"Multiplying Righteousness," Matthew 25:31-46, Sulmane Maigadi

Good morning, everyone. Let's try that again.

Good morning, everyone. Yeah, here we go.

If you are new, my name is Somane Megadi, one of the

pastors. Here we are in Advent.

I think I was 22. I was in Nigeria.

I had this conversation with a friend of mine, and we were

lamenting the way that the country was going, you know,

just spiraling downward, becoming bad.

And I remember we ended with this feeling that honestly, we

understood with Paul when he said, I kind of want to just go

home right now to be with the Lord.

Life sucks. I was 22, 19 years later, that

has not changed. I feel exhausted, and I'm sure

that many of us feel exhausted as well.

With the weight of sin and evil in the world.

We groan and we cry out. How long, O Lord, will you

endure the iniquity that you see?

Will you endure the unrighteousness, the injustice

in the world? Please come, Lord Jesus, and in

Advent, as we prepare to celebrate Christmas, we are also

preparing our hearts for the second coming of the Lord.

Isaiah 11 is one of those passages that reminds us that

Jesus is King, and when he returns, we're going to see how

he reigns fully with righteousness.

That's right. Action that rises straight from

God's character, and then also with justice.

That's action that is a true verdict that sets things in the

right order because King Jesus blesses and he multiplies

anything that reflects his righteousness and he justly

redeems and corrects and if needed even punishes anything

that reflects sin and evil. Matthew 25 makes this, you know,

unmistakably clear. You have Jesus coming and all

his glory in the with the angels are with him.

Such power. He sits on his glorious throne

authority. He will gather all the nations

before him. They must come.

This is not a summit that any nation can opt out of.

They have to come to this. He's going to separate them

sheep from goat because he knows their hearts.

He knows who they are and he knows who are his own.

This is the king we follow. He reigns in righteousness.

He exercises perfect judgement, and he calls all nations to

account. He does more than that, though.

He calls you and I to participate in this.

The question before us today that I'm going to try to answer

is how do we partner with King Jesus to extend His justice and

His righteousness? And that's what we're going to

turn to. Our main passage is Matthew 25,

Matthew 25:31–46

verse 31 to 46, found on page 780 of the ESV Bible.

That's what we're going to look at primarily this morning.

Let me pray for us, Father. May your word be a delight to us

this morning. May it give us hope, may it give

us refreshing, may it direct our hearts to your Son Jesus Christ

for the glory and praise of your name.

Amen. Amen.

All right, so Matthew chapter 25, verse 31 to 46, to better

Matthew 25:31–46

understand what is going on in that passage, we're going to

talk about sheep for a little bit.

Sheep are strange creatures. If you've ever seen one, they're

very, very weird. They're cute and they're fluffy,

but they have weird habits. They drift and wonder if nobody

guides them. They hear a sharp sound and

they're startled. They have almost no defense

mechanism except when they huddle together and when they're

huddling together. If you're in the middle, you're

safe. If you're on the outskirts,

well, sorry, they can't clean themselves when they get stuck

in a place they need help to get out.

You put a sheep on its back, it's fallen and it can't get up.

It just can't. They are very vulnerable.

They need steady care. And yet this is the creature

that God, that Jesus chooses as a picture of his people.

That's not very flattering. Of course not.

But I think it gets to the part of the issue what Jesus is

looking for. Sheep have one strong trait.

They follow a leader. Once a sheep places his trust in

the shepherd, they will follow that sheep wherever that

shepherd, sorry, that shepherd, wherever he or she goes.

And they will be fully dependent on the shepherd for everything.

So Jesus says in John, my sheep hear my voice, I know them, and

they follow me. So he uses sheep because he

wants us to be people who follow him and depend on Him for every

little thing. And so Psalm 23 shows us how our

Lord leads us. He first of all leads us to

green pastures, the pastures of His Word.

True feed come to His Word. They feed on Scripture day after

day. They memorize it, they meditate

on it, they read it, they study, they feast on His Word to their

heart's content so that they can lie down with plenty all around

them. The Psalm also teaches us that

our Lord leads His sheep to restful waters, and that can

mean many things, but it certainly means the Holy Spirit.

Remember John Chapter 7, verse 37?

John 7:37

Jesus says if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his

heart will flow rivers of living water.

Now this he said about the Spirit whom those who believed

in Him were to receive, and the rest of that Psalm, Psalm 23

shows how the Lord provides abundantly for His sheep.

He guides us through difficult circumstances so that we are not

afraid. And like a generous host, He

sets a table before us with food and drink where we can eat in

safety even with our enemies nearby.

He anoints our head with the oil of gladness.

Our cup of wine just overflows with comfort and refreshments

and good things. Surely goodness and mercy track

US all our days, and we long to be in the House of the Lord from

day-to-day. You hear that and you want to

say Amen? Somebody give me an Amen.

Yes, yes, it's really, really good.

This is what Jesus provides for us.

And I'm constantly struck by believers who position

themselves where they can receive God's abundance like

this. And of course, I'm not saying

that they get everything right, but they show a tenacious

devotion to the things of the Lord.

I'm thinking, for example, of the early Quakers who gathered

for long stretches of silent prayer.

They're waiting on the Lord with open Bibles, and they wouldn't

leave till they heard God's voice.

I'm thinking about the people like the Amish, who structure

their whole lives around Scripture and worship and

community and food. And boy, do they know how to do

food well. They rise early, they pray

together, they read the word, they bear one another's burdens,

and they have very strict rules about how to engage with all the

novelties in the world. I think about the South Korean

brothers and sisters who rise at 4:00 PM every morning, 365 days

a year. They walk to church for an hour

of prayer. I think of what Bishop Andudu

told us here about his work in South South Sudan, southern

northern Sudan, where people walk for walk for hours just to

congregate together on a Sunday and have worship that lasts for

5 to 8 hours. May that happen here for 5 to 8

hours, just feasting and praying together and singing and

worshipping. There's an instance where that

was happening and Bishop Andudu was preaching to 2000 people.

And this was a time when the violence was much, much greater

than it is right now. And he saw a fighter jet that

usually that fighter jets that was coming and he know knew what

that meant, carpet bombing. They was going to shoot them.

And he didn't tell the people what was going to happen.

He simply prayed and kept preaching.

And for whatever reason, the guy didn't see them. 2000 people in

an open field, despite danger, they're coming to feast at the

table of the Lord. That kind of shames me when I

think about myself, you know. At the same time, I'm amazed by

the number of Christians I meet who say they have followed Jesus

for years and years and years, and they've never even read the

Bible cover to cover. They stop at Leviticus.

That is a hard book I give, I grant that.

But they stop there. This is their word for life, and

they don't feast on it. Their prayer life is stilted.

If it exists at all, it's very feeble and it's constantly

interrupted by, you know, cute cat videos or sports or whatever

distraction you can put in there.

Spiritual rhythms, not so much. They nibble at the edges of

Jesus feast and they wonder why their spiritual life feels so

thin, why their strength fails them, why they fall into

temptation, why their life is constantly full of struggle

after struggle without any joy or peace, Why their compassion

dries up. Which kind of sheep are you?

The type of feasts on Jesus's abundance are the 1 nibbling at

the edges. What does this have to do with

extending Jesus's righteousness and justice?

So in Matthew 25, verse 32 to 33, it tells us that when the

Matthew 25:32–33

Son of Man comes in His glory, before Him will be gathered all

the nations, and He will separate people one from

another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

And He will place the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on

the left. The sheep here are the ones who

have heard Jesus's voice feasted at his stable, and he leads them

in paths of righteousness. And where does that take them?

It takes them to where Jesus Himself dwells among the hungry,

the poor, the naked, the stranger, the sick, the

imprisoned. And this list is not exhausted.

And the goodness and mercy and abundance that follow Jesus's

true sheep naturally flowed from them to the least of these

listed here. Now, whenever I look at

Scripture, I want to be faithful to what it's saying, and I want

to do that here. Jesus actually qualifies who the

hungry and the poor are in the passage verse 40.

Truly, I say to you as you did it to one of the least of these,

my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.

If you do a simple concordance search of this particular word,

you'll find that it the for brother and sister.

You'll find that it appears 31 times in Matthew and it has only

two meanings. One, it means either a physical

relative or Kingsman or a fellow believer, someone in the family

of faith. The word actually appears in

Matthew chapter 12 with both meanings in there.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

Jesus is talking to his disciples and someone says, hey,

your brother, your mother, your sisters, they're waiting outside

for you, Jesus. And Jesus looks at the messenger

and then he looks back at his disciples, who are my brothers

and my sisters and my and my mother, etcetera.

It is you all, you all who hear my word, who do the will of the

Father. He uses that word and he changes

what it means to be family. Those who are my disciples are

brother, sister, mother. So when Jesus says the least of

these, my brothers and sisters, he's speaking primarily about

his disciples, his followers who are hungry, poor, sick,

strangers or in prison. That shouldn't surprise us.

Acts 9. Saul is going to Damascus that

arrests Christians, blinding life falls off the horse hears a

voice. The voice says, Saul, Saul, why

are you persecuting my church? That's not what it says.

Persecuting my disciples. That's not what it says.

Why are you persecuting me? Jesus identifies very closely

with his church because it's his body.

And he certainly identifies with the least of his disciples who

fit these categories. For example, like Pastor Ezra

Ezra Jin and the 30 believers who were detained in China.

We've been praying for them, detained for illegal

dissemination of religious information, like a Vietnamese

mother who became a Christian and immediately faced beatings

from her husband and the local police, and she and her children

had to flee to Thailand. And there they're being

supported by local missionaries ministries.

Jesus cares deeply about his people who are suffering the

least of these, and He wants us to show them love.

Now Scripture gives us several reasons for this, but one of

them actually comes directly from Jesus's own mouth.

He says in John 13, I give you a new commandment that you love

one another. By this everyone else will know

that you are my disciples if you love one another.

When the household of God shows love to itself, especially to

the least of these within it, the world sees it.

And when they do, our King Jesus says they will say, wow, those

Christians, they really love each other.

They must be true disciples. The gospel must be real.

And as far as Jesus is concerned, there's no virtue in

saying that you love non Christians and do good to them.

When you do not love your fellow Christians and do good to them,

there's no virtue in that. And so Galatians chapter 6 verse

Galatians 6:10

10, it captures this with a good balance.

It says so then whenever you have an opportunity, let us work

for the good of all and especially for the household of

faith. Now it goes without saying, like

we just read from Galatians, this focus does not exclude love

to those who are not believers. Jesus has told us many instances

in Scripture to love and serve those outside the faith.

The epistles carry the same command.

If your enemy is hungry, feed them.

If your enemies thirsty, give them something to drink.

Our acts of love must extend to those outside the faith because

everybody bears the image of God.

And This is why Scripture often ties God's judgment.

Whoever said Amen to that, thank you.

This is why Scripture often ties God's judgment directly to how

his people treat the least of this, whether Christians or not.

And here's an example. Zechariah Chapter 7 says, Thus

Zechariah 7 · chapter mention

says the Lord of hosts, render true judgments, yes, Show

kindness and mercy to one another.

Yes. Do not oppress the widow, the

fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you

device evil against another in your heart.

But they refused to pay attention, and turned a stubborn

shoulder and stopped their errors that they might not hear.

Therefore great anger came from the Lord of hosts, and I

scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they

had not known. God takes this very seriously,

and so should we. But it is so hard to do this

well because none of the things that Jesus names is easy for

convenient. Because back then feeding the

poor took a significant amount of time.

They did not have Uber Eats. They couldn't make an easy

grocery run and just simply get food ready made.

They didn't have Grubhub. And visiting someone in prison,

well, good luck. You could walk for hours to get

there and you had no guarantee that you'd be allowed to see the

person you're visiting. And there's always a chance of

guilt by association. Welcoming the stranger carried a

real risk, whether they were a believer or not.

You did not know the kind of person you were bringing into

your home. A stranger could drain what

little you had overstay the welcome of turn out to be

uncharitable. A friend of mine in Nigeria came

in contact with this couple who had two kids and they were

living in a very terrible apartment and he found out

around 7:00 PM that night that they needed food that had

nothing to eat. There were there are no food

banks that you can go to in Nigeria.

And so he scrolled through his phone and found who can I call

to help right now. Called about 10-15 people and

many of them said yes, I have this, just come and get it.

For the next 2 1/2 hours my friend was driving around the

city picking up food to take it to this person that he just met.

And he gave them food and then they became part of his life

such that when they were evicted from the home, they stayed with

him. And in staying with him he found

out there were so many things wrong.

They were believers but part of the problem was their lack of

wisdom put them in that situation.

And he tried to help and he kept helping and kept helping and it

drained him. And in the end that relationship

didn't end very well. But till date he was like, I did

the right thing. It was good that I did that no

matter how hard it was. These things aren't convenient.

Jesus's sheep do these things and they do them without

thinking. When Jesus commends them,

they're like, yo Jesus, what are you talking about?

When did we see you and did all do all these things to you?

They weren't doing it because they were looking for reward or

merit. No, that never crossed their

minds. They did these things because

Jesus's sheep overflow with the abundance he gives, and everyone

around them feels the impact of that overflow.

And apart from that abundance, efforts fall flat.

Anyone who tries to do these good deeds, apart from being a

faithful sheep, will miss the mark.

The help be muddied, incomplete, temporary, and often

ineffective. You will have no abundance to

give. You'll be exhausted.

You'll be tired, weighed down by the enormity of all the things

that have to get done. You will freeze under its size

or push yourself to do what only God can do.

I'm encouraged because our church community is filled with

people who do good things like this.

I truly commend you for that. Some of you work on a macro

level and agencies that tackle food security, economic

inequity, criminal justice reform, safeguarding and

protecting the vulnerable. Some of you serve at a micro

level. You're walking closely with

individuals, whether they're Christian or not, through acts

of mercy and just being with them.

Our benevolence fund is run by your generosity.

Thank you so much for giving you.

Continue to give to the church, to the mission of the church.

Do not grow weary of doing this, good friends.

In due time you will reap the reward.

You will hear Jesus say, Come, you who are blessed of my

Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the

foundation of the world. Keep going, don't give up.

But then there are the goats, and for them there awaits an

unpleasant conclusion. I love goat meat.

It's one of my favorite meats. It's so tasty, so tasty.

I don't think Jesus is saying like goats are bad.

Completely certainly not. That's not what he's talking

about. In fact, goats are independent

creatures. They choose their own path.

They're bold and curious. They're always climbing,

exploring, and pushing boundaries.

They move well in difficult places.

They can claim space. And sometimes that's a really

good thing. These qualities in other places

in Scripture are praised. They're good things.

The problem here isn't goats in general.

It's this one trait that Jesus is honing in on.

Goats depend far less on a shepherd.

They are stubborn. They trust their own minds.

I mean, when you think of a goat, many of you might be

thinking of that situation where you have a goat and the

shepherd's trying to pull the goat and the ghost, like, I'm

not going, I'm not moving. That's what Jesus is getting at

when he's talking, when he's talking about goats, people who

refuse to follow him, they do what seems right in their own

eyes. They act from self will rather

than from the abundance of the shepherd provides.

And as a result, they don't attend to the least of these.

And the sad thing is this. Many of the goats, according to

verse 44, will call Jesus Lord. They will recognize that He's

king. He's just not their king.

They echo the people Jesus describes in Matthew 7.

On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy

in your name and cast out demons in your name and perform all

sorts of miracles in your name? Jesus is going to look at them

and say, what are you talking about?

You have done evil. You have taken my teachings of

justice and mercy and grace and righteousness and holiness and

twisted them to your own ends. And by associating with Me, you

have put My name with your evil deeds.

You have used My name in vain. I don't know who you are if you

claim to be a sheep, the follower of Jesus Christ and

your life is not marked by a steady flow of his abundant

provision, the Word, the Spirit, the the table he sets before us,

and that abundance isn't flowing to others.

You are deceiving yourself and you need to repent.

You might be a goat. You cannot come here within the

community of God, week after week, hear the scriptures,

receive the Spirit, come to the table, and yet fail to extend

Jesus's righteousness and justice.

That is not true worship. It's a lie.

The fate of the goats in this passage is very sobering.

Jesus says it plainly. We can't avoid it.

Depart from me, you cursed into the eternal fire, prepared for

the devil and his angels. And these will go away into

eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

That should land hard. Is anyone here familiar with

Everybody Loves Raymond? Yeah, Yeah.

I'm not endorsing yet. That's not what's happening

here. It's a funny show.

Here's my point as you continue to watch it over and over this,

there's a there's a, there's a theme that keeps coming up, a

pattern, everything. Raymond's family is Italian.

Every single time he walks into his mother's kitchen, he always

asks, are you hungry? Some variation of that.

And whether he says no or yes, she's going to say, I'll make

you a sandwich or there's some leftover pasta.

She's going to set the table no matter what.

And Raymond's mom is like many mothers, like my mother and my

mother-in-law, certainly the way they say I love you is to say,

have you eaten? And then they feed you whether

or not you are actually hungry. And God help you if you try to

say no, I don't want anything. You're on your own.

And once the table is set, y'all, my mother's can can can

cook. The food is delicious.

And if they see that your plate is empty, they're like, Sul,

there's more food. Please let me go and fetch for

you. Let me get more for you.

And they'll take your plate and get more food for you.

And after you're all filled up, they'll say, please leave room

for dessert. I've made cake.

I've made cake. Do you want more, Zobo?

Truly, your cup runneth over at that table.

This is a picture of the table that Jesus sets before us.

He wants us to be filled to the overflowing so that out of our

abundance we can extend His righteousness and justice.

We can love mercy and walk humbly with Him.

So I invite you, come, eat, drink, and receive from Jesus

every single day. There is no lasting way to

extend His righteous reign apart from the abundance that He

provides. Let's feast with our Lord.

Let's pray. You have laid a table for us,

Lord God, and we pray that You would give us grace like sheep

to come to the table and eat from your table, that by the

power of Your Holy Spirit, what we receive from You will flow

into the world. It is in Your name we pray.

Amen.