One of the things that distinguishes the Old Testament from the New is the sort of reward offered for serving God. Christ offers something better than the fertile fields and big harvests which showed God's favour in the Old Testament. Here He offers Himself.

The Gospel also discourages the service of God for merely selfish motives, even spiritual ones. Our Lord speaks of forgetting self, of losing oneself in serving Him and others, so that, while He freely offers reward, it is clear that no one who accepts service under Him for mercenary reasons can be close to Him or stay with Him for long. They must take up the cross: they may be persecuted, even killed.

Yes, the early disciples knew pain and the anguish of grief, and beloved Stephen had just been martyred. But they who had tasted the bread of life went on preaching the Good News of the Kingdom fearlessly. There was great joy in that city, because they remembered those words of Jesus: "For what my Father wants is that all who see the Son and believe in Him should have eternal life. And I will raise them to life on the last day."