Parable of the Sheep and the Goats

Today's scripture comes from Matthew 25:31 46 when the Son of

Matthew 25:31

man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit

on his glorious throne.

All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will

separate the people from one another as 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.

Take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the

creation 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 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.

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 invite you in or needing clothes

and clothe you?

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

The king will reply, 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 say to those on his 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 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.

They will also answer, lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty

or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison and

did not help you?

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.

Jesus told stories.

He told stories to help us understand how different the kingdom

of God is from the world in which we live that's governed by

sin.

To help us to not see the world through sin's distorted eyes,

but from the perspective of how God sees the world and how God

designed us to live and to love and to relate and to flourish.

And so he told stories to help us to understand that most of them

begin the kingdom of heaven is like and it goes on to tell us of

a good Samaritan.

It tells us of a sower in the field, tells us of an unforgiving

servant.

Well, the story today doesn't begin the kingdom is like.

Because the story today is exactly how the kingdom is.

It is a statement of fact.

It's not a story of a metaphor, of a teaching principle.

When Jesus tells stories of the parables, he's always talking

a world that's upside down from what we assume it is not just

a little different from the world we live in, but totally different,

as different as heaven is from hell.

And the process to understand this is what we've been singing each

week to day by day.

See him more clearly, but love him more dearly and follow him more

nearly.

That's our prayer.

And I've held this parable till the end of this semester.

We've got one more week next week, I mean week after next, toward

the end of the semester.

Because until we begin to think in kingdom ways, it's hard

to grasp the reality of how hard this truth is.

And if you're ever going to pay attention to anything, pay attention

the next 30 minutes, because it's going to make all the difference

in your destiny.

This parable is that important.

Today's parable is about the final judgment.

The parable, the sheep and the goats.

Suppose tomorrow was your day of final judgment.

Tomorrow you would stand before God and he would say, why

should I let you into heaven?

And I think your answer would probably be, because I believed in.

In you.

I had faith in you alone.

It was only by your grace and your death of your son on the cross

that I have been redeemed and restored.

I did not do anything to earn this.

I do not bring any list of good works.

I just have accepted your grace, and because of that, I am

saved.

And he said, that's exactly right.

That's exactly right.

You can't earn your way in here.

You can only accept the free gift of grace that restores you to

a holy God.

But then he's going to ask a second question, and that's what

the parable tells us.

The question is essentially, what evidence do you have that you

love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and

all your mind, which is the greatest commandment in the Bible?

What evidence do you bring?

What's your answer?

I'm not asking theoretically.

I'm asking real right now.

What's your answer to what evidence you bring standing before

the seat of judgment for eternity, that you love the Lord

your God with all your heart, your soul and your mind.

This parable is not like the others because it's Describing what

is actually going to happen.

And that can be welcoming and thrilling, or it can be absolutely

terrifying.

There are three categories of people that Jesus talks about in

this parable.

Those who truly believed and accepted with grace and lived with

kingdom priorities that had transformed their lives because they

loved God that much.

Second group are people who profess to be disciples of Christ

and professed to be Christians, but it never really guided

their life.

Jesus was never really Lord of their life.

And then there are going to be those who say they never profess

to follow Christ at all.

The parable is primarily speaking to the second two categories,

but especially the second one.

People who say, I'm a Christian, but there's no evidence

on that day of judgment.

There's no evidence to bring to Jesus and say, here's the evidence

that I'm a Christian.

Well, if you've got to bring evidence, that raises an important

question, doesn't it?

Are you saved by faith or by works?

It can't be both, right?

Yes, it can.

It is both.

You come to Christ only by faith.

You are forgiven of your sins only by his grace.

You're restored in fellowship with God only by his goodness and

your faith in Him.

That alone brings you to fellowship with God.

But our love for him, how much we love him and how much he has done

to transform us and to redeem us and to save us, flows out in our

works.

And our works have to be evidence that Christ is Lord of our

life.

Our works matter.

You see, if there's no result of our faith, if I just say I accept

Christ and nothing changes and nothing in our outlook changes and

we never get into kingdom understanding that we've talked about

these weeks, then our faith is just empty.

It's what I call religion, going through the motions, but it

doesn't matter.

Or maybe you have a whole bunch of good works, but you don't

have any faith because you didn't understand the price Christ

paid on the cross because sin needed to be needed justice, and

he took our sins for Him.

If you don't understand that, then the works don't matter either.

It's just empty as well.

It's just religion or doing good.

So he talks about three portions in this scripture, and I

want to walk through them in some detail with you because they're

all very important.

The first is this, the final judgment.

He describes to us the final judgment.

The day you and I will stand before God.

It will happen when Christ comes again.

He says he will not come as a humble servant, a humiliated savior.

He Won't come as a baby born in Bethlehem in a borrowed stable.

He won't walk and talk among a bunch of disciples and have to deal

with all that goes on in society and kind of maneuver through

that.

He won't let himself be humiliated by the power of Rome to

crucify him in a bloody, blood, gruesome death where they

thought they won, but they really lost.

That's not how he's coming back.

He says when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels

with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne.

He will come as a ruler.

He will come as a judge of all.

He will come in the majesty of who Christ is, as God, not as God

and man, but as God alone.

He will come in glory.

The scripture says.

Well, what's that look like?

We have trouble seeing that because when we think of Jesus, we

think of him walking around in sandals with his disciples and doing

some miracles, maybe with fish and loaves or walking on the water.

That's pretty amazing.

And we think of him telling stories and teaching all that.

We hopefully think of him on the cross, but we don't think of

him in his glory.

Well, we know what that looks like because John the disciple John,

his closest friend later in his life was exiled to the island

of Patmos.

And on Patmos, John had a vision of what the future is about.

And in that vision he describes what he saw of who Jesus

is in his glory.

He describes it this way.

He said he was wearing a long robe with a gold sash around his

chest.

His head and his hair were like white as wool, as white as snow.

His eyes were like flames of fire.

His feet were polished bronze, refined in a furnace.

And his voice thundered like mighty ocean waves.

He held seven stars in his right hand and a sharp two edged

sword came from his mouth.

And his face was like the sun in all its brilliance.

When I saw him.

This is his best friend.

This is his best friend.

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as if I were dead.

But then he laid his right hand on me and said, don't be afraid.

I am the first and last.

I am the living one.

I died, but look, I'm alive forever.

And I hold the keys to death and the grave.

That is what Jesus looks like in.

In his glory.

That is who we will stand before on the Day of Judgment.

In all his majesty, in all his glory.

And he says all the angels will come with him.

Millions of them.

We don't know how many millions.

Millions of angels will come and be with him.

And then he says he will be ruler over all, to judge them as

a testimony to his deity.

You know, when he said this, the religious leaders of the day

thought he was a horrible heretic because he essentially was

calling himself God.

And he was God.

And now we see him fully God on that day of judgment.

The mediator between God and us.

The mediator who redeems our sins and forgives us and reconnects

us to a holy God who loves us so much.

He created us.

That's who Jesus will be.

He'll come in his majesty with all the angels to rule over and to

judge the whole world.

And he gives a picture of that judgment.

He says all the nations will be gathered in his presence, and

he will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from

the goats.

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

All the nations of the world think of the most powerful people

you know today.

People with all the money, all the power, all the ego.

They will stand before God just like you and I will.

All of them, every single one of them.

All the nations and the most forgotten people, the one society

is discarded.

The ones who just barely make it through, they will also stand

in the same place of judgment.

He gives this picture of judgment.

See, Christ will administer judgment.

God is a God of justice.

You will get justice.

Last week we talked about forgiveness, and I said, don't feel

like you've got to go get justice every time.

Trust God to do it.

God's got this.

Well, God may bring about justice to the person who hurt you

in this life, but I guarantee you, on the day of judgment, they

will get justice because God demands justice.

You see, the wheels of God's justice grind very, very slowly sometimes,

but they grind very fine.

And you can't escape God's justice and God's judgment.

He says he will separate the wicked and reward the righteous on

that day.

That's the picture of his final judgment.

That should be a great encouragement to believers.

Finally, the kingdom is coming fully.

We don't have to fight the battle with sin anymore, because

the kingdom is fully embracing us in that day.

And for unbelievers and for people who say, I'm a Christian,

but they know Jesus is never lord of their life that day.

Thinking about that should be absolutely terrifying, because when

Christ comes again, he comes to judge all.

This is a hard truth about judgment, and we have to grapple

with it.

These are the words of Jesus.

It will happen.

This is not some prophecy teacher with A bunch of slides and

stuff and pulling out verses out of Daniel and Ezekiel and Revelation,

trying to create some scenario of what the future is going to be.

No, this is simply the words of Jesus, how exactly the day of

judgment will happen.

It's a bluntness of facts.

The final judgment will come.

This is not theoretical, this is a statement of fact.

Well, the second part of this scripture is about the judgment of

the righteous.

Judgment of the righteous.

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

creation of the world.

For I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty, you gave me to

drink.

I was a stranger, you invited me into your home.

I was naked and you gave me clothing.

I, I was sick, you cared for me.

I was in prison and you visited me.

And then the righteous will reply, and get this, this is really

critical.

Watch this.

The righteous will reply, lord, when did we ever see you hungry

and feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink?

Or stranger and show you hospitality, or naked and give you

clothing?

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

And the king will say, I tell you the truth, when you did it to

one of the least of these brothers and sisters, you were doing

it to me.

Well, there are three parts to this we need to pull out.

First is this.

The righteous are blessed by God, the righteous are blessed by

God.

Come, you who are blessed by the Father, you are redeemed.

You're made whole.

You have the purity of God, that you can have fellowship with

God for eternity.

So you are blessed in that because of God's grace, not because

of anything we did, but because of God's grace.

Second, he says you're going to inherit the kingdom.

Inherit the kingdom that was prepared before the beginning of

the world.

Now the heaven is not out there in the clouds someplace.

Heaven eventually will be the restoration of this world where we

will live in the way God originally designed it to be.

That is what heaven will be.

And so we will inherit that kingdom prepared for us not to live

there as guests, but to own it.

You see, if you inherit something, you own it.

You don't just get invited in.

You're not just there as a visitor, you are there because it's

yours.

And so we have that promise.

And then thirdly, he says, it's not by works you're going to

get in.

It's not by what the good deeds you did that you're going to

get in.

Salvation is by grace, faith alone.

It's critical to understand that salvation is only by.

By faith and grace alone.

And the easiest way to understand that is to think about

the thief on the cross.

The thief on the cross was dying next to Jesus.

He had never probably ever read a scripture.

He'd never been to a Bible study.

He'd never probably prayed a prayer in his life.

He had done nothing except he asked God, who was on the cross beside

him in Christ, to have favor on him.

And Jesus said, today, today you will be with me in paradise.

Well, that thief on the cross didn't do one thing to earn that.

And that thief on the cross couldn't have done anything after

that because he was going to be dead in the next few minutes,

hours at most.

It was only by faith alone.

So when we come to the final judgment here in this scripture,

Jesus doesn't say, okay, give me a list of the good stuff you've

done.

I want your list.

What are the good works you've done?

Jesus doesn't do that.

He says, I'll list your good works for you before you even ask,

I'll list them for you.

For I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty, you gave me to

drink, I was a stranger, you invited me in, et cetera.

Jesus said, that's what you did.

And then they say, when did we see you hungry?

They didn't even know they did it.

They didn't know it was on the test.

They didn't know that was the standard.

They did it because they loved him so much that his love overflowed

in their life that they love the least of them around them.

This is pretty remarkable.

You see, it's not by works, it's by faith alone.

But faith produces works in our life as the evidence that Jesus

is Lord.

If you genuinely love God, then you will love his people because

that love overflows when you have been genuinely forgiven.

Then you forgive others when you genuinely have been cared for.

When you're hurting, you care for others when they're hurting.

You start to see people around you with kingdom vision, you see

your love for others is a measure of your love for Christ.

The scripture says there was evidence that you love God.

Jesus says there has to be evidence.

If there's not evidence, it didn't really change your life.

It didn't impact you.

If you genuinely love Christ, you can't help but love others around

you.

And not just love the ones who are easy to love, but love the least

around you.

The fruit of love is loving those who are lonely, loving those

who are marginalized, loving those who are disadvantaged, loving

those who are wounded.

If you love Christ and you are redeemed by him and forgiven by him,

you treat people in a different way because you see them

as a child of good and you love them in that way.

It's an outflow of your love for God.

It's not a list of works that you did.

It's a natural outflow.

They didn't even know they did was so natural in who they were because

Christ was lord of their life.

There has to be evidence of our faith.

We talked last week about the fruits of the Spirit.

If you're really a Christian and Christ has redeemed you and Christ

is living in you, there will be fruits that grow in your life

that are evidence of that relationship of love, joy, peace,

patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self

control.

Those fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians, those will be

evident in your life if you are a follower of Christ.

So there are two evidence markers of our faith.

One are the fruits of the Spirit, which means the Holy Spirit

is transforming us and growing us.

Some of those fruits have grown up great, some not so far.

They got more to go.

It's a process and that's okay day by day.

But the other evidence marker of our faith is that we love the

least of God's people around us.

That's the fruit of our love for Christ.

And we're not talking in this scripture about generically caring

for the poor.

He talks about that in other places.

He's talking about loving other Christians.

Your love for them is the fruit of your love for me, essentially,

is what he's saying.

See, there has to be evidence in the Christian life, salvation

is not one time fire insurance you buy and put in the drawer and

forget it.

There has to be evidence because you love God that much.

If you love God, you'll naturally do what pleases him.

Learn to see the world through a kingdom perspective.

The kingdom of God is like.

That's why we've been studying these, to understand how he sees

the world.

It's more about an allegiance to Christ, this understanding of

this parable, than it is about kindness.

When we see and we love Christ, then we look at others through

his eyes.

If you love Christ, you love people who are different from you.

He says, love the least those who are not like me, those who aren't

easy to love, those who are complex, those with whom I have few

commonalities.

It's easy to love certain people.

I saw one of our football players Had a shirt about love of

the all for the love of the team or something.

It was a slogan and it should be teams love each other, they have

that in common, they're committed to each other, they've

given that sacrifice to each other.

Teams have that and, and maybe residence halls have that, or friendship

groups have that.

And that's all good.

Those people are easy to love.

But Jesus says, if you see the world through my eyes, you'll see

the people who are harder to love.

And if you can't do that, you don't really love me.

You know, one of the great things about Belle Haven University

is we're probably one of the most diverse universities of small

colleges in America, maybe big colleges too.

On race.

We are very, very diverse economic background.

Some of you come from really well heeled families, others of you

have next to nothing faith experience.

Some of you come with a really mature developed faith you've studied

over the years and others of you are just trying to figure it

out still.

So if you can't love here, where there are people so different

from you, you can't love out there someplace.

It's got to start right here.

Jesus said you loved the people I loved.

I tell you the truth, when you did it to the least of these brothers

and sisters, you were doing it to me.

There has to be evidence of our faith in how we love others.

Well then he goes on to the third part of this story.

Judgment of the false believers and the unbelievers.

Two groups, one who called him Lord, but he wasn't Lord of their

life, and others who were unbelievers.

And the kingdom will turn to those on the left and say, away with

you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil

and his demons.

For I was hungry and you didn't feed me, I was thirsty, you

didn't give me to drink.

I was a stranger, you didn't invite me into your home, I was naked,

you didn't give me clothing.

I was sick and in prison and you didn't visit me.

And they'll reply, lord, when did we see you?

Hungry or thirsty or stranger or naked or sick in prison did not

help.

And he will answer, I tell you the truth when you refuse to help

the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to

help me.

And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous

will go into eternal life.

Take three things out of this section.

First of all, Jesus commanded those who were not true followers

of him to depart from him, get out of God's Presence.

You didn't want God's presence in your life.

Now you're sure not going to have it in eternity because he's

not going to allow it.

There are people who just want to play around the edges of faith

and have just enough faith so they hope they get to heaven.

But if God is not Lord, the test is very clear.

There has to be evidence of our faith that God is Lord.

So the first thing he says is, you're not going to be in the presence

of God for eternity.

All the overarching good of the world that God has put in the

world of what's right and wrong, that's all going away.

All the comfort that's in the world, even if you're not a believer,

that's all going away.

The presence of God is completely gone away.

Depart from me.

Depart from the presence of God.

If you don't want him now, you don't want him then, and you won't

have him then.

Second, we see he sent these people to the same place of punishment

that he created for the devils and fallen angels.

That's how serious God takes sin.

That's how serious sin is.

If we understood how serious sin is, we wouldn't play around with

it.

And some people trying to be Christians are still trying to play

around with sin.

God doesn't play around with sin.

He sent them to the same place of punishment that he created for

the devil and the fallen angels.

And then we see some people will say, but I'm a Christian.

And Jesus will say, but you never embraced it because there was

no love.

You were a Christian in a selfish way.

You were a Christian because you wanted me to help you, but you

didn't help anybody else.

You were a Christian because you wanted to be saved, but you didn't

want to care for anybody else's needs.

You are a Christian because of what it did for you, not because

you loved me.

And because of that.

There's no love that outflows to anyone else as a selfish face.

It was never guided your priorities.

It never guided your care for others.

It never guided your objectives.

In fact, some of you used the name Christian in order to get ahead

and in the process mocked the name of God.

And those people will say, yeah, but look, I never stole anything.

I never cheated.

I never did horrible things.

And Jesus said, it doesn't matter.

That's not the test.

It doesn't matter.

You didn't love my children.

He's talking about the sins not that we commit.

He's talking about the sins we Omit the sins we omit which are more

important than the sins we commit at the day of judgment.

The goats are not condemned for doing bad things, they're condemned

for doing nothing.

By failing to love other Christians, we don't demonstrate

that Christ is the Lord of our life.

That's the measure.

Those people who say they're Christian, but it never lived out

in their life, they never saw through kingdom eyes.

They never saw the people around them as a child of God instead,

somebody to be used or conquered or taken advantage of or

that would be good for them.

They never saw that God created those people for a purpose

and their purpose is just as important as your purpose.

They never saw that God loves them just as much as he loves you.

They never saw that.

And so they didn't go out in love.

Christ is telling us love the people who come into your path.

And on this campus, as diverse as we are, are all kinds of people

who will come into your path.

Who are the least of these people who are hurting, people who

are lonely, people who need support and care.

And you do it because God loves you that much that you want

to be his extension in their life.

Well, final judgment parable of sheep and goats is not easy to

hear, but I want you to see one thing before we close up.

Jesus used a very familiar image here, like in all the parables,

you know, Sower, everybody knew what it was, the Good Samaritan,

everybody knew where that pathway was.

So he used a very common image here of separating the sheep from

the goats.

And in Palestine in those days, a shepherd at night, if it

was safe and there wasn't a lion or a bear or something in the

area, he would let the sheep continue to stay out the pasture

overnight because that's where they were most comfortable.

And the sheep somehow knew the shepherd was watching over them,

so they weren't worried.

They instinctively understood that.

The goats, on the other hand, hated being out in the night.

And so the shepherd would have to bring the goats in because they

felt safer close together if they didn't have the warmth of each

other.

They got afraid and they needed that.

They needed to be around the other goats.

This world of goats, sin driven people feel safer when they're

close to other goats.

The devil makes us sin, feel safe if he puts us around other people

who also sin.

And then we tend to seek out people who sin or who are maybe just

Christian enough that if they say they're Christian, then I must

be in too.

I must be okay.

We tend to seek that out and in that we are totally fooled.

The goats seek each other.

That's why they had to be separated out.

And they want to separate out even now.

The bare truth is this.

Jesus said, anyone who belongs to God listens gladly to the words

of God.

But if you don't listen, you don't belong to God.

This is a hard parable to study, but it's critical to your

future and mine.

Because on the day of judgment, you and I will both stand

before the glory of God in Christ and be judged.

I pray you're listening carefully to what Jesus is saying

about the sheep and the goats.

And if today Christ is not the Lord of your life, this is the best

time to start.

Make him Lord of your life, and there will be evidence that on

that day of judgment, Christ will know how much you loved him.

Let's pray together.

Lord, I pray for those right now who are in this room who say,

I'm a Christian.

But there's not much evidence and they know it.

Speak to them and lift them up.

Love them.

Let them be drawn to you so that the fullness of their faith

consumes their life.

Lord, there may be some in this room who have never accepted

the grace of your salvation.

Let them know you stand ready to receive them into your loving

arms, that what this world offers is not it.

But the kingdom is like something completely upside down.

And then there are many here who are followers of you.

Their love overflows in you and help them to take encouragement

and comfort, to know on that day of judgment, it's not a list

of what they did or didn't do that God's going to look at.

He's just going to say, did you love my people?

And you're only going to hardly know that you did because

it was so natural to the extension of how much we love you.

Help us to love those people you put right in front of us, right

here on this campus, right now.

In your name, we ask it.

Amen.