Matthew 20:20-28 Then came to him the mother of Zebedees children with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of him.… Zebedee's two sons are following Christ, but following half unconsciously for a personal reward. Christ's answer is not for these seekers of office only, not for place-hunters in our day only, but for all men who would think of being Christians for a compensation, in whatever form we give that compensation shape. Christ's answer introduces the doctrine of Divine rewards. Is not one of the main reasons why Christian faith exercises such an imperfect power among men that, they misapprehend the sort of advantage they may expect to get from it? I. THERE APPEAR TO BE THREE PRINCIPAL DESIRES WHICH DIRECT ATTENTION TO RELIGIOUS TRUTH — 1. A want of personal comfort. 2. The want of moral guidance, or a rule to act by, and is of a much higher grade than the first. 3. The want of giving and loving — of giving to the Lord what the soul feels belongs to Him — affection and gratitude, etc. It is a spiritual aspiration. It does not stop to inquire about advantages. It is the desire of a harmonious and affectionate union with God in the reconciling and forgiving spirit of the Saviour. II. These three different wants SPRING UP FROM DIFFERENT PLACES OR FACULTIES IN OUR NATURE. 1. The first comes from a mixture of natural instinct and shrewdness — self-interest. 2. The second comes from the region of the conscience. It refers to a law, etc. — obedience as, obedience — duty as duty; second only to the life of love. 3. The third originates in the soul — its love, trust, gratitude. This is the Christian religion. Out of these three fountains flow three sorts of religious life, as distinct from one another as their sources are. III. THE REWARDS GOD PROMISES TO THOSE THAT DILIGENTLY SEEK HIM, DEPEND, IN EACH CASE, ON THE MOTIVE AND SPIRIT IN WHICH WE SERVE HIM. 1. Religion will never yield its true rewards to those who seek it for the sake of its rewards. 2. If sought to obtain relief from sorrow, etc., God may lead the soul on, through this half-selfish state, into serving Him for some more disinterested affection. But such will fail of any glorious reward. 3. God will reward every man "according to his works" — in the-line of his works, in the kind of them — love for love, etc. (1) In this honourable quality man's Christian service is not disconnected from his best acts in other lines of life. Legitimate in Christianity. Its universal sentiment is love. All its apparatus is to educate us to that mark. This is the distinctive ministry, which the Christian revelation brings: in Christ this is embodied. (2) The same principle must be applied to die desire of going to heaven as a motive to religious endeavour. (3) We come up at last to those acts of true religion which are done in the faith of the heart; and here we reach the highest view of the Divine rewards, simply because God has made these to be their own reward. They are rewards in kind. They are large just according to the spirituality of our lives, the zeal of our worship, the strength of our faith. They are interior, not visible. They are incidental, not sought. They are of nobleness rather than of happiness. He rewards us sometimes only by setting us to the performance of larger and harder tasks, etc. When he would give His greatest reward, He gives Himself, the Holy Spirit, in His Son. The brave and lofty hymn of Francis Xavier: "My God, I love Thee, not because," etc. Of our Christian religion the badge is a cross — even as self-forgetfulness is the spirit, love is the motive, disinterestedness is the principle, faith is the inmost spring. (Bishop Huntingdon, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of him. |
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