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Sheep and Goats
Go ahead and open your Bibles to , that is where we will be looking this morning.
Chapter 25 picks up right where 24 leaves off, so we need to go back and remind ourselves of what Christ is talking about.
Remember that the Disciples are asking Jesus when the destruction of the Temple will come, and when His kingdom is going to be ushered in.
And Jesus talks to them both of the destruction of the temple in AD 70 and of signs of the end of the age, when He will return.
And at the end of Chapter 24, Jesus explains to the disciples that no one knows the time when He is going to return.
He doesn’t leave them with a task to figure out when He will return, he overtly tells them that they aren’t going to know.
However, Jesus does talk to them about since they don’t know when He will return, that they are to be faithful to the task that He has given them, so they will be found faithful when He does return.
And that’s the same theme that we are going to be looking at today.
Jesus is still talking to them about faithfulness as they wait for the second coming.
Matthew 25:1
The first thing we want to look at here is that picking up where he was at in chapter 24, in the parable the bridegroom is delayed.
The delay is so long that they at one point fall asleep.
They have no idea when he is going to arrive, and that’s exactly what Jesus told us in Chapter 24.
Notice that they aren’t sitting around trying to figure it out either.
He arrives when they are not expecting it, as Christ has said it will happen.
When you look at this parable, it gets real easy to get lost in the weeds and to miss the point of the parable.
These are the members of a bridal party, who have gone out to meet the groom.
The marital practice of the day was that the groom would come to the bride’s house and that is where they would marry.
On rare occasion, the bridal party would meet the groom’s party at a mutual location.
So to us it seems weird that this bridal party would be sitting around waiting on the groom, but to the disciples, this would have been a common thing.
And the point of the parable is that there are those who are vigilant and prepared, and those who are not.
Remember, this is on the heels of Jesus talking about faithful servants attending to the task they were given.
The task these women were given was to be on watch for the bridegroom.
Some of them are prepared for that task, and some are not.
But notice that it appeared at the beginning that they were prepared, but they would not last.
In Pilgrims Progress, John Bunyan’s main character is named Christian.
And the story is the description of the journey that Christian sets out on.
At the very beginning of the journey, Christian comes across a man named Pliable, and upon hearing the promises of the Kingdom, decides he wants in and joins Christian on his journey.
But immediately, Christian and his new friend run into a bog, or a swamp, and are stuck.
The joyful journey has suddenly turned difficult.
Bunyan writes, “At this Pliable began to be offended, and angrily said to his fellow, Is this the happiness you have told me all this while of?
If we have such ill speed at our first setting out, what may we expect betwixt this an our journey’s end?”
You see, Pliable’s character wanted the joy of the promises of the kingdom.
He loved the idea of a place where there are no tears, no sorrow, no pain.
But he would not endure the journey in order to get there.
You see, the desire for joy to come was not enough to sustain him in the midst of trouble.
And the same is true for us.
It is not enough for us to want to stay out of hell.
Jesus is not cosmic fire insurance.
It is not enough for us to want heaven.
To want to walk on streets of gold, to want to walk beside the crystal sea.
Paul Washer said, “If you want to follow Jesus because He will give you a better life, that’s Idolatry”.
We follow Jesus because we want Jesus.
Because any other reason that we have will not sustain us when life gets difficult.
ONLY CHRIST WILL SUSTAIN US.
That is the call of the believer.
To endure.
The kingdom of heaven, the marriage feast is prepared for those who will endure.
Not for those who simply make a profession of faith,
not for those who simply walk an isle and sign a card,
not for those who simply become members of their local church.
but for those who endure
Christ said in chapter 24,
However, as Christ tells his next parable, we see that there is a purpose in the midst of that endurance.
Jesus tells of multiple servants who have been given talents.
And first, we need to understand here, that when we say talents, this is not American Idol.
We are not talking about the ability to sing, dance or do ventriloquism.
A talent is estimated to be worth several hundred thousand dollars.
I say that to make sure we understand, these are no small things.
Even the servant who was given one talent, was endowed with a great amount of responsibility.
In the first parable, Jesus teaches us that a faithful Christian life is not a one moment event, it is a lifetime of endurance.
And here in this second parable, we see that while we are called to endure to the end, we are not to hole up and just wait for it all to be over.
In the middle of our waiting, we have been entrusted to further the kingdom.
Remember, at the end of chapter 24, Jesus has already said that a faithful servant is found performing the task that the master left them to do.
We could spend a week just here in this parable, but I want to really pull two things out of this text.
Jesus is not teaching here that we have to earn our keep as believers.
Notice that the servant who was given 5 talents gains 5 more
Then the servant who was given 2 gains 2 more
The master does not come back and compare the man who made 2 more with the one who made 5 more.
Both are told that they have been good and faithful servants.
The third servant is not berated because the master has need and the servant did not fulfill.
The third servant is berated because he was lazy.
It is not about results, it is about faithfulness.
In my study, I came across a song from an African American slave
There’s a king and a captain high,
And he’s coming by and by,
and he’ll find me hoeing cotton when he comes,
You can hear his legions charging in the regions of the sky,
And he’ll find me hoeing cotton when he comes.
There’s a man they thrust aside
who was tortured till he died,
And he’ll find me hoeing cotton when he comes.
He was hated and rejected,
he was scorned and crucified,
And he’ll find me hoeing cotton when he comes.
When he comes!
When he comes!
He’ll be crowned by saints and angels when he comes
they’ll be shouting out Hosanna to the man that men denied,
And I’ll kneel among my cotton when he comes.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is what a faithful heart sounds like.
To be faithful to the task that has been set before us.
2. The relationship the servants have to the master
Both the first and the second servant are eager to present what they have to the master
Not because they want to show off, but because their work was to please the master
but look at what the third servant says
Matthew 25:
The third servant has a picture of the master that neither of the other two servants have.
Whereas the first two worked so that they may please the master, the third was afraid of the judgement of the master.
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