Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of desiring eternal rewards, explaining that our earthly lives serve as an internship for our future roles in the Millennial Kingdom. He highlights that Jesus taught extensively about rewards, urging believers to seek greatness in God's sight rather than in the eyes of men. Bickle encourages a shift from a passive attitude towards eternal rewards to an active pursuit of a deeper relationship with God, as our heart responses now will determine our assignments in the age to come. He reassures that even our weaknesses are accounted for by God, and every moment spent in devotion is valuable and remembered. Ultimately, the sermon calls for believers to align their lives with the eternal perspective of their calling and rewards.

for the release of the Spirit of Revelation. We ask you for impartation on the heart. We ask you for strength in our spirit as we open our heart before your throne, Father. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, tonight we're gonna continue in our series on studies in the Millennial Kingdom or studies on heaven coming down to earth, what it's like to live on earth in a heavenly environment. Roman numeral one, I mean, tonight we're gonna be looking at why should we desire eternal rewards? Now to some people, it's obvious. And to other people, they say, I desire eternal rewards, maybe for wrong reasons. But there's a whole lot of folks that this is a really unimportant subject to them. And I hope that you feel stirred out of that place because that's an unbiblical position to be passive about eternal rewards because Jesus is the one who taught most on this subject because he had the most insight on it. So why should we desire eternal rewards? Three different positions I run into. Those that have the understanding from the scriptures to why, those that desire it but for wrong reasons and those that don't think much about it, which is where the majority of the body of Christ is. Roman numeral number one, just a quick review for those that have been with this series the last number of weeks. The Millennial Kingdom is the time that the saints will reign on the earth for 1,000 years. And the last five sessions, we've been developing that theme, the details of it and all the notes are on the website for those of you that are joining us for the first time tonight. And it's the understanding of the Millennial Kingdom that gives us insight as to what the Lord's preparing us for now in this age in terms of the age to come. The Lord has a very specific agenda that he's preparing us for. Yes, we are making an impact on people now and that impact stands in its own right as valuable and important. But all that we're doing is not only about the impact we're making on others right now. We're interacting with God's heart and we're preparing ourself for yet our greater assignment on the earth, which happens after the second coming. I like to say this, we'll get to this at the end of the teaching that we're, our 70 years on the earth right now is really an internship. It really is an internship. It's our assignment in this age though it's in its own right has its very important in terms of its impact on people right now. It's not only about impact. It is a preparation time for us because your primary earthly assignment comes when you get a resurrected body in the age to come when Jesus returns. That's a new idea for a lot of people but it's a real established idea in the New Testament that the apostles referenced all the time. Paul the apostle was real focused on the idea that what he was enduring was working for him a weight of glory that was far greater than anything he was walking in in his apostolic ministry on the earth. Well, we'll get to that in a few minutes. Roman numeral two, having a right view of eternal rewards. First and foremost, we value eternal rewards because Jesus does and he taught us to. Jesus taught more on eternal rewards than anyone else in scripture. Says in Matthew chapter five, verse 19, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches other people to do so, that man or woman shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Now they're born again, it's in the age to come but they'll be called least. But whoever does the commandments and teaches others shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. That's not talking about this age. It's talking about the age to come. Paragraph eight, Jesus invites whosoever to be great in his kingdom. Now this is one of the primary teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. The call to greatness or the call to eternal rewards. Now the Sermon on the Mount, as far as I'm concerned, is the core teaching of the kingdom of God. It's the foundational teaching. I call it the constitution of the kingdom. You can't repent of a longing to be great. The reason you can't repent of that longing because God built it into your spirit and you were designed with a longing for greatness. Now what you can repent of is seeking to be great in a wrong way and with a wrong spirit. And we have to repent of that. And we can repent of neglecting to seek greatness. See, some people seek greatness in a wrong spirit and they need to repent. And others neglect the whole subject and they also need to repent. I'm sure some of you in this room, the Lord will use this to call you out of a passive attitude about a theme, a truth so critical to your life. Without the paradigm of being on a journey to greatness, you will not sustain your zeal for God in the same way. The apostles could not. The apostles sustained their zeal for God, not only with a vision to be great and to receive rewards, but clearly that was in view to all the apostles in their teaching. Peter, Paul, James, all of them referenced it in a personal way. Says in Hebrews 11, he that comes to God must believe that God is a rewarder of the people who diligently seek Him. We must believe God rewards. I'm talking about as believers, our responses to Him. It's a critical part of having a vibrant faith. Paragraph B, there's a great difference in the measure of glory, the measure of reward that every believer will have. I'm guessing there'll be several billion believers in God's eternal family. And every one of them will have a different degree and a different measure of greatness. Some will be called least and some will be called great. And then there's a large group in between those two extremes. In Revelation 19, around the throne, the born again believers gather around the throne, both the small and the great. It's talking about their, it's describing people in resurrected bodies. There will be the small, the least, and there will be those called the great. There may be those among us in this very room, some of you, that will be called great in the eternal kingdom. But the thing the Lord wants us to know, anybody can do this because it's not based on gifting. It's based on heart responses. It's based on diligence and seeking the Lord. Paragraph C, Jesus revealed a new paradigm of greatness. Number one, it's greatness, it's to be great in His sight, not in the sight of men. Number two, it's a greatness that is fully manifest in the age to come, not now. And number three, it's based on heart responses, not on natural gifting or even ministry opportunity and resources. It doesn't matter how big your ministry impact is right now. Matter of fact, it's irrelevant in terms of your place before God in the age to come. Top of page two, receiving rewards and being great is one of the primary themes that Jesus taught on. Already, that alone makes this teaching very important. And again, the vast majority of the believers, they just neglect this subject. They know nothing about it. They think about it very rarely. And what I believe the Lord wants, if that describes you, and surely there would be some in this room that would describe, I really urge you to repent in a zealous way from that negligent attitude about your life and your destiny. And don't put all your focus on getting more now. Put your focus on the big picture. With Jesus, just a couple examples, and there's many. Jesus, Matthew 5, He says, Rejoice, for great is your reward in heaven if you endure persecution. He goes on, I repeat it again. Whoever, verse 19, teaches the word of God will be called great. Luke 6, Love your enemies and your reward will be great. Matthew 6, verse 19, Lay up treasure in heaven. Luke 18, Have treasure in heaven. Do you have treasure in heaven? Is that something you're thinking about? Are you laying it up? This is not an idle teaching. Jesus said, even if you give someone a cup of cold water, He motivates them to be detailed in the way they serve and to be attentive because He says, even something small, you won't lose your reward. Jesus didn't talk just only about the nobility of being a servant. He talked about the reward of being a servant. It is noble to be a servant in itself. In some ways, it's good enough, because it's noble. But the Lord says, no, I want you to know, I will remember it, I will esteem it, and I will reward even that. When Jesus talked about coming back to the earth the second time, the issue that He stressed most when His own lips, when He talked about coming back to the earth was the fact He was coming back to reward individuals. You study all the times where Jesus, with His own lips, says, I'm coming back, and almost every time, the majority, He adds, He's coming to reward individuals when He comes. That's a huge reality that Jesus would tie those two themes together, the second coming and the individual reward of faithful believers. Said Matthew 16, the Son of Man will come and He will reward each one. According to their heart responses, to what they do with their life. Says in the book of Revelation, He's talking personally to John, I'm coming and my reward is with me to give it to individuals according to their heart responses. Now look at what He told Peter, Matthew chapter 19. Peter said, Lord, we left everything. Followed you, what do we have? I mean, we left it all, what do we have? You might have said, isn't it enough, Peter, that you're with Jesus for three and a half years? Jesus said, I assure you, surely, in the regeneration, in other words, at the time of my coming, when the earth is regenerated in the millennial kingdom, when the Son of Man sits on His throne, you will have thrones. Jesus is motivating these young men to continue wholehearted by showing them their place in the government in the age to come. Well, Jesus thought it was a noble way to motivate people and the 12 took hold of it, the apostles, and it shows up in their teaching in a major way. They took hold of it. Have you taken hold of this? Is it something you ask the Lord for insight on? And if not, it's a good time to start doing it. Start saying, Lord, show me, Ephesians 1, verse 17 and 18, give me the spirit of wisdom and revelation. Show me the hope or the confidence of my calling, what it is and what it's gonna result in, not just in this age, even in the age to come. Ask Him for insight. I'm not saying He'll tell you that you'll sit on a throne in Israel like He told those 12, but you might be surprised what the Lord, how He might give you strength and courage in your spirit about the fact that you're being prepared for something important in the age to come. In the next couple of weeks, we're gonna have a surprising teaching. I mean, it'll be surprising to a number of those that are taking this class. It's how many times or how many individuals in the Bible that the Lord, by the spirit of prophecy in the Old Testament or Jesus Himself in the New Testament, how many had revelation about their role in the age to come? Not just the 12 apostles, I have a whole list of them. It's quite surprising if you've never studied it. It's a theme that is not, it's not an insignificant theme in the Bible. King David had an unusual insight about his role when he came back with the Lord. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll wait and lay them all out in a week or two. And for those of you visiting, that interests you, you can tap into the web stream and watch it live like many are with us right now around the world through the cameras, joining in with us. But you get the notes as well on the website if that interests you. Paragraph F, Jesus taught on God's invitation for our greatness more than any other person in scripture. He taught on it in a direct and indirect way. He called us to be great, to receive riches, to be a ruler over many things, to have authority over cities, power over nations, to sit on His throne, to inherit authority, to be first in authority, to gain treasure, to receive rewards, to be exalted, to receive honor, to be chosen for honor, to gain crowns, to gain garments. It goes on and on. These are from the lips of Jesus. Top of page three, eternal rewards, external expressions of our internal love for Jesus. Now this, just stay with us for a moment. You'll read a little bit of this later. You can read it more in depth later. That in the age to come, we are gonna actually wear our rewards, we are wearing tokens of our devotion to the Lord. In this age, we're wearing them in the age to come. The gold, the garments, the thrones, the glory in our resurrected body, they are all expressing outwardly that which we walked in inwardly in this age. Our eternal rewards is not about strutting in front of people, boasting about being over people. That's what it's not about. So that's what a lot of folks, when they think of rewards, the first thing that strikes them is, I don't wanna be over people and have work to do, and that's completely a wrong paradigm of authority. We'll get to that in a few moments. Paragraph A, rewards, eternal rewards, are tangible, physical expressions in eternity of our intangible, invisible responses to Jesus right now on the earth. What we're doing in our, the movements of our heart to love Jesus right now, they will be remembered forever in God's heart, and they will be expressed in our personhood forever. I mean, what you're doing today at two o'clock, tomorrow at eight o'clock, whatever, is indescribably important because God remembers it, He esteems it, and He rewards us forever, and we wear it, I'm using that quote unquote, we are rewards from heaven, express forever the devotion we had for Him right now in this age. Some ways, it's similar, I mean, in a limited sense, like a wedding ring is now, people wear a wedding ring, or they wear jewelry that they received from somebody that was a token of love, or they gave it, and they're wearing even tokens of the movements of their heart, the love of their heart. It's a limited example, but I'm just giving you a different paradigm of viewing rewards. It's not about being over people and pushing people around. It's not what rewards and authority is about in the age to come, that's pretty obvious, but that's surprisingly where many people automatically go, and they go, I'm not interested. Paul talked in 1 Corinthians 4, verse 5, he talked about the coming of the Lord. He says, now when the Lord comes, he will bring to light both the things hidden in darkness, and, listen to this, he will bring the light, he will reveal the movements, or the counsels, or the motives of the heart, and when he does it, each person will receive praise from God. Now, we think about when the counsels of our heart, or the motives of our heart, or the movements of our heart are revealed, that's bad. Paul says, no, when they're revealed, you receive praise and honor from God when it's revealed. 1 Peter, verse 1, verse 7, 1 Peter 1, verse 7 says the same sort of thing, that in that time, we receive praise and honor from God. The counsels of your heart, the movements of your heart today, you're choosing righteousness, humility, you're warring against pride, you're warring against the lusts of this world, many types of lusts. And every time you choose the Lord in love, he records it, and you will have reward in the age to come that openly expresses the internal struggle that you had to show love to God, even in this age. They will express openly for all to see, in the new Jerusalem, what can't be seen right now. Even what you can't fully see in your heart. I mean, you know you have that love, and you know you're pressing, but you can't really see it or feel it in the way you will see it and feel it in the age to come. I'm talking about in the age to come, you will see and feel the devotion you had even in this age. Not just the devotion you have in the present tense in the age to come, you will actually understand your commitment to the Lord more then than you do now. You'll look back on it with a Holy Spirit insight, supernatural memory, with anointed senses, a glorified body, even the remembrance and the gratitude you will have for the exchange you had with the Lord will be something that's a part of the glory of God that will be on us in the age to come. Luke chapter eight, Jesus refers to this, this principle of that which is on the inside being expressed on the outside. Now he's saying this in a positive way here in Luke eight. Nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor is anything hidden that will not be openly known. It will all come to light, for whoever has, to him more will be given. This is in context receiving from the Lord in the age to come. Now whenever we hear something secret being revealed, our natural response is, oh no, something hidden coming to light. What about the movements of your heart to love him? The spirit of condemnation comes against you and tells you you're just a hopeless hypocrite, give up and give in and quit. But the Holy Spirit says it's not true. You love Jesus. Your love is real. Your love may be weak, but weak love is still genuine love. It still moves the heart of God. Sometimes we think that our love is only real after it's mature. Weak love is still genuine love. A little child genuinely loves their parents, though their love is weak and immature. Jesus said there's nothing, there's no movement of your heart in the positive sense that will not be revealed. There's nothing hidden you've done in your secret obedience, in your secret devotion to the Lord that will not come to light. Not just that others would see it, you will see it in its full glory. You'll wear it in crowns and garments and the spirit of glory on your resurrected body. And the dwelling place that you live and the treasure you have, the gold God gives you, all of it will express and bring to light the movements of your heart with the Lord, even in this age. For verse 18, whoever has, that means the person who has genuine devotion and obedience to the Lord, that has genuine faith, even weak, but it's genuine, to anyone that has, more will be given to them. The thing will multiply and increase. Not just their abilities, also their devotion and their obedience will be given to them in a greater measure. They'll have a greater ability to walk it out. Now this is spoken in Luke 8 in a positive context. Luke 12, a little bit later, Jesus speaks the same truth, but in a negative context. But it's true, both positive and negative in both settings. He says, nothing will be covered up that won't be revealed. Nothing hidden that won't be made known. What you've spoken in the dark will be heard in the light. Now he's speaking in that context to the Pharisees who are plotting Jesus's death. You think, oh no, what about that? No, if you repent of it, it's covered by the blood, it won't be brought up again. Do you really repent of it? You say, that's good news. That is good news, except for here's the problem. A lot of believers justify their compromise so they never repent of it. They come up with Bible verses to back up what they're doing. And then on the last day, it won't kick them out of heaven, but there will be dialogue about anything we have confidence to bring to the judgment seat unrepentant of. And so don't look at the verse and say, well, I'm a believer, this won't apply. There will be conversations. The Lord will say, what was that about? It's pretty obvious, Lord, that was bad. Well, my spirit was striving with you and telling you to renounce it. You never did. This is speaking negative, but also the things we can take the principle in a positive sense, even here in Luke 12, the things that you speak in the darkness. In other words, in secret over to the side can be about your obedience to the Lord, whatever is spoken in our devotion to the Lord will be heard in the light. Paragraph B, we'll be rewarded openly for things that we can't see right now. These are the counsels or the movements of the heart. They include our decisions for righteousness, our motives, our love for the Lord and for people, our emotions that we're wanting to bring them into alliance with the Holy Spirit. And even the emotions that we do have for the Lord. Again, even if they're not mature, but they're still real. I'm talking about positive emotions. Every movement of our heart is seen by the Lord and remembered. Beloved, there's nothing that you're doing that's in vain. Now this makes your life tremendously relevant and powerful every hour of every day. God knows the costly, painful obedience that you're reaching for. He's watching you, seeking his face, trying to connect to him and putting yourself before him even without feeling the full inspiration that you have a vision to feel. And the Lord says, I see the longing of your heart even to be in my presence. Paragraph D, the gold, the garments, the treasures, the positions of authority in the age to come are all tangible expressions of the movements of our heart even now. Jesus says, buy from me gold. We looked at that last night. Buy from me white garments. They will give sight and touch and sound and expression to what's been happening on the inside of us. They will openly express what could not be seen by others now. Thus, these rewards, gold and garment and crowns are metaphors in this age, but they're literal in the age to come. They merge together. We have gold in our love for God now, but then he actually rewards us in gold in the age to come. Like the paragraph F, the Olympic marathon champion. I'm thinking of the person, the man, the woman that wins the gold medal. The value of the gold medal is not the financial value of the gold in the medal. It's probably worth an insignificant amount of money compared to the years that they labored. What the gold matters is how it, the reason the gold matters, it expresses the commitment that they had for years represented by that gold at that time. Top of page four, Roman numeral four. A right view of authority. Roman numeral four, a right view of authority in the millennial kingdom. Our view of authority, the way we view authority shapes the way we seek rewards. A lot of people, their automatic view of authority is just to be over people. And if that's their view of authority, to be over people, and to have the ability to enforce more privilege for themselves, then it's understandable. They say, I don't care about eternal rewards. I just want to love Jesus. I don't want all that stuff. That's because their view of authority is rooted in a secular paradigm of pride. But that's not the kingdom view of authority. Paragraph C, the bridal paradigm of authority is based not on being over people, but it's based on the desire to be with Him where He is doing what He does. Our view of authority isn't to be over people. It's to be near Him doing the things that are dear to His heart with Him. And what's dear to His heart is to establish a worldwide kingdom. And He's gonna be closest to the people in partnership who are establishing it with Him. Now, everybody's working with Him in the general sense, but just like when He was on the earth, He had the 12, then He had the 70, then He had the 120. There was even the 500 that He appeared to in the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. 500 He appeared to at one time. Then among the 12, there were the three, Peter, James, and John. Then among them, there was John who laid his head on the Lord's breast, who called himself the disciple whom the Lord loved. I'm sure the others could have ran with that confession, but John's the only one, and John says it like five times in the gospel of John. He wouldn't even say his name when he outran Peter to the tomb. He says, the disciple that Jesus loved outran Peter. I've always had a little thing with that verse. You know, John's 90 years old, and he's still talking about beating Peter in that race. I go, John. And it might be that he was talking about his enthusiasm. I don't know, you know. But he called himself the one that God loved. Well, anyway, in the age to come, everybody will not have an equal relationship with the Lord when Jesus is on the earth the next time, just like when Jesus was on the earth the first time. Everybody will have equal access to God's heart in the sense of everybody will have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them, and they'll be able to speak and feel his presence and receive communication directly from him. But in terms of the nearness of proximity to the man Jesus, the resurrected man, the son of David, the Jewish king on a throne in Jerusalem, we will not all have equal access to him in person. You know, I've talked to folks over the years, and a lot of them just assume that all, you know, two or three billion saints are all gonna be walking with him in the park every day, just them. And so what happened to the other three billion people? Are they just waiting for you to finish the walk in the park? I don't know. I just picture me and Jesus in the park. Well, Jesus will have a physical resurrected human body, and he will be on a throne. Now, by the Holy Spirit, we'll all be able to connect with him, but he will have those in leadership and in government that will be interacting with him more than anybody else by far. I wanna be in leadership. I don't wanna be over you. I wanna be near him. Now, that's what this is about. I wanna be involved in what's dear to him and near to him. I wanna be involved with what he's involved in in terms of the mandate from the Father to disciple all the nations. And we're working to disciple the nations now, but that task of bringing every single sphere of every nation in total obedience to the Lord is what the Millennial Kingdom's all about, because the discipling of the nations is far more than preaching Jesus to the nations. It's bringing every institution into full obedience to him. And though we will preach the gospel in every nation before the Lord returns, every nation will not be discipled before the Lord returns. The witness of the gospel will be in every nation, but the discipling of the nation is far bigger task than that, far bigger than preaching in every nation. I'm gonna be involved in that with him. Here's what Jesus said in John 17. He goes, Father, I desire that those you've given me, they may be with me where I am to see my glory. Now there's the sense of which all the several billion will be with him in the sense in New Jerusalem, but there's degrees of this. I wanna be with the man Jesus where he is as much as possible. Jesus said in John 14, I'll come again and receive you to myself that where I am, there you may be. I don't just wanna be in the same 1,500 mile city. I'm gonna be in the same room with him. I'm gonna be strategizing with him as he trains the nations in the full counsel of his heart. 144,000, the highest description of glory that they receive as they will follow him wherever he goes. That's 144,000. It's gonna be hard to get in front of that line. I mean, to talk to the Lord. Hey, Lord, hey, would you guys stop? Wait a second. Lord, I just wanna ask you this one question. I mean, I don't know how it's gonna work, but I know this, that when Jesus is on the earth ruling, he will be a resurrected human being in a physical body. He will be omnipresent by the Holy Spirit. We will have communication with him, but I don't wanna just be in the city with him, on the earth with him. I wanna be in the room with him. And the Lord says, you can, based on your responses to me in this age. It's not based on how gifted you are. It's based on how abandoned you are to him. It doesn't matter who you know. You may be someone that says, I don't know anybody. I haven't networked with anybody. I don't have any contacts. I have no impact I can even measure. The Lord says, that's not what it's about. I don't know what my giftings are. I don't have any great education. I have no great opportunities. None of that matters in the things I'm talking about. It's all about heart responses. We wanna be involved, paragraph C, in what he calls precious. The greatest part of our authority is in the closeness in which we work with him, and not just how we work with him, how near, but in what we're doing, how dear it is to him. All the tasks will not be of equal importance to him. All the people will be equally important to him, but their nearness and proximity to him in relationship will all differ. We will cherish working with the one we love in discipling the nations. And not only is it that we're working with him, that's the ultimate, but we're also blessing people that we love. And those that are greater and greater rewards will be a greater blessing to the people they love. They'll have a greater sphere of anointing, a greater sphere of power on their life. It will matter. This is a paradigm based on love and desire. It's not based on being over people. The paradigm of eternal rewards. Paragraph D, the Father gave Jesus all authority over nations, and when he gave it to him, he gave it to him, the Father gave it to Jesus in profound respect of Jesus's dedication to him and profound trust and affection. The Father entrusted to Jesus the mandate of bringing every nation into total obedience in every area of their life. There's nothing dearer to the Father's heart than this mandate to bring all the people and the nations into full obedience to him. Because in the millennial kingdom, there'll be those with the resurrected bodies, the couple billion, but there'll be those that have natural bodies that are the unsaved survivors of the tribulation period that resisted the Antichrist. They will continue to populate the earth and there'll be billions of people and they'll need to be saved and trained and all the institutions of life brought under Jesus's leadership. We talked about that in the last five sessions, so I won't go through all of that again. On top of page five, paragraph E, Jesus said this. Well done, good and faithful servant. You're faithful in a few things, I'll make you rule over many. Enter into the joy of the Lord. And I like to use the word the enjoyment of the Lord, the joy of the Lord. There will be joy in ruling. It won't be boring and it won't be irrelevant. There'll be great enjoyment in the task. There'll be such a privilege to be working with the Lord that close. Jesus enjoys working with his father. In our view of ruling with Jesus is the delight of intimate partnership with him and the delight of working with other people, anointed people in a way that serves them and enriches them in the glory of God. And we'll all have different capacities in the anointing in the age to come. And I want as much capacity as God has ordained for me to have. Now think of the person you love and admire the most. To anyone in the whole world, someone you really admire, you have great respect for, great love. Maybe you live with them. Maybe it's somebody in another part of the world. You naturally would wanna work with them in the glory of God. It'd be a great privilege. Well, that's what rewards are about. Paragraph F, also in the millennial kingdom, there's another intimacy dimension. We will impart to the people with natural bodies, there'll be billions of them eventually, not immediately, but over a thousand years, they'll have long lives and many of them will live to be hundreds of years old. It says in Isaiah 65, if they only live to be a hundred, there'll be thought that something's wrong. The age process that reversed after the flood when everybody used to live five, six, 700 years and the age expectancy went down, well, that's gonna reverse and go the other way. And when Jesus returns and the glory of God's on the earth, and we're gonna be living in the new Jerusalem and the resurrected bodies, but the new Jerusalem's coming down to the earth. We'll interact, we'll come and go from the new Jerusalem. That will be our residence and we'll have places of leadership across the earth. As we interact with people with natural bodies, train them and teach them the ways of the Lord. And so as the life expectancy goes on, the number of people on the earth will be actually quite large, far bigger than it is now. The number will be far larger, but many of you will have teaching ministries on the earth, far beyond your ministries right now. But when we teach in the age to come, we won't be studying the libraries of heaven and just give data. We will be teaching out of the truth of what we did in this age. So we'll be teaching the nations about humility. We won't read a book on Paul's humility. We will talk out of what we did when pride confronted our hearts, because everything will have to be in truth. And all the teaching ministries about calling the nations into intimacy and holiness and righteousness will be the fruit of what we did in this age. So, oh Lord, I wanna teach them about humility. Well, when you had a natural body and sin was in your members, how did you confront pride? What did you do? That's how you will teach them. And the Lord may say to one person, you didn't really do that much. And to another person, you have volumes of things to teach out of your true interaction with me, because the people you're teaching will have natural bodies and they'll have the struggles and we will teach them in the spirit of truth, not just the memorizing what somebody else learned, we will teach them out of the truth of what we live in right now. Really matters what we're doing. I wanna teach men and women about purity and meekness and seeking God under the difficulties of having a fleshly body and not being face-to-face with the Lord in the way that we want to. And the Lord's answer would be, well, if you wanna teach that stuff, press into it now and teach them what you did. Don't teach them theories, teach them out of life what you did. Really matters what we're doing now. Roman numeral six, eternal circumstances or temporal ones. The Lord wants us to see the value of our eternal assignment or our larger assignment on the earth, because, well, let's look at paragraph eight. Life on the earth in this age, I like to compare it to a 70-year internship. It's preparing us for our assignment, our next assignment on the earth, which is far more important than our assignment we have right now in terms of its impact. Again, I'm not to minimize the value of the people we're touching right now. It's important, but that's not the end of the story by any means as to what's going on in your life today. This is the time that we're beginning, this is the time we're preparing for our primary ministry. My primary ministry is not what I'm doing right now. This is important what I'm doing and it's important what you're doing, but it's preparation. My primary ministry, I get that assignment when I meet the Lord. I'm talking about my earthly ministry. We have our 70-year assignment now, and then we have our 1,000-year assignment coming next. Billy Graham, as famous as he is and as many people as he's touched, is still an intern right now. He really is, he's an intern. He hasn't begun to touch the potential that he has in the grace of God to impact the nations. He's at the beginning of it. The analogy I like to use is the analogy of a medical student. If a young man or a woman says, hey, I wanna go to school for 10 years, invest a couple hundred thousand dollars in my education, go 10 hard years, be a doctor, whatever the exact years is not the important point right now, and nobody would think it was strange. They think it'd be wise. They would invest 10 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to have 50 years in the profession as a physician. They go 10 years of training, hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment, but you get 50 years to be a doctor. Well, if that's wise, that's self-evident, why is 70 years hard to understand as an investment to get ready for a 1,000-year assignment? I mean, it makes sense to give 10 for 50. Well, then how much more sense to give 70 years for 1,000 years? A lot of financial sacrifices. There's time commitments. These doctors, you know, in university and med school and residency, I mean, I've had a lot of doctor friends over the years, and I mean, when they're in those few years, it's like they're going 20 hours a day. I mean, they have no life outside of it. Well, why not live with that same wisdom right now? By the grace of God, that's what I wanna lay hold of. Paragraph B, in our 70-year internship, you have two major issues to decide. Issue number one, do you wanna be a part of God's eternal family? The answer is yes. You're born again. You commit yourself to Jesus. The next issue, do you wanna be a part of His government in the age to come? Many people, their answer would be, never think about it. I'm just saying, as a friend and a shepherd in the kingdom, that's a really important decision to think about. It doesn't take care of itself any more than a young man or woman going to the university with no direction. They don't just end up a doctor one day. You know, I was just kinda walking around the campus, and one day I was a doctor. It doesn't happen that way. Just kinda going about life, and suddenly they're in government in the age to come. Absolutely does not work that way. They're focused. They're obeying the command of Jesus. They're taking serious the invitation of Jesus to be great in the kingdom, and they're going after it. I unashamedly wanna be great in the kingdom. I wanna be great in God's sight, not in man's sight, because it's a biblical reality. The choices that we are making now are determining our assignment in the age to come, and that's what this study on the millennial kingdom's about. Paragraph C, our ministry in the age to come has nothing to do with how much we accomplish in this age now, and it has everything to do with how much we develop internally in this age, and part of our internal development is in serving people. I mean, the ultimate development is servanthood, so I'm not saying that we're not connected to impacting people. No, absolutely we are, but more than anything, we're connected to obeying the Holy Spirit, because a lot of folks under the banner of serving people and bringing the word to people, they get thrust and swallowed into, it's like this magnetic force of just perpetual networking to increase their influence. It's not even really about touching people that much. It's about getting more influence and a greater sphere of influence, and a lot of folks are tricked by that, and they think they're genuinely serving God and ministering to people. They're just getting more well-known, and they spend their time and energy. They'll do anything just to get a little bit more influence, and I wanna encourage you, lock in to something bigger than just trying to get a few more doors open in this age. A few more people know you, and a few more people are helping you or paying attention to you. There's something a whole lot bigger thing in your life going on than that. Stephen Covey, paragraph D, said it in his famous book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He said, a good leader begins with the end in mind. Well, Jesus and Paul began with the end in mind. I wanna encourage you to begin with the end in mind with where do you wanna be in 500 years? No, for real, I'm as serious as can be. Where do you wanna be? Work back from that. Paragraph E here, top of page six. Our calling in the millennial kingdom is far more important than our circumstances now. Paul said, our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians 4. For our light affliction, he's talking about a persecution and fasting and prayer. He's not just talking about the negative only, but the rigors of his lifestyle is, but a moment it's working for us a more exceeding eternal weight of glory. He wasn't just talking about all that he was going through, earning the resurrection. He had the resurrection, that was a free gift. He had eternal life as a free gift because of the gift of righteousness. He was talking about embracing the rigors of his calling and his lifestyle that it was working in him something that was not automatic. He's not talking the eternal weight of glory doesn't mean the gift of salvation. He's talking about something is working in him. It has to do with his assignment in the age to come. Romans 8, he said, I consider the sufferings of this present time. And it's not just the beatings and the whipping. Certainly that's at the top of the list. But again, the way that he dealt with his life in the culture of pleasure. He says, I consider the sufferings of the present time. They're not worthy to be compared with the glory revealed inside of me. Romans number seven, Jesus's affirmation of our heart, our choices, our achievements. He says in Matthew 25, well done, good and faithful servant. Well done, good and faithful servant. Let's go down to paragraph C. We need to have a vision. And most at least have this vision to hear the Lord say well done, the end of our life. But most believers I know have that vision, but they don't put any, there's no practicality to it. Again, it's like the young college student kind of wandering around the campus, hoping he turns out a doctor. A lot of folks say well done, but what are you doing about it? Well, what do you mean? Just kind of trusting the grace of God. That's not gonna get it done. What's your action plan? What do you do with your time and your money? What are you doing on Monday morning, Monday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night? What do you do with your time and your decisions? Do you take every opportunity you have for pleasure or increase? Or do you say no to things so you can be in the presence of God? You're not gonna just show up one day with a life bridled under the grace of God and under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. It's gonna take an intentional focus and a sustained sticking with it to have this kind of testimony from the Lord on the last day. Anyways, so I say that we all need to have the vision and most do, but most don't have any action plan behind the vision. So I heard one preacher say that without a plan, I mean, you can have a vision, but without a plan, any road will get you there. Meaning, there's a vision just to kind of go for God and they just kind of go on anyway and hope they end up right. And 10 years go by and they're no deeper in God 10 years later. I've been in ministry now over 30 years and I've seen a lot of guys go hard for five years. And I see them 10 or 20 years later and they're worse off than they were when they were going hard. And those five, I mean, they're less, they have less relationship with the Lord now. I mean, many, I'm talking thousands. I don't mean just a few bad examples. My point is we wanna have an intentional, deliberate going after this thing. We wanna seize this vision and give ourself to it in a thought through intentional way, not a casual approach. It's the most important thing in our life after we're born again is this reality, our relationship with God, paragraph D. Now, having said all that, I'll end on a little encouragement to our weakness. God takes into account our weakness. So David said, he knows our frame. He remembers we're dust. Now, David had revelation of that. Our best efforts only produce flawed faithfulness. My best efforts, my faithfulness is still flawed. All of us are, David's was, Paul's was. God's editing process of grace takes into account our weakness. Our faithfulness is flawed and it fails on occasion. However, if we consistently make resolve to rise up, to encounter the Lord, to war against the thing we stumble, our life is still considered faithful. When we come up short in our failure, in our flawed faithfulness, we renew our resolve to be steady. The Lord looks at it and He sees faithfulness in our spirit. So don't have such, I mean, our vision is to be faithful, but the Lord's view of it takes into account our weak frame. So it's doable is my point. It works for people like us. I'm just saying earlier, it doesn't just happen automatically one day. We have to be intentional and focused and re-sign up for it a thousand times in our life. Paragraph E, we can receive tokens of well done even now. I mean, there's times in our life where we sense the Holy Spirit's pleasure over our pursuit, not our attainment, our pursuit. We can enter into the joy of Jesus looking, saying, I see the pursuit, you're going hard. You haven't attained to everything, but you're pursuing and when you fail, you re-sign up immediately to go back after it again. Paragraph F, every hour is sacred with this revelation that the Lord's watching us. Every hour is for our benefit if we seize the opportunity. We must let the joy of this revelation, the fact that we can be found faithful, and He says, well done, good and faithful servant. Even in our weakness, we can have that sense of it now. That washes our heart and invigorates our spirit day by day. Maybe that's exaggerated to say day by day, but it can, that truth can invigorate us through the weeks and through the months. The glory that our hours are important. They may not be making a great impact on anybody, and we may not feel a lot in that particular hour, any given hour, but the fact that we're reaching for Him and we're choosing Him, He receives it, He esteems it, and He remembers it and rewards us for it. Boredom or burnout has no room in this paradigm of life. They're eliminated to the degree we connect with this reality. The idea that every day matters, every hour matters. We don't have to feel power in that hour for that hour to matter to God. We don't have to have the breakthrough in the attainment of maturity for that hour to be remembered by God with a sense of value and nearness and dearness to His heart. Amen. Let's stand.