So I stumbled upon this quote from a football coach this week. I can’t remember the guys name or his exact phrasing, but it went something like this, “You don’t fail until you blame someone else for your failing.” It stood out to me because a lot of the problems I see come down to blaming others. I didn’t know much about anything as a kid, still really don’t, but what I did know was that Satan was bad. And so, when I was asked why I did something bad, I would say, Satan made me do it. Deflection of consequence is always the go to for most people. Kids learn that deflection early on, and we carry it with us into adulthood, where we learn to blame everything so that people will give us sympathy.
That’s one of the reasons we’re having the problems in our society today, we deflect responsibility for our own actions on the people around us. It’s my parents fault, it’s my teachers fault, it’s my friends, my spouse, my kids, the government, the media. Believe me there is blame to go around, but our deflection of our own role in life leads others to deflect. But there will come a day when we will not be able to deflect anymore.
And that day is what brings us back to our series in the Gospel of Matthew, where we’ll be finishing off chapter 24. And as we open together to Matthew chapter 25, verse 31, let’s recap the last several weeks.
For the last seven weeks we have been looking at the final section to Matthew’s Gospel. There are five total sections, each one wrapped around a sermon by Jesus. In this fifth and final section of Matthew, Jesus’ authority is the focus. In the first four weeks we looked how a disciple must live under Jesus’ authority. Living under that authority means we are satisfied with what God gives us, we are seeking God’s will, we are acting upon his will, and we are not confining God’s will or work to our own. It’s living under God’s authority where humanity was created to be. It’s the created order that brings us all the things that we desire, but try to find apart from God.
When we don’t live under God’s authority we enter into sin. Woes, or consequences of sin, then follow, and we have no one else to blame but ourselves for what happens. Yet, this is why Jesus comes to us. Instead of God leaving us in our sin, and left in our woes, God the Son descends to us as Jesus and takes the punishment of our sin, the ultimate woe of eternal death, onto himself. If we then accept his work through the cross and trust in the resurrection, we then become his disciples under his authority, with no woe ahead of us.
But there is a day when Jesus’ salvation call will come to an end, and that day is his return. So for his disciples, he gives them an insight into that day. Jesus gives a handful of future signs to let his disciples know what to expect as precursors to when his coming will be. These signs are to prepare us for that day.
And when that day comes, Jesus’ disciples must be watchful and actively doing Jesus’ Gospel work. Being wise as we look for Jesus’ return and faithful in the job he has given us, will show us as true disciples. And at the Master’s return, he will bring us into his eternal kingdom.
Yet, there is always the other side. What happens if we are not followers of Christ, or if we are lost in our sin? That is what Jesus’ final thought concerning his return is all about. Let’s read together starting in verse 31 of Matthew chapter 25.
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “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. 35 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, 36 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.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “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.’
41 “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. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 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.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “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.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
For a lot of people this section of the Scriptures is, to use a modern word, triggering. In one of the clearest passages Jesus refers to hell as both a reality and as an eternal destination. For our modern society, this is horrible, and for a lot of people is a reason why some either do not come to Jesus as Savior, or leave the faith.
I am part of an Alliance online theological forum. A lady posted a situation she encountered, where she met an ex-pastor who left the faith because of hell. He could not reconcile the idea of hell, with a loving God. This is a common issue that I’ve witnessed, and I believe it’s because we as individuals tend to not believe God about how horrific sin is. We deflect, believing my sin isn’t that bad, at least not bad enough to warrant hell.
So to understand the concept of hell, we must understand the gruesomeness of sin itself. In Genesis 3, the result of humanity’s sin does not effect humanity alone. We read, “So the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.’ 16 To the woman he said, ‘I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.’ 17 To Adam he said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, “You must not eat from it,” Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return (v.14-19).’”
The results of Adam and Eve’s sin sends ripples throughout the entirety of creation. It effects our relationships with God, our relationships with other spiritual beings, our relationships with each other, and our relationship with our environment. Every aspect of the creation has been distorted and brought low because of that act of sin.
We have been talking about living under the authority of Jesus, because that authority was put aside by the first humans. Jesus is calling us back to the authority that we were created to live under from the beginning. Yet humanity is living outside of God’s authority; we are living in the perpetual woe that resulted from that first sin. Every hurricane that destroys our town, every rape, every war, every murder, every broken home, every evil thing that plagues humanity came from that first sin. And if we’re honest with ourselves, we will see that our own sin adds to that original and brings about more woes on to us. Every lie we tell breaks relationship. Every mean word, hateful thought, physical hit, adds to the woe of the world that results from sin.
This is why Paul writes in Romans 8:22, “22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” And why do Christians talk about the return of Jesus? Because, as Paul continues writing in the next verse, “23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.” Those that recognize the devastation that comes as a result of sin, understand the need of a Savior and will not only look for him, but will live under his authority now, telling others about their need.
This is why this passage of Scripture here in Matthew 25 is so important, it is dealing, not with issues like don’t smoke or don’t cuss, but of the eternal impact that sin has for each of our lives.
This is why Jesus tells us that he will sit on a glorious throne. The throne is a seat of judgement, it’s his authority fully seen. As he is speaking, Jesus is on the precipice of dying on the behalf of humanity, but at his second coming he will be it’s final judge. That’s why this scene is so heartbreaking; it is due to humanity’s sin that permeates every part of it’s relationships with the rest of creation that not only did it’s Creator have to die for it, but that there will still be those who reject the Creator and will have to go away into a horrific place.
And so Jesus describes the separating of two groups. On the one hand you have the sheep. This is the common description of God’s people throughout the Scriptures. From the David’s famous Psalm 23 to Jesus’ own words throughout Matthew, the people of God are the sheep to his Good Shepherd.
On the other had are the goats. These two groups parallel the wheat and weeds from Mathew 13, where Jesus described both growing together and being separated at the end.
The sheep will go to Jesus’ right side, a place of honor, while the goats will go to Jesus’ left a place of dishonor.
Here we get an insight into the two groups. Both were given opportunities to put Jesus’ words into action. The sheep or righteous will put Jesus’ words into action. They will have the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives producing right actions. They will treat others as if they were Jesus. The feeding, the visiting, the comforting to the least of these sees people of all stripes as opportunities not just to help people, but to serve the Master.
The goats, on the other hand, are unrighteous because they do not put the words of Jesus into action. They do not feed, clothe, visit, comfort, because they are their own masters, who seek their own will.
And this is what it comes down to, those who put Jesus’ words into action are those who have their trust counted as righteousness. They trust that Jesus is correct, that we are sinners incapable of fixing ourselves to be righteous and good enough for God. They trust that he came to live the perfect life they could not, and then take their punishment on the cross. They trust that Jesus rose from the dead, because his sacrifice was acceptable to pay for our sins. They trust that the Holy Spirit has been given to indwell them to bring about Jesus’ righteousness in their own lives, by transforming us into the image of Jesus himself. And they trust that Jesus is coming again.
The goats, trust none of this, thinking that they can achieve righteousness on their own, and in so doing, miss everything that Jesus has said.
And the kicker is this. The destination of the goats, of those that are unrighteous because of their own sin and their lack of acceptance of Jesus, was never intended for humanity. In verse 41 Jesus says, “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.” The eternal destination for those who stay in their sin, who do not seek after God, who reject the salvation that is found in Jesus alone, was never intended for humanity in the first place. It was intended for those who saw the authority of God in it’s fullness and rejected it. Yet, it has become the place for all sin to reside in punishment. It is the place where all those that choose to live under their own authority apart from God, will be given what they have chosen.
It’s a heartbreaking moment in time that Jesus will have to execute. Remember, just a few chapters back in chapter 23 of Matthew, Jesus spoke about the woes that follow those who live outside of his authority, to which he ended the woes with this, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing (v. 37).”
Peter who listened to all of this recognizes God’s heart for humanity when he writes in his second letter about the return of Jesus in these words, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).”
God deeply loves his creation and desires it to come back under his authority where they were first created to thrive. But the reality is this: at the end, there will be the sheep and the goats. Those that submit to the authority of Jesus and those who don’t. It isn’t a comfortable reality, but it is what will be. This is why it’s so important for us who call ourselves Jesus’ disciples to share the life giving message of the Gospel. It is why it is so important that we be putting Jesus’ words into practice. It’s why it’s so important that we not just say we are Christians, but we seek the work of the Holy Spirit in us, that we may truly be Christ-like.
This part of the Scriptures ends with these words in chapter 26, “When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, 2 ‘As you know, the Passover is two days away—and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.’
Jesus saw his death just ahead; a death that was needed for you and me, yet he walked straight towards it, that his sheep would someday be separated into his eternal life. The question that we are left with is, will it be you?
My challenge this week is this: If you are unsure, now’s the time to be sure. Each of us can agree that we are sinners, all we need to do is take just the ten commandments and ask the question have I broken anyone of these. If we are honest, will quickly see, we’ve broken not just one or two, but all of them. That’s all it takes to be separated onto the Judge’s left side. But the Judge also provided a way to be on his right side. He himself left his throne in heaven to descend to us. He lived the perfect life we couldn’t, then died in our place. Now all we must do is trust him in all that he says. And a part of that trusting is putting it into practice. Then, we can be assured that we have salvation, that we will be his sheep, because he will give us his Spirit to transform us into his image. The image we were created to bear, but didn’t.
If you have already put your trust into Jesus as your Savior, then I want to invite you to look at the people around you, not just as sinners, but as people who need Jesus. Treat the people around you as Jesus himself. Taking care of their needs, giving comfort to them, as if you were doing it for your Savior himself. Show this world what it means to be a Christian, and just as our Savior laid his life down for others, let us do the same.
Let us be a those who the world can see live under the authority of Jesus. Who look like our Savior and on that day when Jesus judges, there will be no doubt in anyone’s mind that we walk on Jesus’ right side of righteousness, because we are his sheep. Amen.
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