A Life Well Spent: Matthew 25:31-46: How Jesus Will View Our Life

When Jesus looks at our lives, he will look at how we, who have experienced God’s love, have passed that love on to others.

MATTHEW 25:31-46: HOW JESUS WILL VIEW OUR LIFE

INTRODUCTION

Our world is out of joint. Wicked people have their way in the world.
Innocent people are imprisoned and vicious people go free.
Cruel wars flourish in many parts of the world.
I have read that there are more slaves in our world today than at any time in history.
Children are the victims of the lust of evil doers.
The rich exploit the poor—robbing them of the necessities of life.
The poor starve because of the greed of the rich who only want more, more, more.

It has always been this way.
In Psalm 12 the psalmist laments:
“On every side the wicked prowl, as vileness is exalted among the children of men.”

One of the great dreams of the Old Testament believers was that someday justice would reign on earth.

Amos challenged the people:
“Let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.”

Jesus also spoke about a time of judgment when God would put the world to rights.

Read Matthew 25:31-46

In the Middle East sheep and goats graze together but need to be separated at the end of the day because the goats are less hardy and need to be kept warm.
So the goats are sheltered while the sheep may be allowed to stay outside.
It is this picture of the shepherd separating the sheep and goats that Jesus uses to teach about the coming judgment when God will sort out the good from the evil and establish justice in the world.

I. There is a judgment to come. When Jesus comes in his kingly rule, he will put the world to rights.

The Lord Jesus will confront each of us—Christians included—with the consequences of our actions.

In 2 Corinthians 5.10 Paul writes: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body.”

A. Jesus tells us,
“The Son of Man will come in his glory, and all the angels with him,
Then he will sit on his glorious throne.”

Imagine this: Our lowly Jesus, then will be the glorious king!
He will be surrounded by his retinue of angels—“all his angels”—myriads of angels—countless thousands of angels.
And he will sit on his throne and everyone will be brought before him.

It says, “all the nations.” The word “nations” is in Greek “ethne,” which means simply “people.”
Sometimes it means everyone who is not a Jew, but it may also mean everyone including Jews, as it does here.

B. And the Lord Jesus will make a separation—

Not the rich from the poor…or the intelligent from the unintelligent…
or the learned from the uneducated…
He will separate us according to how we have treated our neighbors—especially how we have treated the poor and needy among us.

II. And to some he will say, “Come, O blessed of my Father…”

A. In this life, Jesus invites us: “Come to me… and I will give you rest.”

In that time Jesus will say, “Come blessed of my Father, and inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
That will be a wonderful kingdom God prepared for us before even he created the world.

B. Then Jesus will tell the blessed ones:

“I was hungry and you gave me food…thirsty…a stranger…naked…sick…in prison…”

C. Remember. Salvation is a gift. No one earns salvation. No one deserves salvation.

But the Bible insists that those who have received the gift of salvation will exhibit the fruits of salvation in our lives.

That is why the Bible never says we are judged by our beliefs, but we are judged by our works.
Jesus says, “By their fruits you shall know them,” not “By their opinions you shall know them,” or by their beliefs you shall know them.” The fruits Jesus talks about are the results of God working in our lives.

St. Paul writes in Romans 2:6: “He will repay according to each one’s deeds.”
Our obedience and our love and our kindness are the sure evidence that we are truly children of God.

That these inheritors of God’s kingdom had no thought of earning their salvation is shown by their surprise when the Lord Jesus told them of their kindness to him.

They said, “When did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?”
And the Lord Jesus will say, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to the least of my brothers or sisters, you did it to me.”

III. This is where some preachers stop. But to be faithful to Jesus’ words we must go on…

A. The Lord Jesus, the righteous Judge, says to those on his left: “Depart from me…for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.”

B. I once heard a man say that he thought God would have a place for him in heaven because, as he said, “I never hurt anyone.”

But Jesus doesn’t point to one wicked thing these people had done. He didn’t point to one commandment they had broken—except the commandment to love their neighbors.

It‘s the things we haven’t done that make us most guilty. In some churches they confess their sins with these words: “We have left undone those things we ought to have done, and we have done those things we ought not to have done, and there is no health left in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy on us.”

Maybe most of our failure isn’t the bad things we have done but the good things we have failed to do.

C. Now about the judgment of sinners I am not going to go any farther.

About these things we are not told very much.
About the people who have never heard of Jesus…about what the punishment is…about whether it is literal or metaphorical fire… About these things the Bible doesn’t satisfy our curiosity.
We trust that God will do the right thing.
We have to let God be the judge of who is saved and who is lost.

D. What Jesus tells me is not about other people but what I need to know for myself.

CONCLUSION

My purpose in bringing this passage to your attention is to encourage you to look back over your life—you who love the Lord Jesus.
Recall some times when—out of love for God—you fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick…
Remember those times when, out of gratitude to God, you passed his love on to others by acts of kindness.

Maybe you didn’t even realize that you were serving God; you were just doing the right thing. Neither did the people in Jesus’ story realize they were doing these things for Jesus. But Jesus said that that was just what they were doing.
Jesus received those acts of kindness as done for him.
Jesus saw that generous gift to one in need as a gift to him.

It’s not that you earned your salvation. Our acceptance with God is a gift Jesus paid for on the cross—something you and I can never deserve.

But all our lives long we can try to live lives worthy of the gospel (Philippians 1.27).
We will never feel worthy. But God is pleased to see his love bear fruit in our lives.

A STORY

There was a woman who was very, very wealthy. She didn’t have any children, and her only heir was her nephew. Whenever she was around him and he was around her, he was just so beautiful and so wonderful and so kind and generous.
But she wondered just what he was really like. She wasn’t sure. So she dressed up as a bag lady—like a poor, homeless, alcoholic, elderly woman and sat on the brownstone steps where he lived and waited for him to come out of the door.
Finally he came out—and didn’t recognize her, of course. And immediately he yelled at her; he was very cruel. And then she knew.

Jesus is telling us: “I am the bag lady on your steps. How you treat me tells me who you really are. It tells me what you really think of me, the Lord Jesus.”



Note: The following is from R.V.G. Tasker’s commentary on the Gospel of Matthew.
On vv41 and 46, Tasker comments:
…aionios is a qualitative rather than a quantitative word. Eternal life is the life that is characteristic of the age (aion), which is in every way superior to the present evil age. Similarly, “eternal punishment” in this context indicates that lack of charity and loving-kindness, though it may escape punishment in the present age, must and will be punished in the age to come. There is, however, no indication as to how long that punishment will last. The metaphor of “eternal fire” … in v41 is meant, we may reasonably presume, to indicate final destruction. It would certainly be difficult to exaggerate the harmful effect of this unfortunate mistranslation, particularly when fire is understood in a literal rather than a metaphorical sense.