11.26.2023 - Loving and Looking for Jesus

Scripture: Matthew 25:31-46

Matthew 25:31–46 NIV

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.”

11/26/2023

Order of Service:

Announcements

Kid’s Time

Opening Worship

Jeanie Swinehart joining the church (First Service)

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Closing Song

Benediction

Loving and Looking for Jesus

Glory

What do you think about when you hear the word “Glory”?

Today is Christ the King Sunday, the last week of the church year and the turning point toward the beginning of Advent. We celebrate Jesus coming again as we circle back to prepare to celebrate His birth. This week and the next month are about God’s presence coming to us in a new and powerful way. It is more than just feeling His touch at the moment or hearing His voice calling our name. We are celebrating God coming to us in His entire presence fearfully and wonderfully.

In the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, those moments where people became fully aware of God’s presence were full of what is described as “glory.” Glory is a unique word that means a light so powerful that it casts out the darkness, as God did in the beginning when He first said, “Let there be light.” This light also has weight or heaviness to it. When God’s glory showed up, people often felt compelled to drop to their knees or even lay flat on the ground because it was too hard to stand tall and proud.

This tells us two things.

First, God’s presence invokes a kind of judgment whenever we are near Him simply because He is Holy. He doesn’t have to do anything for judgment to occur. We notice how good He is and how far from Holy we are whenever we are around Him.

Second, Jesus holds back a lot of that power and glory. If Jesus had let loose all the time, the disciples may not have been able to be with Him, following and learning from Him. He held back as He walked among the sick and healed them, let children come and be blessed and taught by Him, and He held back as they nailed Him to the cross. Three days later, His glory would blast away death, blast away that stone that covered the tomb, and eventually lift Him to Heaven.

It is essential to understand what glory is because our scripture today begins with that concept. Jesus is coming back in glory, and we will all face judgment in His presence. While that is terrifying news to those who do not know and love Him, Jesus teaches us how to live today and prepares us to stand in His presence when He arrives. He teaches us how to shape our character to reflect that glory that comes from Him. Our passage shows us that Jesus often blesses us in unexpected ways through unexpected people.

Judgment

Many of us start our journey of faith like the young prodigal son. We are welcomed into God’s family despite our sinful actions, and we view others with mercy and without judgment because we are grateful for the grace extended to us. As we grow, we try to avoid going back to the pigpens of sinful living, and as we judge our actions, we also begin to judge others. When we become more mature in our faith, we understand that we all make mistakes, and we soften our judgmental nature. It is in these cases, like the story of the woman caught in adultery, that often, the most mature followers of Jesus drop their condemning stones and walk away first.

Other times, we grow older, but our faith does not mature. Instead, our hearts harden, and we stop letting God in to soften and reshape them. We judge ourselves as harshly as we judge others, so we try to hide from Jesus. Yet this parable shows us that Jesus is coming in glory, and there will be no hiding. It also shows us that neither the sheep nor the goats are able to judge. Jesus is the only one.

Verse 34 says:

Matthew 25:34 NIV

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.

Matthew carefully tells us that the sheep are not rewarded or paid for their work. It is an inheritance: a gift given because Jesus died and shares all that is His with them. They can step into that glory because Jesus adopted them into His family, and His glory has been slowly but surely growing in them throughout their lives.

The most significant difference in the lives of the sheep and the goats was who they served. Neither the sheep nor the goats saw Jesus enough to recognize Him when He was in their lives. The goats presumably served those they thought were deserving of their love. In their attempts to determine the worthiness of others, they passed by Jesus, leaving Him to fend for Himself.

The Sheep served others without determining whether the recipients deserved the help. In doing so, they unintentionally served Jesus when He came before them. Remember, Jesus holds back a lot around us, so we can tolerate being in His presence. Perhaps He dims his glory so we are not knocked over when He enters the room. When that happens, we sometimes miss that it is Him.

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Strangers

As Jesus explained where He met them and was served by them, He used the phrase “the least of these.” When they fed, gave water, gave clothes, and cared for “the least of these,” they cared for and served Jesus Himself. There is an enormous temptation here to take these few verses about what Jesus says to the sheep and the goats and build a formula for getting to heaven. That formula often goes like this. God loves poor people, so if we love poor people, God will forgive us and let us into heaven. If we don’t love poor people, God won’t forgive us, and we go to hell. When we think this, we forget that this passage tells us that heaven is an inheritance... a gift. No matter how nice we are to impoverished people, we cannot earn it.

The sheep did not only love and serve those people in desperate circumstances. They loved and served everyone. I’m sure they did not serve everyone equally because we all have unique needs. But they were willing to serve those who were not like them. Remember back to our passage about the Greatest Commandments? The verse from Leviticus originally said that we should love the foreigner (or the stranger) as we love ourselves.

In Matthew 5:14-16, Jesus preached:

Matthew 5:14–16 NIV

14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

We are to be like a lighthouse whose purpose is to shine out into the darkness to warn others of danger and save those who are lost. But a lighthouse that only shines its beacon inland does no good. Ships will crash, and sailers will drown. The people on the land might enjoy that light, but it misses its purpose. The light we shine for Jesus is meant to be shared outside and beyond us.

Does that mean we should not care for our own people? Should we neglect our family members, friends, and fellow believers? Certainly not! Jesus taught in Matthew 5:46-48:

Matthew 5:46–48 NIV

46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Even the pagans love their friends. That doesn’t take the glory of God shining through us to do. But If we can love strangers, foreigners, and even our enemies, empowered by God's grace, we will have no trouble loving our friends and family.

So, where will you gratefully shine that light God gives you?

That is an important question because we sometimes think it is easy to spot those who are poor. You don’t have to go far to find someone begging for money or who looks like they could use some help. But Jesus did not specifically use the word “poor” to describe how He came to these sheep and goats. He said, “the least of these.”

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Seeing

Many kinds of poverty drive people to desperate places. We often have to shine God’s light to see the least of these because they are not out in the open. Indeed, they often hide because they are ashamed of their circumstances or do not have the strength or will to ask for help. There are people all over in nursing homes and apartment buildings, sleeping in prisons, and camping in tents in the woods who face the fact every day that dying is easier than living another day. Some don’t even own the clothes on their back, and others have more money than they know what to do with. Yet they have all come to the same place of desperation, men and women, young and old, among all races and in every nation in the entire world.

Some of them are Christians. Others gave up on their faith. Many were never told about the love of Jesus. If you pray for and search for these people, I can guarantee that you will find them, but you won’t find them before Jesus does. I think part of why Jesus says He meets the sheep there is because He is the Good Shepherd who goes after the lost sheep and works in their lives long before we show up to see what He is doing. When we serve the least of these, we are serving Jesus because He has already climbed down into the hole they are hiding in, dimmed his glory, and is helping them know that they are not alone.

Think for a moment how amazing it is when someone sees You and I coming with the love of Jesus in our words and actions and suddenly realizes that same glory light is coming from the very presence that carried them far enough so that we could meet them. The sheep of Jesus are so used to loving God and others that they are not afraid to seek out those who are very different from them and love them too. And when judgment day arrives, they are so excited to see Jesus again shining with that same love that fills them that nothing else matters.

It comes down to this: Are you a goat, worried about what you will get as a reward or punishment from this life? Or are you a sheep who is focused on loving God and others, even those who are the hardest to love, that you are just grateful to be in the presence of Jesus? You may be a goat born from a long line of goats. If so, know that Jesus, Your judge, has already laid down His life for you so that you can choose to change today and be born again as a sheep and part of His family. Jesus gives us the choice and the power to change if we let him help us. If you seek Him, You will find Him, maybe in the most unexpected places and among the most unexpected people. And He will find you, too.

Final Announcement:

Don’t forget, Advent Bible Study begins this Wednesday at 6 pm.