The Sheep & the Goats

So my name is Pastor John, and I'm filling in for Pastor Ryan today.

He's away on vacation.

I'm the old retired guy, so you know, I get to fill him in every now and then.

And first time, and I've gotten to do that since Pastor Ryan took over.

So that's been uh nice to nice to get this opportunity and thankful for that.

When I was your pastor, I used to say uh that uh if the pastor is good, he deserves a vacation.

If he's not, the congregation does.

And I think Pastor Ryan deserved a vacation now, and so uh uh appreciate him getting that chance to recharge and renew.

You know, I always start off with a lame joke, so I gotta do one.

I know you guys would be wondering about this.

So there's a new pastor who comes into this church, and uh uh, you know, people are excited and happy to have him, but he comes in and he's got a tennis ball.

And he comes in and he throws it up in the air a few times, throws it up, and he just looks at it, and then he sets it down on the pulpit, begins to preach, doesn't say another word about it.

This goes on week after week after week.

And of course, everybody's kind of wondering what this tennis ball is for.

What is it there for?

What is it there for?

And about three months into his time there, he's given a sermon, and all of a sudden there's a gentleman about four rows back who starts nodding off.

Then he starts snoring.

And the pastor steps out, grabs the tennis ball, and goes right in the middle of the forehead, right?

And the next Sunday he brought a hardball.

So pay attention, right?

Uh okay.

Uh today we're gonna finish our sermon series on kingdom stories, okay?

And so far we've been looking at a lot of parables.

Our scripture lesson today, though, is not a parable.

A parable uh comes from the Greek word parabolo, which means to lay alongside of.

And the idea is you put one thing here and another thing here, and you compare them with one another.

So parables are at their bottom line, comparisons.

Some modern translations call them similes because they almost always start off with the kingdom of God is like, uh, right?

He is like, so it's a simile story.

In addition, almost all the parables are using common everyday images and ideas and language to describe otherworldly and heavenly things.

The story we're looking at today, though, is more of an apocalyptic vision, a picture, if you will, of what the world is going to look like at the end time, using images we can understand, but clearly images that are metaphors to help us get what's going on.

This story takes place at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, and it's one of uh the last part of the fifth discourse.

Forget all that.

Basically, Matthew puts all the teachings of Jesus into five big lumps.

All right?

We think of the Sermon on the Mount as one of them.

This teaching at the very end is another one of these.

And why five?

Some people think that he was trying, that he, well, he definitely is portraying Jesus as a second and greater Moses, a lawgiver who's giving us the laws of love and how to really be in relationship with one another.

But now, think of this.

This is the last teaching and the last discourse.

So he's giving us something that he really wants us to pay attention to and uh to note.

So we're gonna be looking at Matthew 25, 31 through 46.

And I know Pastor Ryan has you stand, but this is a long passage, and I'm gonna be talking as we go through it, so I'm not gonna make you do that.

You'd be up here a long time.

Well, it's a nice way of honoring the scriptures.

I believe that, yeah.

And I asked for special dispensation on this one.

He says it is long.

So I'm just gonna go through it and work with you on it.

So let's look at Matthew 25, 31, if we could have it up for us, please.

It says, uh, and this is the parable of the sheep and the goats, so it's gonna tell us about them in this story.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, Son of Man, that's the name that Jesus gives to himself to refer to himself as Messiah.

We know that in the Aramaic language that he spoke, the number one way it appears is in wills.

So it's a way of saying the one who's come to die for us, you know, is another way of saying that.

It reflects his humanity and his divinity.

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

So there's a picture of Jesus' second coming, this return, when he is there in all his glory.

All the nations will be gathered before him.

That means all the peoples of the earth.

And he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

Okay?

Now, I haven't been around a shepherd who has both sheep and goats.

I guess in America I've never seen that.

But uh, I can imagine that you know you probably think, hey, it's easy to separate sheep and goats.

My guess is it's fairly difficult.

Uh I think they probably mingle together, but also in addition, uh, have you ever done farming and you actually are growing something?

And you uh well, I shouldn't give that an example.

Let me give another one.

Uh in our yard, we had grass growing, and then we had some kind of weed that we didn't recognize wasn't grass until it got to a certain height.

And we didn't pull it out rapidly enough, so our yard is now full of tall, clumping fescue, which is like the bane of my existence.

I'm always going out in the yard and pulling this stuff up all the time.

But you couldn't tell until I got a certain height and size.

At least I couldn't.

Now I kind of can look for it.

So what it's saying is something similar to what Jesus said and reflected in our stained glass window over there, the tares and the wheat.

They grew up together.

And you can't tell which is which until they reach a certain height, right?

Can't tell which are the sheep or the goats until now.

And he will separate the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Okay?

Now, goats get kind of a bad name.

The only times I've been around goats, I kind of like them.

And I think sheep are kind of dumb and get lost, and they have also their own problems, but you know, just reflect on that.

Uh uh.

Then the king will say to those on his right, Come, you who are my blessed by my father, take your inheritance.

Notice it's an inheritance.

They didn't earn this.

It's something they receive, though, because as true children of the Father.

Receive the inheritance prepared for you since the creation of the world.

So part of God's plan all along was to have his children live with him forever.

And then he says, This 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.

He lifts up six big needs of people, and he says, I had these, and when I had them, you ministered to me and reached out in grace to supply the needs that I had.

Is that list encyclopedic?

No.

I think it's supposed to be a sample of some of the basic human needs that are out there in the world.

And of course, it's a reminder that some of them are important for us to be fulfilling as a church.

You know, we should be visiting those in prison, we should be feeding the hungry, we should be visiting the sick.

All those things are a part of our basic mission as Christians.

But notice how the righteous respond.

They will answer them, 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 invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?

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

We don't remember doing that.

You know?

When were you here?

Then the king, notice he's called a king here, the ruler, will reply, Truly I tell you, Amen.

That's the word there.

I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

Whoever you did it for, he's identifying himself with us.

And here it says specifically, brothers and sisters.

So some people say, fellow Christians, well, I think it's, you're gonna see later on that it's more, but certainly you you it does begin with our family, with our brothers and sisters in the Lord, and then expand to others, as we'll talk about in a minute.

Uh then he says to those on his left, Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, this fire that's gonna burn.

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 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.

All right?

Since you didn't do the basic things.

They also will answer, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or re or needing clothes or sick and in prison?

It did not help you.

We didn't see you.

If we'd known it was you or saw you, we would have done something.

Right?

Have you ever had people respond that way?

If I'd known it was you, that's not necessarily good, right?

He will reply, Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.

Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

There's four things I want to lift up in this scripture for us to think about.

The first is that it makes clear the close connection that exists uh that God is making between the love of God and the love of neighbor.

Now, this is nothing new.

This is found throughout the Bible.

Uh, I'll give some examples.

First is from Proverbs 14, 31.

Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.

The way we show and demonstrate our love and honor to God is by loving and honoring his creation, his people, his children.

All right?

And from 1 John 4.20.

Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar.

You can't say you love God and not love his children, his creation.

For whoever does not love their brother and sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen.

And he has given us this command.

Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

Love of God and love of neighbor go hand in hand.

Uh that was made absolutely clear in the Gospel of Matthew when Jesus was uh uh uh teaching.

He this is a he's asked this question by the Sadducees.

Hearing that Jesus, this is Matthew 22, 34, hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.

One of them, and an expert in the law, tested him with this question Teacher, what's the greatest commandment in the law?

What's the most important rule?

I love when I talk about this with preschoolers.

I say, what's the most important rule?

Don't hit your brother.

You know, you know, that's usually something like that.

But here, what is the greatest commandment?

Jesus replied with a Shema, what's often thought of as the confession of faith of the Jewish people from Deuteronomy?

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

The most important thing for us to do.

This is the first and greatest commandment.

And the second is like it.

Again, quoting from Leviticus, love your neighbor as yourself.

All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.

And we know that one time he was asked this question by a lawyer, you know, what's the greatest commandment?

And she said, What do you think?

And he said, Well, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and uh love your neighbor as yourself.

And he said, Right, go and do it.

And then he said, But who is my neighbor?

You know, I want to narrow it down.

I don't want to be throwing my love around everybody, right?

Who do I, who am I specifically responsible for?

And what was the response?

The story of a good Samaritan.

You remember that story where uh it's about a Samaritan, one of the hated people of Israel, one of the enemies of Israel, who nevertheless sees an Israelite who is injured and reaches out to him in compassion.

And Jesus says, What?

Who is the neighbor in that story?

You go and do likewise.

Be a neighbor.

You know, not a question of who is your neighbor, but be a neighbor.

And we do have people that we're called on to be especially careful for, our family members.

You know, the Bible tells us that we're responsible for them in many places.

Tells us we're to be responsible for one another in the church community.

We recognize other connections that we have, but ultimately we're to recognize that we have a responsibility to all human beings.

You know, we're to see everyone as our neighbor.

And of course, loving is an interesting thing.

You know, how do you love your neighbor?

How do you reach out with grace?

One of the things we always struggle with in the church is how do we are we really being effective?

It's not about rescuing everybody from everything.

I'll tell you, when I was uh pastor serving there, one of the things you get is these phone calls from people.

I'm gonna be evicted from my house tomorrow.

I need somebody to pay all my rent.

You go, I'm not sure that's my job.

I'm not sure it's our job.

Well, you know, what's your job in this involved?

And I remember one woman called us up and uh she was uh I said, Well, you know, we don't generally help people with our rent, especially people we don't know.

And she got all up in my face and said, Yeah, you know, this is a church of Satan.

Then she called me up six months later with the same request.

And you go, huh.

You know, six months later we're still in the same place.

You know, what is genuinely loving and helpful?

But this scripture tells us that part of our responsibility is to go out there and look for it and figure those things out as we go, but we have a responsibility to help and to serve.

Which leads me to the second point.

This story talks to us about the importance of service.

Uh again, this is something we find everywhere in the scriptures, but perhaps most clearly in the story of the foot washing.

You know, this is a famous event in Jesus' life.

Uh at the Last Supper, according to the Gospel of John, the disciples are coming in and they're arguing over who's going to be greatest in the kingdom of God.

And as they're arguing about it, they sit down and nobody has prepared anything for the foot washing.

And Jesus gets up, girds his loins, gets a towel and a basin and water, and goes and pours water and washes each of the disciples' feet.

And they are super uncomfortable with this.

According to Jewish law, there's some debate about this, but most people think that according to Jewish law, you couldn't be required as a slave to wash somebody else's feet.

That was too low and demeaning.

And here's Jesus washing their feet.

And I don't know if you've ever had anybody wash your feet.

It's pretty intimate.

I don't know how I feel about people touching my feet and seeing those stinky parts of me.

Right?

How do you feel?

And they're walking around in sandals all day on dirt roads with animals.

Yeah, I can't be good, right?

Jesus is in there washing their feet, right?

And he is commanding them to do that likewise.

This is what he says in John chapter 13.

John 13 · chapter mention

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place.

Do you understand what I have done for you?

He asked them.

You call me teacher and Lord, and rightly so, for that is what I am.

Now that I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet.

I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.

Very truly, or amen, amen.

I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

So they're commanded to serve one another.

Okay?

And you know, you could go, service, is it big or small?

You know, that's another thing that comes up for people all the time.

I think you have to find big areas of service and small areas of service because they all address uh the uh some important truths for ourselves.

We'll talk more about that in a minute.

Service matters, and it matters in three different ways.

It first of all matters to others.

As we heard in the story of the sheep and the goats, right?

There are people with real needs out there who need help and a helping hand.

How can we minister to them?

How can we be a blessing?

That's one of our calls and privileges as Christians is to reach out to try to change the world and make it into a better place.

So our service matters to others.

But our service also matters to us.

And this is so key in understanding the importance of service.

In fact, I would say it matters almost more to you than it does to others, right?

Because it changes and transforms who you are.

When I was going to seminary, uh I asked a question about foot washing because it struck me as a sacrament.

You know, we as Protestants typically have two sacraments.

They are what?

Just making sure you guys are, you know, paying attention that you know this.

So why are they sacraments?

What's special about these two things, baptism and holy communion?

Well, first of all, it's something Jesus did and something that He commanded us to do.

All right?

They use physical things to tell us spiritual truths.

They're outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace.

And we believe that as we do them, we come into an avenue that just puts us in touch with grace in a special way.

So I said, well, baptism and communion all fit those, but doesn't footwashing, right?

I mean, it's got signs that are physical, it's uh an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.

Uh and uh I I argued this, and one of several of my professors, because I asked several of them, they all said the same thing.

It's not a means of grace.

What do you think?

They were thinking that it was done for other people, and so it's a great means of grace for them, but not for you.

What do you think?

I think they're dead wrong.

I think it is a means of grace for you.

I think that as you do this, you put yourself in obedience into God's presence, and he allows him to transform and change you.

And it also takes away from us our one of our biggest problems, which is pride.

Okay.

Pride is seen as listed as one of the seven deadly sins.

Many people believe it is the worst of all the seven deadly sins, and that uh we need to fight against it by learning through service about the virtue of humility, okay, which has been called the Christian virtue.

Not because Christians are so good at practicing it, but because prior to the advent of Christianity, this is kind of interesting, in Greek and Latin language, we can't find a single positive reference to the word humility.

Isn't that interesting?

Right?

Just because you're supposed to put yourself out there, you're supposed to put yourself forward, always push yourself to the front, right?

So it's a difference here that we kind of need to hear.

Sin has been called an eye problem, and I've got a little picture there to show you what I mean by that.

Right?

It's an eye problem, isn't it?

A lot of times.

You know, it's what I want, the selfishness of human beings.

So service teaches us to fight against pride.

And I mentioned big big things and small things.

You know, uh once many, many years ago, when I was uh young and first in ministry, I was asked to take over a camp.

It was a really interesting idea that the church had at that time.

It was a camp for uh uh people who were living in group homes who were mentally challenged.

And so the idea was that the group home would come and the campers, you know, the the people who were living in the group home would get a vacation under the supervision of the people from their home, right?

So it was a little bit of a vacation for them too, but not quite the same way.

And it was hugely popular, this camp, and they had problems too.

So they asked me to take it over.

I was 25 years old, and they had 250 campers.

It was the single biggest camp that the church put on at this place.

And in fact, uh the United Methodist Church at that time was the biggest one they had in all the Northwest.

And it was very challenging.

I was really worried about it.

They told me about the problems they had, and I was working to fix them.

And I was there at the camp getting ready for it, and uh right before it was to begin, like a day or early, somebody brought a camper in and dropped them off.

Right?

That was it.

He had a letter and he was in a wheelchair.

And they came to me and told me this, and I said, Are you kidding me?

They just dropped him off, and uh yeah, nobody there to help him, supervise.

And he was a man who was mentally all there, but developmentally couldn't use his hands or his legs and couldn't talk.

Right?

So they said, Well, there's nobody here in charge, uh all our camp people are way away right now.

You're gonna be responsible for him.

And I'm going, but I'm supposed to be in charge of this big thing, right?

And they said, Doesn't matter, you're the only one here.

And then then I then uh he very quickly stole me, made signs to me that he had to go use the restroom.

And I'm going, I did not sign up for this.

That time I hadn't had children yet, so I really hadn't had a lot of experience in working with somebody else's bottom.

I'm in there, you know, cleaning them up from this and thinking, who, and and and then the thought just occurred to me, who do you think you are?

You know?

This man is a person who has a need.

It shouldn't happen this way.

We're gonna take care of that and work to make sure the people who did this, you know, get what's coming to them.

And uh, you know what I mean?

But this man still has needs that need to be taken care of, and that has to be the priority, right?

Not about who I am or who I think I am or what I have to do.

We learn through service, and it blesses and changes us because it puts us in the hands of God who is shaping and transforming us.

The third dimension of this, though, is what this story really focuses on.

More than anything else, this passage tells us that our service matters to God.

You know, He's paying attention.

Now, I know some people get upset, they say, all of this seems to be about deeds and about works.

We're judged by them and what we have done.

I think sometimes we make a false dichotomy between our belief.

You know, our belief is what saves us.

It's an inheritance that we're given, right?

But it's still our service is a sign, a fruit of our salvation experience.

And indeed, it's impossible to think of somebody who isn't doing the works of God who has been saved.

You're going to do that if you've really been saved.

You're going to reach out to others.

And so, yeah, Jesus said by their fruits you will know them.

And when he talked about the I am the vine, you are the branches, he told us to produce fruit for the kingdom.

So our service matters to God.

In fact, if you ever wonder about this, there are over 3,000 passages in the Bible telling us to reach out to the poor and the needy.

Right?

You can't read very far in the scriptures before you hit that and know that's something that we're supposed to be doing.

If Jesus is our Savior but also our Lord, and He tells us to do these things, then we should be doing them, reaching out with grace.

Well, the third thing this passage tells us is that there is a judgment and that Jesus will be the judge.

Now, I'm going to tell you that, again, this is extremely biblical.

The Old Testament, some people say it's so judgmental, and the New Testament isn't.

Obviously, it's in lots and lots of places in the Old Testament where God is portrayed that way.

Just one example is Psalm 96, 13.

This is what it says.

Let all creation rejoice before the Lord.

For he comes, he comes to judge the earth.

He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in faithfulness.

And the topic of judgment is not just in the Old Testament, though, it's in the New Testament, in so many places, in addition to today's passage, and just one from 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

It says, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due to us for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.

Now, having said that, the topic of judgment is not a popular one.

That's why Pastor Ryan gave me this one, you know.

No, he didn't do that at all, I'm sure.

It isn't a popular one.

Why?

I think in part because the church has a reputation of talking about this in terms of hellfire and brimstone and damnation and trying to scare people into salvation through passages like this, you know, where we're just emphasizing that all the time.

You know, repent because you got a limit of time or you're going to go to hell.

Uh you find very, very little of that in the Bible.

Okay.

Perhaps it's because our society today just hates being judged.

You often hear people, in fact, they say the favorite verse of people now from the Bible, the one that people know the most is guess what?

Judge not.

You know, they don't know anything else, and they don't quite get the context of that because it's a little bigger than that.

Uh and of course, the Bible does say that.

Don't judge, that's ultimately in God's hands.

But we are told to be discerning and to be careful.

And there are some areas where our judgment has to be at work or play, but we certainly don't judge people's ultimate salvation.

But uh it's ironic, too, that many of the people who I don't know if we live ever lived in a more judgmental time than today.

People are always snapping out judgments uh uh on the uh on the internet, and it seems like social media is just full of these kind of condemnatory things that are so negative.

And I know a lot of people just try to avoid it because social media is so often very negative.

And I don't know if you've ever heard this, but the if you take polls of people who don't go to church and ask them their opinions of the church, you know what the number one statement is?

Uh it's full of hypocrites.

And you know, my response to that is always don't let that keep you away.

There's always room for one more.

Right?

It is full of hypocrites.

We we have high standards and we try to live up to them, but we often fail.

But uh thank God we have a God of grace who is uh watching over us all.

Uh perhaps it's because uh of those reasons, but I think the real reason is that many of us don't trust the justice of the judge.

And that's what I really want to talk to you about today.

It's really about trusting God to judge correctly and fairly and justly with mercy and with truth.

Uh you know, I was one time doing a study of hell, because I think both heaven and hell are misunderstood because of our culture has so many ideas about these things that it's even permeated into the church, a kind of fundamental misunderstanding of both of those.

We'll talk more about that in a minute.

But uh, I was studying hell and I was talking with Billy Mellis, and she used to get mad at me whenever I'd mention her in a sermon because she'd say, Don't talk about Mina, you know.

Uh uh, but she's gone now, so I'm gonna honor her by talking about this.

I was struggling about this and about the fairness of hell, and she said, forget all about that.

Do you trust Jesus?

You know, is he faithful?

Will he judge fairly and correctly?

And that's the bottom line.

He's gonna do that.

And I don't have to worry about it.

I can just kind of let all that go, that he'll judge correctly.

And that also means he'll understand where we're coming from.

You know, I was visiting with a couple guys in prison once.

Uh, we were doing a prayer and share time, and these guys were new Christians.

I hadn't met them before.

Uh, they were only there for a brief time, they were gonna be transferred to another place, and they were just meeting each other, but both of them were gonna be transferred to different places.

And as we were talking to sharing, they were talking about a forgiveness issue that was going on for one of them.

And uh the new Christians, as I said, and and one of them started sharing about uh it was this apparent that he was having trouble, and he started talking about this horrible abuse.

I will not tell you it because it's just grotesque.

My jaw is literally dropping because it's so horrible.

And then the other guy says, Yeah, the same thing happened to me, and I'm just going I'm astonished because it's so horrifically bad.

And I'm thinking at the same time, I'm thinking this, you know, you could look at me and go, well, here's a pastor, and you know, he's lived this kind of life, and these guys, but I'll tell you, I don't know if I'd had their background if I wouldn't be a serial murderer, you know, uh doing many worse crimes than they did because their backgrounds were so horrible.

Uh, you know, I grew up in a loving family with lots of advantages.

I God God will judge fairly and correctly.

I don't have to worry about that stuff.

Let it go.

What I need to focus on is how God's at work in the world in my life and your lives here and now, and how we can allow Him to change and transform us.

We know that we are saved by grace, right?

By receiving that with hands open.

Because God wants to give that to us.

We just have to receive it and make it our own.

Justice is all about right relationships.

In fact, in the Old Testament, that's what the word means right relationships.

Uh that's important to remember.

There's a famous passage in Micah that says this.

Uh uh it says uh in Micah 6, 8, do justice, love he has shown you immortal what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

And I'm used to hearing it from, you know, when I was a kid, do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.

I have heard people say that's impossible.

They're contradictory.

You can't do justice and love mercy.

You can't if you understand what justice is really all about, right relationships.

If it's about right relationships and living in a right way that creates those, mercy is about restoring them.

They're flip sides of the same coin, not opposites.

Okay?

And I share that because we have to recognize that human justice never achieves what we hope it will.

You know, uh we we say when somebody commits a crime, we're gonna punish this person and somehow make things just or right.

We really can't do that.

If somebody murders someone and takes their life, our solution is to take their life, which leaves us with less, right?

Or to take 20 years of their life and leave us all with less, right?

I'm not saying that we have a better I have a better system or better ideas.

I'm not saying that at all.

I'm just simply saying our human justice system is fundamentally flawed.

And we all recognize that and know that.

So we look forward to a time when God will set all things right.

God will be the judge and he will restore and he will heal and he will bind up and he will wipe away every tear and create a new heaven and a new earth.

All creation will be restored and made whole.

And that new beginning begins in us, in you and me.

I have been saved, we have been saved, I am being saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved, right?

That's beautiful to think that God's at work in our lives, transforming us into the kind of people he wants us to be.

You know, we did all these stained glass windows, and I uh when we first started this project, I did not think I would be around to see it to the end, but I was able to be here when we did our last window.

Our last window was our heaven window over there, which they now have up on the screens for you if you can't see it very clearly.

We didn't know quite what to say about heaven.

Keep it up there a little bit longer, if you would, please.

Uh up there for us to see on the picture.

If you look at the picture there, you'll see uh, first of all, we have some creation imageries because all creation is restored and made whole.

But we didn't know what we should say about heaven.

It talks about God as light, so we have a door opening, so you get to see.

It's gonna be better than you can imagine, is our sort of idea.

But what's up at the top?

You have the throne of heaven, and it's got the that's the river of life coming out of it.

You see the throne in the middle there.

And then those two musical notes are not musical notes, they're scale.

When we were doing this, I insisted that that be there in the window, the scale, because I said it's about justice.

God will set all things right, and that's what that window reminds us of.

Maybe in this life you were born with some handicap, or you're not as pretty or as smart or as whatever as you wanted to be, or as lathletic.

Maybe you had some horrible injustice come to you.

We know that at the end it will all be set right by God, and he will wipe away every tear.

That's a beautiful thought.

Okay, you can take the picture down.

We talk about heaven and hell, and I mentioned there's some problems with those words.

And you notice we call this kingdom stories, and that's intentional because the word the Bible uses much more often than heaven.

It does use heaven a few times as a synonym for the kingdom, uh, but in our minds it's become something different.

In our minds, heaven is a place you go to after you die, right?

And that's misleading in multiple ways and confusing.

Why do I say that?

Because Jesus said came, following and echoing what John the Baptist said, he said, Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.

Meaning it's here, it's present in me.

And you enter into the kingdom when you accept Jesus as your king or Lord.

Now you're a part of the kingdom, you're a citizen.

And that means he's you're the ruler over your life, right?

So we enter into it now and we look forward to a time when it will be fully realized.

And we say that in so many ways.

We say, you know, every week we say the Lord's Prayer, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

You know, God's will being done here and now in our lives, God's will being done fully and completely when the kingdom of God fully arrives.

People often ask me, you know, you're a pastor, what's heaven going to be like?

And I go, I'm in sales, not production.

Right?

That's absolutely true.

Okay.

The Bible gives lots of images of it, though, right?

It talks about it being a second Eden, about creation being restored.

It talks about being light.

It talks about a giant city, it talks about pearly gates and streets of gold.

And uh, you know, there's an artist who has gone, well, multiple artists have gone and tried to picture all those things.

Is that helpful?

Uh I don't I don't think those are literally true.

I think they're figuratively true.

I think they're metaphors of the best things we have in this life multiplied a hundredfold to what the kingdom of God is going to be like.

Okay?

And uh that's why I like the uh uh I like that song that's so popular, I can only imagine, you know, when it says that I can only imagine what it will be like when I walk by your side, I can only imagine what my eyes will see when your face is before me.

I can only imagine.

Surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel?

Will I dance for you, Jesus, or in awe of you be still?

Will I stand in your presence, or do my knees will I fall?

Will I sing?

Hallelujah! Will I be able to speak at all?

You know, we don't know, but we do know it will be in the presence of God, and that it will last, and that in that we will be transformed into the kind of people we were created to be.

A beautiful image.

But I think the pictures we have of it are just metaphors.

Now, the Bible talks a lot about the kingdom of God, number one topic Jesus talked about by far.

Okay?

On the other hand, hell is not talked about hardly at all.

And one of the things that's the problem is, of course, the word itself.

Where does the word come from?

Hell.

Anybody?

Norse mythology.

Yeah.

That's weird, isn't it?

That we take a word from another religion to apply here?

That's because the words that are used here are different and can a little confusing and of themselves.

In the Old Testament, they talk about Sheol, which is the pit or the grave.

And clearly in the Old Testament, they don't have a developed idea of resurrection.

In fact, the Jews of Jesus' day were still arguing about whether or not there would be a resurrection.

We often say that the Pharisees believed in the resurrection, but the Sadducees didn't, and that's why they were so Sadducee.

Right?

And we see in the book of Acts, Paul's bringing this up as an arguing point all the time, and big arguments develop.

Even today, many Jews do not believe in a resurrection.

Okay?

So understand that and hear that first of all.

Uh uh, but in the in the New Testament, when they talk about it, they use two words, Hades, which is a loan word from Greek mythology, about a place you go to for an interim period, kind of, which is not something we as Protestants believe in.

And then it talks about Gehenna, which is usually translated as hell.

What's Gehenna?

Anybody know?

It's this little dinky valley right next to Jerusalem.

And if you ever go to Jerusalem, they'll have signs up this way to hell.

I'm not making that up.

And they just mean this little valley.

And in fact, valley, it's it's a what's smaller than a valley?

A dale?

It's a little dinky thing.

You could easily walk the entire length of this valley in a couple hours, for sure, in every witch of way.

So it's a tiny thing.

It's the dump where they dumped garbage uh uh during uh uh uh for many much of the Bible times and where they would burn things, you know, get rid of it that way.

And we also know it was a place where they sacrificed children during the idolatrous times of the Old Testament.

So it became a symbol of all these negative things.

It's a junkyard, it's a garbage pit, it's a place of fires.

Okay?

And so it became this image of negativity.

That's what it is.

How literally are you supposed to take any of that?

Okay?

The Bible does say there will be a judgment and that God will judge fairly.

It does say that some people will be sheep and some will be goats, and God will make that call, when it's not up to us.

And he says that it will be a place of cut off from God.

Does that mean destruction and death?

There are places in the Bible where it says that, where it says they will be thrown in revelation into the lake of fire, which is the second death, as you know.

So it's a little more confusing and wow, to make a lot out of the theology of that is difficult.

Okay, I'm just saying that.

But certainly a judgment, God will be in charge.

The last thing I think this passage tells us about, though, is expectation.

You know, this passage takes place the last part of the teaching of Jesus and the last of his discourses.

And I think it's really challenging us to make the most of the time we have.

You know, people often want to know when is Jesus coming?

Would that make you live differently?

You know, I I I guess if I knew Jesus was coming tomorrow, I might do a few things different.

But I'll tell you, we don't know the day or the hour.

No man knows, not even the Son of Man.

And I think it's really negative when churches start focusing in on, I know this time it's gonna happen and this this year.

Uh I've joked with you about this, but when I was in Portland as a pastor, there was a nearby church that every year sent me a book, and I'm not making it up.

It was titled Why the World Was Gonna End.

So it was 1996, it was Why the World Was Going to End in 1997.

And the next year they send me a book, Why the World Was Going to End in 1998, and 99.

I had six of them.

I tell you, that that's got to be that can't be good, right?

To think that way.

We live each day as though it might be our last, but we plan for the future too.

And we don't know when it will be.

So we want to do our best to be ready.

But we live in expectation in this sense.

We know we have a limited amount of time and we want to make the most of it to do the kind of things that God has called us to do.

We don't know when the end will come, or my end will come.

I saw a bumper sticker once, I think I have a picture of it here to show you.

It says, Jesus is coming.

Look busy.

It's not about appearance, it's about actually doing the things and allowing God to transform us.

When we go about doing God's work, then we are shaped and molded into the kind of people we were meant to be because our decisions and actions matter to God and He will shape us through them.

In fact, one of our other windows is the potter's hands.

It's taken from Jeremiah, and in that image, we're supposed to go into God's hands and let him shape and mold us into the vessel he wants us to be.

You know?

Thou art the potter, I am the clay.

Mold me and make me after thy will, thine only, always living and still.

When we become Christians, we accept Jesus as our Savior and Lord, that is the King, the ruler of our lives.

And that means if He's really ruling for us, then we will do service, right?

Because we're called to do that, to benefit others, to benefit ourselves, and because God cares about what we do.

But I'll also tell you, and this is something else that people miss, the real joy of salvation isn't all taking place later.

It begins here and now when we allow God to shape us and mold us.

As we do those things, that's where the joy of the kingdom is.

It is fun to get out there and minister to people and to do God's work.

You know, uh we have all kinds of tasks here to do at the church that are little tiny acts of service, you know, making cookies.

I like to make cookies.

It's fun to do that.

It's fun to have hospitality, it's fun to reach out to people.

Even some, once in a while, some of these tasks, you're right, they get to be a little bit of a pain.

But aren't they also, even in that pain, and a good thing?

My dad once told me, he said, the best thing I ever did in my life was having children.

He had nine of them, so I don't know, you could argue that one, but what he meant was that he became, he thought, a better person because when you're a parent, you can't be all about you, right?

You got to learn about other people and caring and putting them first.

And you do learn from that, right?

If you're parenting right, you should learn that.

And that's a joy in that.

You know, some of my best memories of being a parent, you know, have to do with some of the sacrifices we made, right?

Uh I've read though that the majority of parents wish that they say, I don't know if this is still true.

I read this in a Dear Abbey, so it's got to be true.

Or I heard it on the internet, you know.

Uh that the when they pull parents, a lot of them say they wouldn't want to go be a parent again if they had to do it all over again.

I go, really?

Okay.

I think that there's a real blessing that comes to us when we serve, and that that's where the joy is and the transformation.

We're becoming the kind of people God meant for us to be as He shapes and molds us through our service.

Well, let's have a word of prayer.

Lord, we thank you for the opportunities you give to us to uh be your servants, to minister to you through our brothers and sisters around us.

We pray that we will make the most of the time we have, and that we will receive the inheritance that you call us to receive.

We pray that at the end of time we will hear you say, uh, Well done, thou good and faithful servant.

And we pray, Lord, that we will commit ourselves so that we are being fitted out for your kingdom here and now as we give our lives over to you and your kingdom.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.