Matthew 25:31-46 - Reward or Rejected

Let's turn over to the Gospel of Matthew this morning.

Matthew twenty-five.

We'll take the end of this chapter this morning.

Matthew twenty-five, starting with verse thirty-one and all the way down to the end of this chapter.

Matthew twenty-five, thirty-one to forty-six.

This is God's word.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.

All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

He will put the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on his left.

Then the king will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

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 took me in.

I was naked and you clothed me.

I was sick and you took care of me.

I was in prison and you visited me.

Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?

When did we see you a stranger and take you in, or without clothes and clothe you?

When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?

And the king will answer them, Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

Then he will also say to those on the left, Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

For 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 didn't take me in, I was naked and you didn't clothe me, sick and in prison, and you didn't take care of me.

Then they too will answer, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or without clothes or sick or in prison and not help you?

Then he will answer them, Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.

And they will go away into eternal punishment.

But the righteous into eternal life.

Let's ask God's blessing again.

But we pray that you would help us to do that today.

That we would take as we should and where we should, these words of deep and tremendous comfort.

And that we should take, as we should be sober and vigilant and thoughtful, these words of warning as well.

Do this by the power of your spirit, we pray.

In Jesus' name, amen.

We've come this morning to the end of this chunk of Jesus' teaching in the last two chapters of Matthew that we've been going through, Matthew 24 and 25.

Sometimes it's known as the Olivet Discourse because Jesus taught from the Mount of Olives.

And Jesus lands this teaching, he ends this teaching with words of incredible significance and eternal weight.

And we want to understand and feel that weight today.

Sometimes people think about this section of scripture, and they only or mainly want to think about contemporary events.

Of course, all scripture is given by inspiration of God, it's all profitable for us.

But Jesus ends with heaven and hell.

And we want the weight of our hearts and thoughts to be matching our Savior.

On the last day, every human will either be rewarded or rejected.

Those are the two stark alternatives in this passage.

There's really ultimately no neutrality when it comes to following Jesus.

So, regardless of what culture you live in, how many wars you've experienced, how much opposition you've experienced, regardless of whether your own culture or your own family is more friendly to Christian values or less family friendly to Christian values.

No matter any of those differences, every human will either be rewarded or rejected.

These are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our passage presents some sharp contrasts.

There's two groups, two fruits, and two destinies.

Those are the contrasts in the passage.

So there's two groups there's the sheep and there's the goats.

And there's two fruits.

There's faithful service to the Lord, there's that fruit of the sheep, and then there's the fruit, or we could say lack of fruit, but there's no faithful service to the Lord.

And there's ultimately two destinies eternal life on the one hand for the sheep, and eternal punishment, on the other hand, for the goats.

That's true of everybody here, everyone who's ever lived, every human in the last day will either be rewarded or rejected.

So we're gonna work through the passage with those contrasts in mind, two groups, two fruits, two destinies.

And we'll start with two groups.

Look again at verse 31.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.

All the nations will be gathered before him.

He will separate them one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, he will put the sheep on his right and the goats on the left.

There it is.

Only two categories, sheep and goats.

Now, obviously, these animals are it's a metaphor for people.

Jesus isn't saying there's something inherently wonderful about sheep or that goats are inherently bad.

If you've ever had goat's milk or goat's cheese, you're not condemned.

But there's a point to this metaphor.

Shepherds have to distinguish between the sheep and the goats.

And Jesus is the good shepherd.

And often in Scripture he refers to his people as sheep.

Listen to some other places.

Psalm 78, 52.

He led his people out like sheep and guided them like a flock.

Psalm 79, 13, then we, your people, the sheep of your pasture, will thank you forever.

We will declare your praise to generation after generation.

Psalm 100, acknowledge the Lord is God, He made us, we are His, His people, the sheep of His pasture.

Ezekiel 34, 11.

This is what the Lord God says.

See, I myself will search for my flock and look for them.

As a shepherd looks for his sheep on the day he is among his scattered flock, so I will look for my flock.

Isaiah 40, verse 11, he protects his flock like a shepherd.

Isaiah 40:11

He gathers the lambs in his arms.

Do you hear in those verses that I read, the main thing about the sheep is that they have a shepherd.

The main thing is not that they stick together, that they're compliant.

The main thing is they have a shepherd.

They have a good shepherd in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the Bible tells us not only that there is a good shepherd, Jesus, that sheep he has that belong to him, the good shepherd actually loves his sheep and sacrifices himself for them.

Even in our passage, we see Christ referred to in different ways.

In verse 31, he's called the Son of Man.

In verse 34, he's called the King.

In verse 37, he's referred to as Lord.

So those titles, so accurate, so appropriate, his authority, his judgment will come to that.

But notice in verse 32, this son of man, this king, this Lord functions as a shepherd.

Isaiah 53, 6, the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us all.

We like sheep have gone astray.

He took the punishment.

Or think about John chapter 10, where Jesus says, Truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.

John 10 · chapter mention

All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn't listen to them.

I am the gate.

If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.

A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

I have come so that they might have life and have it in abundance.

I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.

And that leaves the goats.

And perhaps some of you here today wondering, well, I don't know if I'm a sheep or a goat.

Or maybe I am a goat.

Consider God has brought you here.

Hear the voice of the shepherd today.

Turn from your own way today.

Turn from your ignorance, your self-centeredness, your rebellion.

I know those are strong words.

You might think, well, I'm not really opposed to the Lord.

I'm just kind of neutral.

But again, there's no neutrality in the last day.

Everyone will be either rewarded or rejected.

Know that the Lord is patient.

Know that the Lord is kind.

But know that if you have not truly embraced him, you're not in a neutral category.

You're in the category of those who will be condemned.

You're one of the goats.

On the last day, every human, every human will be either rewarded or rejected.

Two groups of people, the sheep and the goats.

Next, two fruits.

We see this spelled out in verse 35, down to verse 45.

And when I say two fruits, again, remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 7 by their fruits you will know them.

So by the deeds of a person's life, you will see evidence of whether or not they truly know the Lord.

It's not the good works that earn your way to heaven.

As Josh and Carol testified, it's only through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but the evidence of our lives shows what's really inside, shows who we belong to, who possesses us.

Verse 35.

I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink.

I was a stranger, you took me in, I was naked, and you clothed me.

I was sick, you took care of me.

I was in prison, you visited me.

There's the positive fruit.

And then verse 42 to 43 outlines the lack of genuine fruit.

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 didn't take me in.

I was naked and you didn't clothe me, sick and in prison, and you didn't take care of me.

So again, it's please don't misunderstand.

It's not that a life well lived builds up enough merit for you to be allowed into heaven.

If you take a bunch of apples and put them on a pear tree, doesn't make it an apple tree.

The fruit shows what the tree actually is.

The root of our salvation is faith in the Good Shepherd.

But the fruit of our life will indeed show the faith of our hearts.

And these good works here, they have their value.

This positive fruit, they have their value in relation to Jesus.

I was hungry.

I was a stranger, etc.

Matches the whole call of Matthew.

Matthew's been telling us throughout this whole gospel come to Christ, embrace King Jesus.

As Jesus himself says, come unto me, all you that labor in heavy laden, I'll give you rest.

And so this fruit is fruit done with reference to the Lord Jesus Christ.

So it's not just generic good deeds.

There's all kinds of people who do all kinds of good things, and we're thankful for that.

We should be appreciative of that.

But these are good deeds that have their ultimate value in relation to Jesus Himself.

Remember on the road to Damascus, where Jesus, the resurrected Christ, confronts Saul and he says to Saul, Why are you persecuting me?

But Jesus was in heaven.

Saul couldn't touch Jesus.

But Saul was persecuting the body of Christ, Christ's people.

And because he was doing that, Jesus could say, Well, you're persecuting me.

Likewise, here, if you serve the people of God, because they are the body of Christ, you are serving Christ Himself.

Take joy, take comfort in that.

Most all of us, probably everyone as far as I know, has never had an opportunity to directly minister to the human body of Jesus Christ.

He walked on earth, he's now at heaven at God's right hand.

Some people in the gospels will come to a woman next week who is able to sacrificially serve Jesus while he walked.

Most of us, like these righteous ones, might think, well, wait a minute, I never actually did anything specifically to Jesus.

Ah.

But if you did it to his body, his bride, you did it to him and for him.

There's something more here.

If you remember in Matthew 10, Jesus tells his disciples to go out and proclaim the good news.

And then at the end of that chapter, he says, Whoever welcomes you welcomes me.

Whoever gives you a cup of cold water.

So he's sending out these gospel ambassadors, and he anticipates that people who welcome the gospel ambassadors are welcoming the message they bring, the good news of Jesus.

So there's something also I think similar here.

If you look back at Matthew 24, take a look in your Bibles.

This is just one chapter back.

In Matthew 24, 14, Jesus says the gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed in all the world.

So just like in Matthew 10, there's going to be gospel ambassadors going out in all the world.

And guess what?

They're going to experience persecution, suffering, imprisonment, right?

But not all will reject them.

Some will hear and embrace their message.

So to serve them is to evidence that you love the message they're bringing.

Listen to how D.A.

Carson puts it.

The fate of the nations will be determined by how they respond to Jesus' followers, who are charged with spreading the gospel, and who do so in the face of hunger, thirst, illness, and imprisonment.

Good deeds done to Jesus' followers, even the least of them, are not only works of compassion and morality, but they reflect where people stand in relation to the kingdom and to Jesus Himself.

So I hope that helps you shed light on verse 40 when the king in our chapter, Matthew 25, when the king says, Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

He's talking about his spiritual family.

He's not talking here about humanity in general.

He's already said in Matthew 12, Who is my mother, who are my brothers?

And then to his disciples, these are my mother and my brothers, whoever does the will of my father in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother.

Now I know some of you are thinking, so you're saying we're just supposed to ignore unbelievers?

If someone's destitute and naked, we got to first find out, are you born again?

If you're not, tough luck, we'll see you later.

No, there's plenty of Bible verses about doing good to all, letting our light so shine before men.

But we're focused on what this passage is about.

Don't you love expositional preaching?

We've got to see what this passage is about.

In the New Testament, that language of brother and sister sometimes refers to a biological family or kin.

It never in the New Testament refers to all of humanity.

It normally refers to the followers of Jesus Christ, the family of God.

So Jesus here is especially and specifically talking about how you minister to the people of God, those who are clothed with the message of the gospel.

And if you receive their message, of course you're going to want to receive them.

We see this play out beautifully in the book of Acts.

You don't have to turn there.

But in Acts 2, Peter preaches a gospel sermon and they repent and believe and trust.

And then everyone was filled with awe.

And the believers were together and held all things in common.

Acts chapter 4, we see something similar.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

Peter preaches again.

People receive it.

There's rejoicing.

And then it says in Acts 4 the entire group of those who believed were of one heart and mind, and no one claimed any possession was his own.

Instead, they held everything in common.

For there was not a needy person among them, because all those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the proceeds of what was sold, laid them at the apostles' feet.

This was then distributed to each person as any had need.

See that beautiful demonstration of gospel receptivity and gospel hospitality.

And praise God, I see that in so many of you.

We take up a benevolence offering, especially for believers, and we're going to do that again today.

The benevolence fund is often well, well supplied.

I hear the heart that many of you have to pray for persecuted Christians, to those that are in prison around the world.

And I'm sure if someone was put in jail here in Long Island for truly preaching the gospel, you'd want to go visit them and minister to them.

That shows your heart, that shows your good fruit, that you know the Lord, that you're one of his sheep.

You bring meals to visiting missionaries like the Kunis.

You want to sit and spend time with them.

Oh, it's so little.

No, but in the Lord's eyes, it's so much.

The Lord Jesus Christ receives these little tokens, these good deeds, as done to himself.

And take encouragement also for those of you that will suffer for the sake of Christ.

Those that may find yourselves without a job or hated by the world because of your testimony.

God will send his ravens to care for you.

He will send his people to care for you.

He'll protect you, he'll comfort you.

There's much hope here.

But if that's the fruit of faithful service done to the Lord, for others, there is no real faithful service done with a view to the Lord.

Oh, you might give to a charity because you're looking for a tax break.

You might be decent to people at work because you don't want to seem like an egomaniac and you can't really get a raise or promotion at work if you're a jerk all the time.

You might even be kind to people in your family or in your neighborhood because you think, hmm, well, if I scratch their back, they have to scratch my back.

Do you see how different that is from devoted service to the Good Shepherd?

Jesus is bringing all things in relation to himself.

And how we relate to the people of God, especially, shows what we think of him.

In the last day, every human will either be rewarded or rejected.

Two groups of people, two fruits, and then finally today, let's consider these two destinies.

In verse 32, Jesus says that when he comes, there will be a great separation.

This is not a separation just to identify groups of people.

This is a separation meant to divide people forever.

Verse 34.

Then the king will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

That's the destiny of the sheep.

Then verse 41 shows the destiny of the goats.

He will say to those on the left, Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

And the whole passage ends with those two destinies.

Verse 46.

They, that is, the goats, will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

So first the destiny of the sheep.

Verse 46 says it will be eternal life.

Eternal life for the child of God is not simply existing forever.

Sometimes we think about eternal life as you're kind of on a cloud floating around.

Maybe you get a harp if you did enough good things.

And it's kind of like this sort of spiritual coma that's a little better than dying, but it seems kind of like not that great.

Eternal life is so much more than that.

Eternal life is about knowing and enjoying the living God forever.

That's why the Westminster Catechism, its first question is what is the chief end of man?

In other words, what's the purpose and goal for humans?

And the answer is to worship God and enjoy him forever.

It's not simply about duration of existence, it's about the quality of life that you have.

John 10, 10, I have come, Jesus says, that they might have life and have it in abundance.

Acts 2.28, you've revealed the paths of life to me.

You fill me with gladness in your presence.

Or John 17 3, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you sent, Jesus Christ.

If knowing and enjoying God forever sounds somehow boring to you, maybe you don't have eternal life.

Maybe you're not one of his sheep.

For those who know him, that should thrill our hearts to bask in the glory of our Savior, to be brought to a place of perfection where we don't struggle with sin or pain.

But more importantly, we have this perfect relationship that we're able to enjoy.

That's the destination of all who belong to the Lord.

The goats have a different destiny.

In verse 46, it's described as eternal punishment.

In verse 41, it speaks of them being placed under God's curse and consigned to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

Now, some of you may be visiting today, and maybe you think, you know what, this is what I don't like about Baptist churches.

You always have to get around to the demons and hellfire and brimstone.

Why do you have to do that?

Well, I can't speak for all Baptist churches, but I can speak for our church and say, we don't tell the Lord what he should say.

We listen to what he says.

We don't edit Jesus.

How to call ourselves followers of Christ and then to think that we know better what he should say, why would we call ourselves followers of Christ?

That wouldn't be appropriate.

And if you come week after week, and we'd invite you to come, we're thankful if you're a visitor here today, you'll see that we typically go through whole books of the Bible.

So we don't just go looking for all of the scariest passages.

Yes, some Baptist churches do that.

Uh, but we don't just try to avoid what might offend someone because we're gonna take whatever God says and let that be our guide.

There's a lot of comfort in the Bible.

There's comfort here in this passage for the sheep.

But the same Jesus, who is the shepherd of all comfort, he speaks about hell more than anyone else in the Bible.

It's an eternal punishment, verse 41 and verse 46.

So some people say, Well, everyone gets into heaven.

That's not what Jesus says.

Some people think, well, the goats are gonna be probably just kind of destroyed and annihilated.

Not what Jesus says here.

The contrast in verse 46, the contrast to eternal life is eternal punishment.

No one thinks that the sheep are gonna be able to enjoy the new creation for five seconds and they get destroyed forever.

And many of us, when we think about eternal punishment, it unsettles us.

Why do we presume that we deserve eternal reward, but that we obviously would never deserve eternal punishment?

Why would the one unsettle us and the other it's like, yeah, definitely, that should be me.

Doesn't that say something about who we are?

That doesn't it suggest that perhaps at times we put ourselves at the center of the universe instead of God?

Um this reward, this eternal life that comes to the sheep, it's because of their identity with the shepherd.

They inherit the kingdom.

It's not about simply living in a shiny palace, it's about being a part of the family of God, the good shepherd's family.

And because of his gracious gift, because they belong to the eternal son, they are able to enjoy him forever.

For those that experience this punishment, consider not just what you've done, but who you've done it to.

Again, the words of Jesus here when I was hungry, you didn't feed me.

When I was thirsty, you didn't give me something to drink.

So if you read Jesus as saying there was someone who happened to be thirsty, you didn't give them water, so you're gonna be thirsty forever, and you think, well, that that doesn't seem eye for an eye, it doesn't seem proportional.

It's not about that isolated deed, it's that you've ignored and rejected him, and he's the living and true and eternal God.

So when you sin against him, that's the infinite weight of your actions.

There's where the eternity comes in because of who it is with whom we have to do, the Lord Himself.

In conclusion today, I want to just offer one final word to some different groups of people.

Some of you may be here, you may know, I'm not a sheep.

I I I'm a goat.

Is there no hope for me?

There is hope for you.

Again, consider you're here, aren't you?

Aren't you hearing the word?

Do you do you hear the voice of Christ?

Would you listen?

Would you embrace him?

Others who may be here thinking, Oh yeah, I'm definitely a sheep.

And you're actually not.

Jesus does say, Many will come in the last day and say, Lord, Lord, and I'll say, Depart from me, you who work iniquity.

Consider your own life.

Don't just rely only on your own private judgment.

Grab someone else, pray with them, ask them to consider your faith in your life.

And then a third group, and these last two groups, especially today, can take comfort, but then there are people, and I it's hard when you're preaching to so many different kinds of people, and we ourselves have experienced probably all of these at different times in our life.

Those that you're a sheep, but you just struggle with doubt.

You're constantly wondering, well, maybe I'm not a sheep, maybe I am a goat.

The Savior is a tender shepherd.

That's what he says here.

He receives weak and doubting souls.

It's not your uncertainty or certainty that's going to ultimately see you through.

It's the Lord Jesus Christ.

So keep hoping in him.

Take comfort that for those who are clinging to Christ alone, even if we don't always feel the assurance that we should, God is there, God is near.

And then lastly, for those that know that you're a sheep, let the reality of eternity sober you as you go out from here and interact with others.

But look forward with hope.

The sufferings of this present life are not worth comparing the glory that will be revealed in us.

To think of the relationships that might be broken because we're a Christian.

It's not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us.

To think of the of the lack of success we may have on the planes of human existence and our jobs or our, yes, but we're gonna inherit the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world.

We're part of God's eternal purpose.

It's a grand thing to know that.

On the last day, every human will be either rewarded or rejected.

May we seek God.

Let's pray.

Lord, we want desperately to know divine words and divine comfort.

Thank you, Spirit of God, that you do all things well.

And we dare not trust ourselves or look ultimately to ourselves, but seek you while you might be found and call on you while you are near.

Thank you for being near to us.

Thank you for the hope we have of eternal life, the hope we have of resurrection and glory and joy.

Help us, Lord, not to live lives of complaining and bitterness towards others, but to live as your people thoughtfully, with boldness proclaiming the good news, with a heart of longing to minister to all the saints and their needs.

And ultimately, it's our desire to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.

We don't work as pleasers of men, but as serving the Lord together.

So, Lord, let us serve one another during this time of reflection and communion, and may we commune especially with the Savior as we anticipate his coming, as we anticipate the confidence that we can have.

We pray today, particularly for those struggling souls, that you have promised you won't break a bruised reed or quench a smoking flax till you send judgment to victory.

Oh, Lord, bring the sweetness of assurance, bring the sweetness of fellowship and peace to those that are in a turmoil of soul today.

Do that for your glory's sake, we pray.

In Jesus' name, amen.