It's very important to realize that God is the one who saves, and it is He who gives growth. As believers, we have been given the truly awesome responsibility to proclaim God's message of salvation. Ultimately, that is where our evangelistic job begins and ends. To proclaim. It's not our job to save people, it's our job to give them the truth and let God do the rest. Notice how God not only used Paul and Apollos, but in the preceding verses continued to use others.
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
God's plan includes many Christians building off each other to accomplish his work. Think about how many people would be impacted for Christ if every Christian God placed in their life preached Christ. Not just the same individual, but multiple believers over the course of time. I talked with a guy once who specifically told me, "Every person I seem to run into has been bringing up Jesus, maybe God is trying to let me know he exists." I told him that he was right.
Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.
It gets even better. Our works for Christ are being recorded. The ones done with the proper focus and motives will not only bring glory to God, but will be rewarded. Think about that exciting and challenging truth, and listen to Leeland sing about it in their song "Pages."
Yet another encouraging and insightful post, David! I deeply appreciate your point about our evangelistic duty beginning and ending with a faithful proclamation of the Gospel. It is, after all, "The power of God fthat brings salvation to everyone who believes" (Romans 1:16), and if we proclaim it faithfully, the Holy Spirit will take it from there.
ReplyDeleteThe question of reward is one I perpetually struggle with, though. We are conditioned--whether socially or through our sin nature or both--to associate the word "reward" with "tangible satisfaction or pleasure." God promises us that we will be rewarded, and surely we shall be. But do we have any basis for believing that the reward will be anything beyond having been good stewards of the great commission we have been given?
Great question Robert, I agree to an extent with how you defined reward. It's most often the way we look at them in our culture. Perhaps this is why so many people struggle with the issue. In my experience, I have even seen it affect people to the point that they never want to even talk about rewards in Heaven. However, I don't see the Biblical picture of "rewards" as something like a "tangible satisfaction or pleasure."
ReplyDeleteA few Scriptural references:
I Peter 5:4 refers to an "unfading crown of glory"
2 Tim. 4:8: Crown of Righteousness for those who "love His appearing"
James 1:12: Crown of Life for those who remain steadfast under trial
Revelation 2:10: Crown of Life again for the persecuted who remain faithful unto death.
Revelation 4:10 the Twenty-four elders cast their crowns before the feet of Christ
The following is also an excerpt from Randy Alcorn on this very issue:
"Christ is our main treasure, but when he tells us to lay up treasures in Heaven (Matthew 6:19-21) does he mean “lay up Christs in Heaven?”
When Paul says, in 1 Tim 6:18-19 “Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age” does he mean we will lay up Christ for ourselves through good works?
When Jesus says, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in Heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys ” (Luke 12:33 ), does he mean provide for yourself a Christ in Heaven that will not be exhausted and cannot be stolen or destroyed?
To say Christ is the main treasure we seek is absolutely true. To say he is the only treasure we should seek is false, since Scripture itself tells us to store up treasures in Heaven that are not Christ. Christ is the giver, those are the gifts. It is a false dichotomy to pit rewards against Christ, since God is the creator and grantor of rewards. It’s like saying we shouldn’t anticipate Heaven or anticipate being reunited with loved ones in Heaven, because God is the only one we should care about. It’s like saying we shouldn’t love people, because we should only love God. That may sound spiritual, but it’s completely false, contradicting Scripture."
http://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Mar/2/questions-randy-alcorn-about-eternal-rewards/
This is a great question to chew on, so thanks for bringing it up! There's plenty to study in this area, and I hope this helps shed some light on the issue.