Matthew 25:31-46. November 8, 2020. Grace-Benson, Grace-Vail Sermon Information is power. Often in order to control others, the powerful withhold information. A football team doesn’t tell their opponent their strategy before a game, because they want to win. A successful company keeps their success tactics a secret for as long as they can to maintain an edge over their competition. An army at war does all they can to mask their plans, they use codes and deceptions, because they don’t want their enemy to know what they’re about to do. In fact if a team gave away their gameplan, if a company gave away their success tactics, if an army gave away their strategy, you might conclude: they don’t really want to win. What does God do with his information? Does he hold it back, or give it away? What does Jesus do with his judgment day strategy in Matthew 25? Jesus proves he has no interest in making people losers so he can be a winner. He’s not keeping secrets to gain a competitive edge. He tells you and I and anyone who will listen precisely what will happen on that day, because he wants them to be blessed, and not cursed. To be near him and not cast far away. To win and not lose eternal life on that day. There is no place in the Bible where you’ll hear information about judgment day stated as plainly and thoroughly as here. Jesus is generous with this information for your benefit. I’d like to ask 3 questions in two different orders to help us understand and take in this information better. The questions are: Who, what, why? Then what, why, who? Start with the first who. Jesus said to his disciples, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory.” Who is this son of man who comes in glory?When Jesus called himself “son of man”, he could not have picked a title that expressed simultaneously his humility and his incredible glory. In the Old Testament, son of man was a term God used for Ezekiel the prophet, a humble prophet. And Jesus applied that same title to himself in his humble human life in this world. Yet in addition to being a title of humility, Jesus was making a glory claim that could hardly have been grander. The prophet Daniel was given a vision of judgment day. You heard some details this morning about the ancient of days seated for judgment. A little later in the vision, Daniel saw coming with the clouds of heaven one like a son of man. He was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. Huge claim of glory and power that Jesus was making whenever he called himself son of man. In other places the Daniel 7 glory is hidden, but in Matthew 25, the glory of the Daniel 7 son of man is being claimed by Jesus. All the angels came with him. There’s a glorious throne. He also is called the king. There’s a part of us that senses: this is the way it should be. There should be a throne, and a glorious king seated with powerful angels all around him. We have a sense of divine justice and setting right of all things. We might have some fear of this king on this throne; but a part of us knows we need this. We need someone to set right what has gone wrong in our world. That’s who Jesus is. That’s how he will come on Judgment Day. Not as a humble man, not through humble words, but as the glorious divine king. What will he do? He said, “All nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and
the goats on his left.” No one can avoid the coming separation. No exceptions. No exemptions. all nations, no avoiding this. If you have ever felt like a nation or a person in this world needs to be judged, needs to face justice; if you’ve ever been angry because it looks like someone is getting away with something; this is assurance: no one ever gets away with anything. All will have to face the God who has always seen everything they’ve done, who has every word and even thought on total recall; and he will judge. Jesus made a comparison to teach us what the separation will be like; a shepherd, sheep, and goats. How exactly does a shepherd do that? There could be all kinds of methods, but one thing is sure: the shepherd doesn’t just suggest to the sheep and goats to go here or there. He makes it happen. He enforced his will. They will go where the shepherd says they will go. Right or left, one direction or another; the animals don’t make the determination, the shepherd does. When Jesus speaks on judgment day, there will be no resisting his command. It will be unstoppable at that point. First, he’ll say to some, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father.” What an amazing word to hear from the king on the throne, from the son of man in all his glory surrounded by the angels. Come closer, not go away, not keep your distance and maybe I’ll spare you. Instead he will say, “Come. Come close to the king, the son of man, the god who made you and who you are made for.” You are made to be close to him, and you never have been as close as you’d like, as you were made to be. But the day is coming. He’ll go on, “You who are blessed by my father.” There is a blessing, a state of being which is perfect, a way of living in which everything is exactly the way it should be. Nothing out of place, nothing wrong. The king has a shining positive opinion of you, an approval. Just imagine if an earthly king or leader or hero said, “I want you to come, I think you’re great, and I want the best for you.” That complement would keep you joyful for days. Well the complement of the son of man on Judgment Day will produce a joy that never ends. Eternal acceptance is what the sheep are in for. What else? “Inherit the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” You will inherit a kingdom. You will have a shared ownership of the coming perfect universe and life. You won’t just be tolerated, you will inherit the kingdom. The inheritance will be freely given, and not earned, yet it still really will be the possession of the sheep. Have you ever wanted a kingdom? Ever wanted to reign? To have say over a realm? To have a place where what you say should happen is what happens? And where when that’s the case it all doesn’t fall apart but instead fits together harmoniously? Ever wanted to be totally competent and useful? Have a place where you feel like your skills and competencies and the needs around you and your interests all lined up perfectly? Ever want that? You’ll get it when you inherit the kingdom. Where is this kingdom from? From the mind and will and creative power of the perfect eternal father. Prepared for you since the creation of the world. In Genesis 2, Adam was told to rule over and subdue the perfect creation God had made. He was designed, and you as a child of Adam are designed to be master of your own world and life. Since the creation of the world, God has wanted to allow people to have free reign to do what they want to do because what they want us in line with what is good and right.
And one day he will be able to do that for the sheep. Don’t give up on the desire to reign. It will happen for the sheep who hear the voice of their shepherd. Now, the third question; why? Why will the sheep hear this word of welcome? “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” One way to explain how these sheep got to this position on Judgment Day is to see that their connection to Jesus is evidenced by their actions. Their actions of seeing someone in need and helping them. So, let’s consider: if someone is hungry, how do you decide what to do? If you have to think about it, you’re off to a bad start. Better to not even have to think about it, but just do it. Feed them. If you have food to share, feed the hungry. Don’t debate, just do it. Why? Because the kingdom of heaven is near. You have a gracious father who wants to provide all your needs. And he gives you chances to help others around you, not only for their good, but for yours as well, so that you become a helping kind of person. If someone is thirsty, how do you determine what to do? What’s the operating principle of your life? If it’s the eternal kind of life Jesus; if you’re already drinking from the eternal well of living water that is him; then you are already satisfied. You can give without thinking. See a stranger, how do you decide what to do? Is the kingdom of heaven real to you or not? Is the king and the glorious son of man real or not? Is the shepherd judge real or not? If so, help a stranger when he needs it. Not a prescription to have to take in every stranger you ever see. But an invitation to live richly and generously. Someone who needs clothes, someone who’s sick, or in prison. Same thing. If you know yourself to be clothed in Christ, healthy and well, free not in prison, you’re not driven by fear. You’re free to be generous. So to sum this up, if a hungry, thirsty, strange, naked, sick prisoner comes your way; what can you do? Your natural response is fear. But if the kingdom is real, you don’t need to be afraid. You’re free to help, serve, care for, love, trust. The amazing thing about this comes when the sheep ask, when did we do this for you? And the king, the shepherd, the glorious son of man says, “I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was sick, unclothed, in prison, and you helped me.” Remember this is the glorious king talking. You’d never expect him to be so needy and lowly. But recall Jesus when he first spoke these words. Just days away from being arrested, jailed, lied about, stripped of his clothes, hungry, soul sickened to the point of death in the Garden. He allowed himself to be all that. He even allowed his dead body to receive the service of others for a burial. He allowed those grieving women to come to serve a dead Jesus on Easter morning, only to show himself not only the humble servant, but the glorious winner of a life to be shared with them. He once lived humbly, and in a way you could say he still does it today. He lives in people, and not just people who have their lives together, but often people who are hungry, thirsty, strange, sick, unclothed, imprisoned. He calls them his brothers and sisters. And says to the sheep, “Whatever you did for the least, you did for me.”
The sheep weren’t doing those acts of service for a reward, they didn’t even realize they had done it. They did those acts of service because they knew themselves to be in the kingdom by grace. They knew that God clothed them when they were naked, fed their souls when hungry, gave the water of life so they wouldn’t die of spiritual thirst. Set them free from the prison of guilt and shame and self contempt. None of it was about them, but simply about helping any hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, strange prisoner that might come their way. But that is not the only possible outcome. We need to hear about the other as well. As we do, remember why he mentions it. He gives his strategy away so that this next scenario would not happen to you. So that this possible outcome can be avoided though it needs to be taken seriously. It could happen to you, so he tells you. What is it? “He will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed.” To hear someone say, “depart,” hurts. But how much it hurts really depends on how close of a relationship you had with that person. If a stranger on the street says, “depart,” it doesn’t mean much. If a husband or wife says, “depart,” it hurts so much more. And if the one you were made to spend eternity with looks at you and says, “depart,” the goats on that day will be so hurt, it’ll send them spiraling out of control into an eternal pain and rejection. To hear Jesus say, “depart” is eternally damaging. “You who are cursed.” The curse comes from living as your own master. The curse comes from growing so used to not having Jesus in charge that you prefer life apart from him even if it means hell to a life with him even if it means heaven. The curse is the unavoidable consequence of doing life without God. It’s the curse of me as God, the curse of, go ahead and be your own master, exist without God near. That’s the curse. It’s the opposite of the blessing. Rather than having a place where your abilities and interests fit your opportunities, instead: the goats will have no ability to reign, everything they do will fail and produce more pain, more subjugation and slavery, more frustration and failure; and that existence will never end. Now, to avoid this curse we need to first admit, we all have bits of this curse in us. We all have a part of us that says, I want to be king, not subject. I want to be shepherd, not sheep or goat. I want the glory, not him. That’s more than a problematic trait, it’s eternally damaging. The curse of sin is so much worse than we understand. We still have moments where sin seems attractive. We get blind to how in many ways, sin is its own worst punishment. The shepherd will simply say, to your own desires, and that will be enough to produce eternal torment. And remember why Jesus says this: he doesn’t want anyone to experience it. He wants you to know so that you avoid this curse. If you need proof, listen to what he says about this eternal fire. It’s been prepared for who? For people like you? For the losers that God looks forward to excluding, not at all. It’s the fire prepared for the devil and his angels. The fire of hell was never meant for people. Never for people. The only people who will experience it are those who in some way join the devil in his rebellion, in his stubborn insistence that being my own master of hell is better than being his servant in heaven. That’s who will experience it. God forces no one to heaven, though he desires all to be saved. For those who persist in joining the devil in his rebellion, the fire is there. The judgment will be pronounced. Just imagine how terrible it would be to hear Jesus say to you, depart, to the fire, you’re cursed. Let this
possibility shake you up out of your spiritual slumber that says, sin isn’t that bad. Let the thought of this sentence show you the truth, sin is uglier than you and I will ever know. How does the shepherd explain why they end up in that position? He could have said, “you trusted yourself more than me and so I’m letting you have your own way.” Instead he says the inverse of what he said to the sheep. “I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ The goats had nothing for the hungry king, the naked judge, the sick son of man, the thirsty lord, the improvised master. Nothing. Why not? Because they said, “I’m not here to deal with them. I’m here to watch it for myself.” Or, it could be this: “I can’t take that risk. To help a sick, naked, stange, hungry prisoner; that’s a risk. Too risky.” Such a person has functionally forgot that the kingdom of heaven is near. They are living as if their own kingdom is all they can trust, and in their kingdom there’s just not room to help the needy around them. Their lack of connection to Jesus is evidenced by their lack of kindness to people around them. They also will answer, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?” Just imagine, standing before the glorious king, and he says, “You never helped me,” and you’d say, “I never saw you. If I saw a glorious king who needed help, I would have done it. If I would’ve seen a powerful shepherd judge naked, I would have given the shirt off my back.” And Jesus will say, “Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” Jesus has appeared to the goats, only much more humbly than they would have thought. I was there and you did not see me, did not respond to me. So now, go your own way. Jesus sums it all up by saying, “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Now, I was tempted to talk about the goats first and the sheep second, to end on a positive note, but this week I realized, that’s not how Jesus told the story. And who was he telling it to? His disciples. The insiders. The ones who if they were around today, they’d be right where you are, sitting in church, doing the right thing, listening to him. But he ends with the goats, as if to say, “Be aware, you’ve got goat-ness inside you.” Real eternal punishment will come; but real eternal life is available as well. I said I’d end with a who. The story is to disciples. The warning is to you; but so is the promise. So is the hope. The eternal kind of life which starts now and never end can be yours because of who is speaking these words, because of who is sharing this information. Jesus is the shepherd king who became a slaughtered sheep. Jesus is the blessed one who drank in the full curse for you. He is the judge who first became the judged so that by being judged in your place, he could render a favorable judgment to you. The king has wound marks in his hands and feet, the judge has the thorn marks on his head. The shepherd is the lamb who was slain but now lives, and lives to give you information like this, but more than information, he gives you himself. He makes his life your confidence for the day of judgment. So stand in him. Trust in him, not yourself. Look to him on that day, and be blessed. Be welcomed. Enjoy the
inheritance that is yours as a free gift. And keep an eye out for those hungry strange prisoners to help them know this shepherd as well. Amen.