Depart From Me | Matthew 25:31-46
Sermon Transcript
Good morning. Good to see you again. Crazy week, this week, with all the weather and and we definitely need to be praying for those in the upstate. And my in laws, I think I'm not sure if they still have power, and they went to Charlotte with my sister in law's family and and, you know, those in the western North Carolina, I know, at parts of Asheville, as of yesterday, you couldn't even get there unless you were in by air. It's only way you can get there. And so they, obviously, they don't have systems in place, and a lot of the flooding in the mountains make it difficult. So and be praying for them up there as well. And you know, we just had power out for few hours. About two in the morning, I heard the dog barking, which usually means there's some kind of wind. Usually does not mean an intruder, unfortunately, which, well, it's good actually, we don't have any intruders. But it was a it was wind or like thunder or something like that. And so I heard her barking, so woke up at two in the morning and went open the door, and dog came in and got her 70 pound self up on the bed. And so she takes up like the whole bed at that point. And then about 10 minutes later, the power went out. And so of course, the house gets really quiet, because we have vans running and stuff like that, and sound machines in the kid's room, and power went out, and a few minutes later, I hear this pitter patter feet down the hallway, and it's my little five year old John David, and he hops up into the bed. And about five or 10 minutes later, my third child, who's 12, my second youngest child, opens the door. She says, Dad, mom, and I said, in my half awakened state, I said, bed's full. Bed's full. And that didn't, didn't she got in anyway, and then, you know, few hours later, my 18 year old came in the bed. No, I'm joking. He didn't do that. He slept through the whole thing. But I went to John David's bed and and then while I was trying to sleep for the four hours so we didn't have power, I kept hearing transformers blow all throughout the town, and then about 615 so we're so thankful for Santee Cooper and Berkeley electric and all those in our area that do such a great job and getting us back online. We're we have a lot of experience. The bad thing about Jim was saying, you know, hate these storms. Bad thing about having so many storms is our our energy companies get really good at how to deal with these things and really good at how to help. So that's good to know. So anyway, so bed, bed was full. I really woke up. I said, I don't really tell bed was full. It was, anyhow. But today we're looking at, as we go through words of Jesus, something that that a phrase that was said by Jesus that maybe people didn't expect him to say. He says, Depart from me, is what we're looking at today. And so we are in Matthew chapter 25 starting in verse 31 when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne, and 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 with the goats on the left. Then 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 foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me. Then the righteous who answered him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? And when did you see 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 King will answer them truly, as I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me, then he will say to those on his left, Depart from me. You cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, For I was hungry, and you gave Me no food. 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, then they will also answer saying, Lord, when did we see you? Hungry or thirsty or stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you, then he will answer them saying, truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me, and these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. Heavenly Father, as we look at this passage today, we see a very clear parable, if you will, description of what it will be like when there's a Judgment Day, when Christ comes back, Lord, I pray that you would show us what you want us to learn today, that we will clearly explain to us through Your word these truths that are very evident here, that we would accept them With our hearts, that you would show us as Christians, as believers that are here today, that you would show us Lord, what we are to do with this information, how we are to live, how it is to affect our lives, how it is to change us. And for those of us in here today that may not be a believer, that we would, quite frankly, look at this passage that it would reason with us and we would reason with it to show us just why Jesus says, Depart from me, Lord. I pray that as I preach this, you speak your words through me, that your Holy Spirit fills this place today, and that we receive your word, and we ask these things in Jesus name, amen, this passage today gives us three elements of that we see concerning the return of Christ, three elements that we see concerning the return of Jesus. First, he said that there will be a judgment of humanity. There will be a judgment of all people, all mankind. Now, in the previous sections, Jesus spoke about the signs that would be at the end times, the end of the age, and he urged believers to be prepared for his return, and this passage is set during the last week of Jesus's life. It's often been called the parable of the sheep and the goats, but it's not a parable in the same way some of the other parables were. It's a very real doctrinal statement of how God will judge mankind when Jesus returns, verse 31 says that when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Jesus uses the phrase, Son of man that was used in the Old Testament book of Daniel, and in that book, this phrase is used to explain, to denote that Jesus would be given authority over all nations. So it's no coincidence that Jesus refers to himself in this way, and his Jewish audience would understand that Jesus is using this title to explain that he is the son of man, and he has authority over all the nations. Jesus will come with His angels, His messengers, his instruments of judgment, and after his return, there will be this time of judgment. And it says before him, will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate separate people, one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, all people from all nations will gather before the throne of Jesus, whether you grew up in Peru, whether you grew up in Afghanistan, in South Korea, in Romania, in South Sudan, In Egypt, in America, all people will stand at this judgment and at this gathering, Jesus will divide humanity between two groups that he refers to as the sheep and the goats. Now have you ever wondered for what reasons would a shepherd separate sheep from goats. Biblical times, shepherded shepherds separated sheep. Say that three times fast shepherds separated sheep from goats for several reasons. First, sheep and goats have different dietary needs. A. Different things, and they have different grazing patterns and grazing needs just how their welfare is attained. Sheep prefer to eat grass, and goats will eat anything. They'll prefer your shrubs and your bushes, so they do not enjoy living in each other's areas. Secondly, sheep and goats have different temperaments. They have different behaviors. Sheep are more docile. They're a little dumb, but they're more obedient, and they tend to follow the shepherd, which is why Jesus says, My sheep know My name when they follow Me. They tend to follow the shepherd. Goats are more independent, they're more stubborn, they're more aggressive, and so keeping them separate reduces the risk of conflicts among these animals. So while they have maybe some visible similarities, their behavior is very different, and this is what Jesus is kind of honing in on here. Sheep and goats live differently. They have different natures, and they behave differently. They have different life goals, so to speak, different appetites, different behaviors in their lifestyles. Why? Because sheep follow the shepherd. Goats have no shepherd. Really, they're more independent. So he says in verse 33 and he will place the sheep on his right, that's God's people, and the goats on his left, that is not the shepherd's people. In biblical times, to be on a person's right meant you were in the place of honor. To be on the left meant that you were in a place of dishonor. It was a place of cursing, even so he makes it clear that there will be a division, there will be a judgment of all mankind. Sheep will be with the shepherd because they want to be there. They're docile. They're obedient. Goats are not they want to be independent. They want to do their own thing. And Jesus will let them be. He will let them do that. So there will be a judgment of humanity. Secondly, there will be an inheritance for the righteous. There will be an inheritance for the righteous in verse 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, the sheep, come you who are blessed by my father inherit the kingdom and prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Jesus mentions that those who are on his right believers have a place that's been prepared for them before the foundation of the world. Isn't that amazing. If you're a believer, your bed has already been made, your pillow has already been fluffed. Your house is been constructed. Everything is being prepared for you. It's right. When you get there, your remote control won't be hidden. Someone's not drinking out of your cup. You'll be able to find whatever you need. Everything is there for you. It's been prepared for you before the world was created. God has always known what the end would look like. He wrote history. He wrote our book, he wrote the Bible. He transcends over space and time. He exists over it, but sees it all the same. He knows everything that will happen, and he knows every possibility of anything that may happen. He has complete and exhaustive knowledge. And so those who believe in Jesus have had a place prepared for them before the world was ever created, and that's comforting to the believer. Jesus then explains the character then of those who live with Jesus for eternity, this is the character of those who are known by the shepherd. He says, For I was hungry, you gave me food. I was thirsty, you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me. I was naked. You clothed me. I was sick. You visited me. I was in prison. You came to me. If someone needed food, the believers, the sheep, gave it to them. If someone needed water, you gave it to them. If someone needed clothes, you gave it to them. If someone was sick, you helped them. You visited them. If someone was in prison, you visited them. Now you might say, Well, I've never visited anybody in prison. Does that mean I'm going to hell? No, that's not what he getting at here. He's saying these are all actions that have one thing in common. They are self sacrificing. You're putting the needs of another person above your needs. This is what your life is like when you sacrifice your time, when you sacrifice your money, when you sacrifice your materials for someone who has not nothing, who does not have that, you are showing that your heart has indeed been changed by Jesus. Jesus himself said the 10 Commandments can be summed up in one statement, Love God. Love others. If you're truly been born again, if you've truly been saved, you will love God first and others before yourself, because you have been regenerated with the Spirit of the Living God, and now you can't help but love those who need it. I remember the first time where I started feeling this my own life. I felt this tug in my heart to help someone who needed help. I was about 15 years old. I came to faith as a child, but as you grow and mature in your brain and in your who you are as a person, you start understanding what it means to follow Jesus and these kind of things. And we had a neighbor who had moved across the street, and it was sometime in the spring, and he was sodding his yard. It might have been, wasn't the winter, but it was getting close to the spring. He was sodding his yard back then you would take these big pallets of sod, I guess you still do it, and you roll it in in your yard. And I remember helping my own dad do it when I was, like, eight or nine years old. And so, you know, my kids, if they ever complain about work. I'm like, Okay, I sought my dad's yard, right? But I remember doing that as a kid, and so I went. So he was out there sodding, sodding the yard, right? And it was raining, and I watched him out the window, and I said, Look at he's out there by himself. He's probably in his 40s, I don't know, and about my age now, he's out there sodding his yard. And I'm thinking to myself, he's out there by himself. It starts to rain and it's cold outside. It's a cold rain. I think there may even been, like, some, some, you know, maybe some snow. It was not, you know, Columbia doesn't really snow, but it was a cold, cold rain. And he says, out there by himself, just rolling these pallets of sod in the yard, you know, the rain and and just watched them. And I said, Here I am in this warm house. I got nothing to do. What am I doing? So I put on some clothes, went out there. I said, I'm gonna help this man. So I told my mom, I'm gonna go out there and and help him. She's like, Okay, son or whatever, walked across the street. I walked up to him, and he's all putting the sod down. I said, Hey, do you need some help? And he looked at me. Said, are you serious? I said, Yeah, do you need any help? He said, Sure. So I went out there and I rolled the sod with him. And then my dad got home from work and he saw it. He came down, he rolled the sod, and we helped this guy sod his yard in the cold, pouring rain. And the only reason I had that inclination to do that is because Jesus put it into my heart, the supernatural thing, when you see a need that only you can help, there's nobody else in the neighborhood watching this man do that but me. You're the only one that can help. That's what Jesus is getting at. If you're the only person, if someone's in prison, and you're the only person that they know, you need to go visit them. If someone needs something, you can help. That's who my people are, when you've been born again, you will truly have intentions to help others, not for your glory, but because God has put it into your heart to help them. Verse 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, Lord, when did you when did we see you hungry, feed you or thirsty or give you drink? When did we see you a stranger or welcome you or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison? And the King will answer them truly, I say to you, as you did, it to one of the least of these, my brothers, he's pointing to people that are around there who who fit this description, as you did it to these he did it to me. See all people are made in the image of God. And when we help those who truly need help, those who are helpless. In a moment, you are showing God that you love him, and in a strange way, you are helping God help others, because he loves all mankind. The reward for this, for the righteous is eternal life. Now, who's righteous? Right? When we talk about being righteous, what are we talking about? Doesn't mean that we're just better than others, or we're gooder than others, or we're just good people. I'm a better person. That's not what we're talking about. Well, I've helped 10 people this year, and maybe next year I'll help 15, and maybe I'm righteous. No, this is not an earned righteousness. Is what is called a positional righteousness. God looks at us and sees us as righteous because of what Jesus has done for us. We are innocent. We've been acquitted. We are sinless, in his view, not because of what we've done, because our sin has been wiped away. It's been forgotten. And so we are righteous in that way. And that's what he's talking about. Look at Romans three. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe, this is how you receive it through faith, for there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ, Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation, this means that he died as a substitute by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus, we are made right with God when he we are we are imbued this righteousness when we place our faith in the work of Christ. Through His death, through His burial, through His resurrection on Easter morning, those who believe in his work are deemed righteous. In God's eyes. That's what he's getting. These are the righteous, those who believed. And when you believe, your life's changed, you start living differently. You start putting people above your own needs. We will receive our inheritance, praise the Lord at the time of judgment in Finally, number three, there will be punishment for the unrighteous. Now there are many churches across the America the sermon would have ended with point two. It wouldn't even gone to point three, but it's in the Bible, so we gotta explain it. We gotta talk about it. There will be punishment for the unrighteous. Most people have no problem with the idea of a pleasant Heaven. In fact, it's been caricatured and written about so much falsely that some people think Heaven's gonna be boring. It's not gonna be boring. You're not gonna be bored. At first people say Heaven's gonna be so boring, I'd rather be in hell. Trust me, that's not the truth. But they all have an issue with an unpleasant place of judgment. This is odd, because most people are fine with guilty people being put in prison, being punished, given the death penalty. There's many people who aren't even believers in Jesus, who have no problem with the justice system, because they understand that certain people earned it. Some people deserved it. There are many lifetime imprisonments that the majority people are there fine with because of the heinous crime committed, a murderer, a rapist and an abuser, something like that. They're fine with that. But when we start talking about hell judgment, those same people say, I don't know that just doesn't seem fair. Why is this? Probably because most people view most people as good. Most people view most people as innocent. But God's word makes it very clear that even if we, all of us, haven't broken a civil law. We've all broken God's moral law, and the punishment for that is hell, which is why Jesus came. We're all guilty for verse 41 so then he will say to those on his left, Depart from me, you cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Jesus makes it very clear here that the eternal fire is a place that was prepared for Satan and his fallen angels. Revelation 12 mentions that when Satan fell from heaven after trying to take over usurp it, he took a third of the angels with them. So wherever this place is located, Satan, angels there are is where the goats will go with them. Jesus then contrasts the behavior of unbelievers with the behavior. Believers. Verse 42 through 43 says the opposite, I was hungry. You gave me no food and you gave Me no drink, and stranger, you didn't clothe me, didn't welcome me, you did not visit me. And in verse 44 they say, Lord, when did we see You thirsty or hungry or naked or sick and and he says in verse 45 as you did not do it to the one of the least of these. You did not do it to me. And these will go away. Verse 46 into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. The word for punishment means it's not just a slap on the wrist. It's not just a time out. It means torment. It will include suffering for those who are there now, as we close today, what do we do with this truth? We certainly don't celebrate it. God wishes that no would, noone would perish. So we don't wish that either. I want to give you several things we can do with this information. Number one, we need to be able to accept the reality of hell. Just because something is unpopular doesn't mean it doesn't exist. We need to accept the reality of hell. Hell is a real place maternal separation from God, and those who do not receive Jesus, Christ as Lord and Savior, will be there. It's just clear as day. Okay. Secondly, we need to pray for those who are lost. We need to pray for those in our life, that we see, that we know our goats. We need to ask God to open their hearts and mind to His truth. There are people that only you can reach, that God has put in your life, which leads us to number three, we need to share the good news. Be proactive in sharing the gospel with others. I heard many years ago, an atheist, an atheist, say, if a believer really believed in hell in these doctrines, how much will they have to hate someone not to tell them about it? That's an atheist. If you really believe this, how much do you have to hate someone not telling we're more concerned about being rejected or mocked, being made fun of. I'm not saying to go out there and hit him in the head of the Bible literally. But there's people. There are goats out doing their own thing, eating tin cans, having a horrible life. The need to hear the gospel. Maybe they've rejected it, I don't know. Maybe they never heard we are to share the good news of salvation through Christ. That is why we are here, one of the main reasons we're still here as we call to make disciples. We come here to worship Christ every day, but we are have a mission to do ministry, share the good news. Fourth, trust in God's mercy and justice. God is a just God, and he's a merciful God. In His dealings, he is more graceful and merciful than we would ever be. Hey, there's certain people in my life. If I could judge them, I would not be merciful at all. I would just bring the hammer down. But you know what? On the flip side, God is more just than I can be too. In fact, there might be people that I would be go easy on that God's not going to go easy on, because maybe I haven't been negatively affected by it. God is fair. He's he's just, he's merciful. We need to trust in who he is as a good judge. And finally, number five, live a life that reflects Jesus. If you're a sheep, you need to look like a sheep. You don't need to look like a goat. You submit your life to Jesus, follow the shepherd, live a life that reflects Jesus. When you interact with someone at work or in your life or in your family or wherever you go, and they know you're a Christian, even if they don't know you're a Christian, they should come away with that conversation, that interaction, and they know you're not perfect, but they should come away with interaction and know that something is different about you. They come away from interaction thinking that was a good person. Person again, not that you're trying to be good, but they just know the goodness reflects out of you that was a good person. Live a life that reflects Jesus. So when people have a real need, and when a goat has a real need, you can be there for them. Live a life that reflects Jesus. Remember, it's ultimately up to each person to receive this gift of salvation. We can't make them but we're called to tell we're called to be obedient, to share the gospel. Your role is to faithfully share the truth. Your role is to keep the hammers hammering in heaven, keep the houses being built, even though God knows everything and is prepared. There are people who are lost today that are going to be saved tomorrow. Your job is to tell so the pillows keep getting fluffed in heaven, the beds keep being made, the hammers keep hammering. The bed is not full, amen, Heaven's not full, but one day, it will be complete. But until then, it's up to us to share, because there will be a punishment for the unrighteous Heavenly Father. We thank you that you have called every person in this room and gifted them in different ways, and they all have different spheres of influence and and they come across people that I would never even come across in situations at work or situations in life, or connections that they have. And we worry so much about sharing the Gospels, we think, Well, what do I say or or what words do I use? And Lord, You tell us that in that moment, you'll give us the words. In that moment, you'll lead us through your spirit, that all we have to really attest to is that you've saved us, your Lord and Savior. If they believe in Him, they can have that too and father. We know there's all these different theological ways to spread the gospel and share the gospel, but we know that when someone is really down, really out, if they do not know you, they're looking for someone who's real. They're looking for someone who really knows the truth. Let that let that be us, Father. Let that be who we are as a church. I thank you for this church's rich history of over 100 years preaching our community and making disciples. My how things have changed in a century, but the needs are the same, and the answer is the same. So we thank you Jesus for being a good lord, and we ask these things in your name. Amen. Amen.
