The Reward of Our Lord, Part 1 | Ambition and Reward

Luke 22:28-30

Well, turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 22. We are working our way through Jesus’ final instructions to his Apostles, which he’s giving just before his death. And I’d like to begin by reading this section that we’re in, the whole section, starting with the institution of the Lord’s Supper, which is in Luke 22:19. Luke 22:19, and following, “And when he had taken some bread and given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And in the same way he took the cup after they had eaten, saying that ‘this cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

“‘But behold, the hand of the one betraying me is with me on the table. For indeed, the Son of Man is going as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed.’ They began to argue among themselves which one of them it might be who is going to do this thing. And there arose also a dispute among them as to which of them was regarded to be the greatest. And he said to them, ‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who have authority over them are called “Benefactors.” But not so with you. Rather, the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant. For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table, or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines?

“‘But I am among you as the one who serves. Now you are those who have stood by me in my trials, and I grant you a kingdom, just as my Father granted one to me, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed earnestly for you that your faith may not fail; and you, once you have returned, strengthen your brothers.’ But he said to him, ‘Lord, with you I am ready to go both to prison and to death!’ And he said, ‘I say to you, Peter, the rooster will not crow today until you have denied three times that you know me.’

“And he said to them, ‘When I sent you out without money belt and bag and sandals, did you lack anything?’ They said, ‘Not a thing.’ And he said to them, ‘But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword should sell his garment and buy one. For I tell you that this which is written must be completed in me, “And he was numbered with the transgressors”; for that which refers to me has its completion.’ And they said, ‘Lord, look, here are two swords.’ And he said to them, ‘It is enough.’”

The next scene, as you can see in your Bibles, and maybe the heading that’s written there, the next scene is Gethsemane, the Garden of Gethsemane, a place for Christ, for our Lord, which is a place of deep agony, followed by the betrayal and the arrest of Jesus, followed by a series of hasty trials. And then he’s led away to the cross. So these are the darkest of hours on the darkest night in human history, when the world formally, collectively, together rejects Christ.

Going back to the Upper Room, it’s important for us to know and understand that Jesus is preparing his men for the new world that they will enter after the crucifixion. Everything’s going to change. This is the turning point in human history. They don’t realize that. They cannot discern that. It, they think there’s going to be a continuity. They’re going to enter into glory.

And yet there is something radical, deep, profound that will change on this, within hours of their meeting in the Upper Room. And so Jesus is preparing his men for this new world, for this new scene. He gives them, in this time in the upper room, a set of principled instructions that they will need to build the church, that they will practice in the church.

The fullest treatment of Jesus’ instructions in the Upper Room are found in John’s Gospel, chapters 13-17. So this account that we’re reading in Luke’s Gospel is obviously abbreviated. It’s a focused account of what happened in the Upper Room. And Luke is wanting to move the narrative along more quickly from the Upper Room into the Garden of Gethsemane and to the cross. But Luke sees these specific, targeted instructions of the Lord on this night, these particular ones, as vital and thematic elements that define the ministry of the Apostles and their leadership in the early church. They’re definitional to leadership in the church.

In fact, every good leader in the church, in observing these principles, understands that he is a servant to all. This is a pattern we’ve received from the Lord Jesus Christ, watched practiced among the Apostles in the book of Acts and in the epistles. And then we learn to practice, as well, as pastors and elders and deacons and leaders in the church. This is what we do. This is what we understand. These are seminal principles of leadership. They define the ministry of the Apostles in the early church, and they are practiced throughout the church age.

And so Luke isolates a short series of instructions which prepare us, his readers, and Theophilus, specifically. Theophilus is his chief benefactor, the wealthy patron that Luke addressed by name in Luke chapter 1 verse 3. Luke is preparing Theophilus and us for volume two of his works, which is called the book of Acts. Luke names Theophilus again in Acts chapter 1.

So these honed-down, abbreviated, sharp, moving-one-after-another principles are principles of leadership that we’re going to see actually practiced and given shape in the book of Acts. These instructions of our Lord to his Apostles, again, principles of leadership that really cast the mold for apostolic leadership, cast the mold for all future leadership, and for all Christians, really, as we all engage in the task of making disciples.

So we come to our text for today, Luke 22:28-30. In this darkest of dark hours, in this darkest night of all nights in human history, we find a beam of glorious light shining into the upper room and dispelling and driving away all darkness, and giving these men such encouragement and such hope to show what is the end of their highest aspirations.

Jesus has just given them something to aspire to, a kind of leadership, an ambition to pursue: to outdo one another in showing honor, and outdoing one another in showing service and serving to one another and now he shows them the end of that; Here’s what’s in your future, men.

It’s rather remarkable to me how our Lord has so skillfully turned an argument over who’s the greatest Apostle into an opportunity for this positive instruction on true greatness. He’s so gentle in confronting and correcting and redirecting their ambitions. It’s amazing demonstration of his leadership, his power, his charisma. I love listening to him. I love observing him. And I hope you do, too. And I hope you don’t miss this aspect of his leadership: how we can take such a bad situation, a dispute over who’s going to be the greatest and lead them out of that and into what’s truly great, noble, virtuous, and glorious.

Again, as we said last time, it’s not wrong that these men had ambitions. It’s just that they had the wrong ambitions and the wrong valuation. Their thinking was bound by such limited, sinful pride. They preferred title over duty, fame over substance.

There’s such wisdom not only in Jesus’ instruction, but just in the way that he instructs his men. He so skillfully, as I said, brings them up from the depths of the lowest ambitions, pride-fueled, rivalry based, and he raises them up to the highest aspiration, and putting himself forward as an example to follow so that they can learn the secret of true blessing, which is in giving to others, which is in serving others, in living to serve others. And now it is with corrected, redirected ambition that Jesus wants his men to get a glimpse of what’s ahead, of what’s really in store, what’s out there, what he has planned for them.

Look again at verses 28-30. “Now you are those who have stood by me in my trials, and I grant you a kingdom just as my Father granted one to me, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Those have to be some of the most encouraging verses in all of Scripture, as Jesus tells his Apostles what they stand to gain in his service. It’s not that, do this and we’ll see what happens. He’s saying, this is going to happen. This is your end. This is where the ambition I’ve laid before you and the aspiration I’ve laid before you, this is where it leads. This is what I planned for you. This is what I’ve given, and this will happen. You’re going to be with me at my table and sitting on thrones. Amazing.

Far higher than all their small, limited, worldly ambitions, driven by pride, turning into petty rivalries. Far higher than all of that are the goals that our Lord has for us. He can see so much greater than we can see, and he gives us a vision of, of great hope and joy.

We are all subject to and inclined to because of the sin nature in us, being born in sin, being under that original sin, the effect of it in our life and in our soul and our bodies and our minds, we’re all subject to being led astray again and again by that first lie that was the lie of the Garden of Eden, namely, that God is not good, but he has a dark side, that he withholds the best from us, that he’s stingy and rather grumpy.

In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that’s how we tend to be tempted to think about God, and so many fail to see how perfectly good, if you just study the creation account, how so good. He repeated it, he, “This is good.” Day one, “it was good.” Day two, “it was good.” Comes day six and day seven, “very good.” Everything’s awesome.

He’s magnanimously generous, providing so many things for them to enjoy and explore and discover and learn and eat and drink and companionship and duty and responsibility and good work to be engaged in. So many fail to see how good he is, how generous he is, how infinitely blessed and eternally happy God truly is. And he wants to bring us into that fellowship and communion and joy and blessedness.

And so rather than heed his warnings against the lies of Satan and the deceitfulness of sin and the utter emptiness of sin’s pleasures, many people dive in even deeper to their sin and they chase even harder after sin and sinful pleasure and sinful priority. They weary themselves as they are driven by their lusts and their ambitions, and it darkens their souls and hollows them out and spends their energy on that which does not gain, and eventually, pursuing sin defiles and degrades them in the end.

How tragic that many people remain in that condition, and even presented with the counter-evidence of the Scripture, they continue to pursue in blindness, chasing after, it’s like the men who surrounded Lot in his home in Sodom and Gomorrah and wanted to come in and rape the angels. They wearied them, even after being struck blind by the angels, they wearied themselves trying to find those and do their sinful deeds.

How many are like that today? God wants us to see sin in the sinful system of this world, “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life.” He wants us to see all this as obstacles that keep us from his best. He wants us to see for ourselves the scales that they are that blind us, that distort our vision, so that we call good evil and evil good. God would have us turn from our sin and repent and give ourselves wholly and fully unto him so that he may bless us. That’s what he wants.

I’m reminded in this thought of C. S. Lewis, who once preached a sermon called, The Weight of Glory and begins with an important point he makes. Quoting C. S. Lewis, here, he says, “If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” End quote.

That observation from C. S. Lewis, which is very well-known, for good reason, he made that more than sixty years ago, it’s highly relevant to the text before us. We’ve seen, as our Lord has corrected the small ambitions of his Apostles, he’s redirected these men to higher heights, to greater greatness, to great glory and honor. And his aim, Jesus’ aim, here, is to fulfill the true desires of their hearts, which they themselves do not yet know or understand because they are far too easily pleased.

These men, like many of us today, they were still in their infancy in Christ, still ignorant and immature and untrained in the nature of true honor, in the vision of true divine glory, in the understanding of the depth and the breadth and the height and the length and the width of our eternal reward.

And what we find in these verses, in the promise of future reward, is that our deepest longings are fully met in him, in his promise. As we’ll see in this text, longings for acceptance, longings for meaningful work, for honor, for glory, all of that is met if we follow him, if we listen to him, if we do his will in his way.

We start in this section with our deepest need: to be accepted and received and even commended by our Lord; Jesus will receive us. After correcting the selfish ambition of his disciples and redirecting their ambition to the highest aspiration of self-denying service to others, in verse 28 Jesus commends these men for their loyalty. He says, “Now you,” and it’s emphatic in the Greek, “you yourselves, you are those who have stood by me in my trials.”

In Jesus’ humanity, knowing the full range of emotion, it’s while he is right here, feeling the deep pain of Judas Iscariot’s betrayal, that he, in contrast, rejoices in the fellowship with these men, these men who are his true friends, who don’t leave him, who don’t abandon him. They’re here.

And now, even though he’s disappointed in his friends, even as he sees their petty rivalries, their selfish ambitions, their low view of things, their limited understanding, Jesus still finds reason to rejoice in their ultimate loyalty in contrast to Judas’ betrayal, because they, they stood by him in his trials.

The verb, here, translated, stood by, is an intensified form of the verb meno. Meno, which means, to abide, to remain. You find it repeated, repeated usage of that in, the vine and the branches, passage in John chapter 15: Meno, meno, meno; abide, remain, if you continue in me, if you abide in me, if you remain in me.

This verb, it attaches a prefix, a prepositional prefix, to the verb meno. It’s diameno, which is an intensified form. It means, to continue or to persist. And in the tense that Jesus uses here, the perfect tense, it’s emphasizing loyalty, so to remain constant with someone, to stand by someone, and especially here, stand by them in difficulty. One commentator says, “This is the idea of persistent loyalty.” That’s what he’s talking about, persistent loyalty, perfect tense; you have stood by. So that indicates, have stood by, there was a starting point sometime in the past when they started doing this, started remaining with him, standing by him and that point continues all the way up into the present moment. And Jesus actually points to a future of standing by him, being with him at his table in his kingdom.

This is in a participle form, also, so it points to the fact that these, this is, the, the indication here is Jesus talking about the character of these men. They are characterized by standing with him, even standing with him in trials, even standing with him in difficulty. That is to say, loyalty like this is their nature, it’s their habit. It’s their, their way of life. I realize that they’re going to be, in very short time, it’s going to be tested, exposed to be weak, weakened by sin, weakened by cowardice. But they will return, and they will remain with him for all of them except one, their deaths by martyrdom.

We’ve seen this kind of loyalty in these men throughout our study of Luke’s Gospel, how his disciples have been faithful, loyal, standing by Jesus, serving him, not perfectly, obviously, but consistently. Going back to the very beginning, Jesus called and they came. He commanded them to follow and they followed. Jesus sent them to preach the kingdom of God and heal the sick in Luke 9:2, and they went and did exactly that. They did it in this prescribed manner that he gave them.

Remember when Jesus fed the multitude, he supplied miraculous bread and fish, just kept pumping it out. The Twelve served as his waitstaff. They were running food back and forth from him to the hungry multitude so that the Lord’s miraculous supply of food could fulfill his intent, satisfy the physical needs of all those multitudes of people, and to serve as an object lesson to illustrate the deeper spiritual needs, that he himself is the bread of life.

These men are faithful, they’re reliable, they do what they’re told, they’re loyal to him. Were they perfect? Obviously not. Did they always get what he was saying? No, they didn’t. Did they sin at times? Were they weak in their faith? Yes. Did they vacillate sometimes and disappoint him with petty arguments and selfish ambitions, rivalries? Yeah, we’ve seen all that, too.

But in the end, were they loyal? Did they remain? Did they continue with him? Well, they did, and that is no small thing. Loyalty counts with him. Remaining counts with him, I know that there are some sensitive consciences out there as regard to your own salvation and sense of assurance, and I share in that for myself. There can be times of deep doubt and questioning: Do I really belong to him?

Well, just look around and see where your feet are. Are you still with him? Do you still identify with his people? Do you still walk with people who walk with Christ? Are they counted as your family, as your closest friends? Because we are family. You understand that, we’re put into one family with our Father God as the head, Jesus Christ as our eldest brother, and the Spirit conforming and shaping all of us into the character of our father in Heaven. We are family. Look around. Do you remain with people like that? There is good reason for that; it’s because God has changed you. God has made you into, and he is perfecting, the image of Christ in you.

These men stood by Jesus, not just when it was easy, not just when he was admired, popular. He was the headline news. Everybody wanted to make him king and try to make him king by force. They didn’t just stand by him then; they stood by him when it was hard to do so, “in my trials,” he says, peirasmos. This is a word that we translate depending on the context, trials or temptations. Every trial that God gives can, because of our sin, turn into a temptation. But God does not tempt us to evil. “He himself is not tempted by anything.” You know, James, chapter 1, right?

Christ, these are his trials. He calls them, my trials. But at the same time, Jesus realizes that his trials were trials and then temptations for these men, that their sin nature, their weakness, their fallibility, their finiteness, their limited understanding, and vision, it would be too much for them. And in fact, sometimes it was too much for them, so that they vacillated and they fell. He’s so sympathetic to that. He, being tested and yet never sinned, has become a faithful high priest to all those who do sin, all his little brothers and sisters.

So what Jesus commends in these men is not their sinlessness. Clearly not the case. They doubted, they feared, they argued, they put themselves forward. But what he commends is that they followed him, and they stayed with him, and they remained loyal to him, and they pursued obedience to him, that was their characteristic pattern, that’s what they were like. Unlike Judas Iscariot, who decided to walk away for good, even though he was with him a long, long time. He faked it for a good long while. These men, though they have had their ups and downs, though they will face even darker days ahead, in the end, they stayed.

They stayed when it wasn’t popular. They stayed when he was misunderstood. They stayed when he was lied about, when he was maligned. They stayed when the best and the brightest of the political and religious leaders, all the respected men in the establishment of Jewish, Jewish religion, when they warned everybody about him, they tried to warn everybody, telling everyone he did what he did, “By the power of Baalzebub, he’s aligned with Satan.”

They assassinated his character. They impugned his motives. They tried to align him with the devil, eventually swaying the majority in that opinion, and these disciples stayed. They held fast to the minority report because even though it was in the minority, it had the weight and the gravity of truth.

Jesus regards loyalty, that is, remaining in him, abiding with him, he regards loyalty as the chief mark of true discipleship. Matthew 10:34, on the negative side, he gives this warning, “Whoever denies me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven.” Man, that thought stings when you think about what Peter’s about to do, and even all the other disciples who’ve scattered and abandoned, leave him behind. The sin of denying Christ? Extremely serious, shameful in its cowardice. It’s going to plunge Peter’s believing heart into a bitter weeping before the night is through. This, even this, is not the unpardonable sin because Jesus restored Peter.

What a comfort to us as well, isn’t it, when we cave? God will restore us, too, when we commit shameful sins, any shameful sin, through the confession and the repentance that he’s provided in Christ’s atonement, even for the cowardly sin of being ashamed of his name, even when we are, we soften the hard edges, when we try to hide when we should be standing forward, unpopular truths of the Bible that we should stand up and proclaim, ashamed to stand for his cause.

All those things we do and have done, and we find when Jesus restores Peter in John 21, ah, man, aren’t we filled with hope? Aren’t we filled with gratitude? I mentioned Matthew 10:34 about denying Christ, but the previous verse, Matthew 10:33, there’s a far more positive, encouraging promise, “Everyone who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my Father in heaven.” What is this, but the hope of receiving the commendation of our Lord, the approbation of Christ, which satisfies our deepest longing, that we would hear from him, “Well done, good and faithful slave; enter into the joy of your master.”

Look, we all want a good reputation with others, don’t we? Who doesn’t want a good reputation? Maybe some sociopath, okay, but we all want a good reputation. We all want to be thought well of by others. But the opinions of men, as we know with any experience in this life, are easily won and just as easily lost.

It’s true that the opinions of men should mean very little to us and that we ought not to be controlled by the fear of man. But the fact is we are concerned about our reputations. We are concerned about what people think. And does that not point to a deeper reality that’s in the human condition? It’s not a part of the Fall. It’s a part of actually how God designed us and created us. Yes, it’s been distorted by sin. Yes, it’s been perverted. Yes, it’s been corrupted. Yes, it leads us astray, but does it not point to a deeper longing that we have of God’s good opinion of us?

This is what makes Jesus’ words to his Apostles, even as he’s just had to correct and redirect their ambitions, this is what makes his word so precious, “You, you yourselves, you men, you are those who have stood by me in my trials. And just as my Father has granted me a kingdom, so I also grant you a share in my royal privileges and royal prerogatives and royal rule.”

Man, to be accepted, to be received by Christ, to be approved by him as here, to be commended by the Lord Jesus Christ, that is worth more than all the world, more than all its fame, more than all its acclaim. “For what does a man profit if he gains the whole world,” if he gains and maintains the world’s approval and loses and forfeits himself? That is, what does it matter if he gains and maintains the world’s approval and good opinion and favor, but doesn’t have God’s approval, doesn’t have the reception and the commendation of Jesus Christ? In the end, wouldn’t that be the most tragic?

God receives all those and only those who will receive his Son, who wholly trust in his finished work on the cross, who refuse to trust in any righteousness of their own since they actually count themselves as unworthy sinners. They count themselves as under God’s just condemnation for their sins. God receives those who trust in the atoning work, in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.

This son, Jesus Christ, he will receive all those, and only those who trust him, who believe him, who follow him in faith, who practice and pursue practicing loving obedience. All those who remain with him, who are loyal to him, who stand with him, he receives and he brings them to the father. “And so, little children,” 1 John 2:28, “abide in him,” remain in him, “so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink away from him at his coming,” but rather we will run to him who has already received us and accepted us and approved us and commends us, fully assured that he will at that, in that day accept, receive, and commend all of us.

For all who receive him, they will remain, they will endure, they will persevere to the very end. In the end, like the Apostles, as Jesus says this to the foundation members, foundation stones of the church we stand in now, Jesus will receive you. He will say to you, “You stood by me and my trials. Well done, good and faithful slave. Enter the joy of your master.”