so much. Oh, this is worth everything. And then you'll be there. I'll go, wait, wait, just wait a second, wait a second. Or maybe it'll be the other way around. Maybe I'll be there, and you'll be saying, Mike, shh, wait, wait, I'm talking to him. Verse 21, to him who overcomes, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne. This is indescribable, that we would sit with Jesus on thrones. Now, everybody will not sit on the throne. I mean, let's just make up the numbers, because I don't, nobody knows the numbers. Let's say there's a billion believers from Adam to, you know, the, to today, a billion believers through history. Let's say there's a second billion that are on the earth right now. That's what the, those that do the statistics, they say there's about a billion born again believers in the earth. Some say 700 million. Who knows? Say a billion. Say there's a billion in the great harvest that's coming. So a billion in the past, a billion today, and a billion coming, ballpark two or three billion saints, two or three billion. There will not be two or three billion thrones. There will maybe millions of thrones. I don't know. I have, no one knows the numbers, but I challenge you to think about this. Most assume that everybody will have a crown and everybody will have a throne. It's absolutely not biblical. There's nowhere in the Bible that says that. We will all have, every born again believer will have the gift of righteousness, the robe of righteousness to get in the city. We'll all have a resurrected body and we'll all have God's smile and favor on us and we'll all be citizens in the city. But after that, most things, I'm sure there are a few other things that we all have exactly in common, but after that, most things that we have, there'll be great differences in the measure of the glory and of our capacity and how we interact with the Lord. Our relationship with the Lord will all be very different. There will be those who know the Lord in a very, I mean, they will have a proximity, a physical proximity to the physical Jewish king named Jesus of Nazareth, fully God, fully man. They will be able to have access to his immediate physical presence in a way that others won't. And it won't be based on how famous you were on the earth or how big your ministry. It will be based on the response of your heart in love to him in secret. It has nothing to do with how famous you were. I think we're going to be surprised that at the judgment seat of Christ, which I call the great equalizer, it's when everything is equalized, we're going to be surprised that some of the real famous ministries will have the least reward and some of those we never heard of will have the largest reward. I mean, I really think it will be that way. Jesus said it in Matthew 19, in verse 21 to 24, he told the rich young ruler, he said, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom. And what that means is not just the physically rich or the financially rich. It's hard for those who are rich in fame and influence. The more influence I get, same as true view, the more difficult it is to stay focused. So it's not just rich in money. It might be rich in favor. It might be rich in influence. The more money and the more influence I have, the more effort it takes to stay focused at the heart level in humility and love, just not because of just pure pride. There's always a pride element in those things. It's more than that. The weight of the responsibility just simply buries us. It's hard, not impossible. It's hard for a person who receives increase to enter, to experience the kingdom in an ever-increasing way. Now, Jesus was saying that, and we take it as it's hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom. We think of getting in the kingdom initially. And I think we miss a lot if we limit that truth to only getting in the kingdom. It's hard for a rich man to become born again. That's not exactly what he was saying. He certainly meant that. It's hard for a rich person to experience the kingdom. To enter means to experience. It is a message as appropriate to a believer as it is an unbeliever. It's a message as appropriate to an anointed ministry as it is someone who isn't, because the richer you are in influence or money or favor, again, put the pride element aside. There's a lot to say on that. That's not even what I'm focusing on. I'm talking about the sheer weight of managing our time in a way where we stay focused on the Lord. I've met many a guy, I've doubted a bit myself over the years, where as the increase comes, we find ourselves having less time to stay locked in. And I know many guys over the years. He's got lots of guys in ministry over the 30 years. I've seen them go from small ministries to large ones. And in that 10 or 20 year process, their heart went from real big to real small. See, I don't want a growing ministry and a decreasing heart. I want a growing heart. And if I can have a growing ministry without injuring my heart in God, then I want a growing ministry. But if my growth of influence injures the size of my heart, I do not want the increase of influence. Because that influence will mean nothing where we're going. The only thing that will matter will be the size of our heart response to the Lord. And the Lord requires us to turn down opportunities for increase because we are committed to the increase of our heart. Many people can't receive it. They take every opportunity for increase no matter what it does to their heart. If it's more money, yes. The question should be, if I take the job with more money, what will happen to my heart in the next three years? Not even just the pride element, the time element. Will I have time and strength for fasting and prayer? Well, I have so much new responsibility, I'm not sure I will. I would turn the job down. Same with ministry. I've had several times over the years where my ministry grew a lot in a short period of time in that relative sense. And it's really small growth in reality, but it was a lot compared to the year before. And the several times the Lord has told me, who said that was me? What if it was me testing you? What if it was me giving you an opportunity to say no because you cared about your heart with me? And most folks in the Western world, because in the West, the value is growth. That's just the value. You get more influence, more money, more honor, more stuff. Take it. Must be God. But the kingdom economy is growth of the heart. And if we can handle the growth of the other things without injuring our heart, it's good. But Jesus would say to us, don't be deceived by that. Don't think you're different than everyone else. There are times to say no, to influence and favor and increase so that our heart increases. Well, that was the easiest message I ever gave. That's page one. Let's stand.