“31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 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, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers 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, ‘I tell you the truth, 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.””
“Watch how they treat the waiter.” That’s good advice. How does your date treat the waiter when the order takes too long? How does she respond when the order is wrong? How does he respond when the waiter might even be rude? That is how they one day will treat you.
To see what someone is truly like, you need to recognize that your context often prevents you from seeing reality. Of course he is charming to you; he is charming you because you are on a date. Of course it’s wonderful company to work for; they want you to work for them. You need to find a way around that dynamic. Watch how he treats the waiter. Talk to the people who have already worked there.
Or, if you are God, take on flesh and live among them as one of them. Explain your law to them. See how they receive that from you as a carpenter. Or put your image on all of them and see how they treat each other. Whatever they do then, that’s what they would do to you.
What would you do to God? God comes in and judges by how we treat Him in disguise; that’s the claim of this sermon.
We will study this in three points. First: the separating shepherd. Second: the welcome of the sheep. Third: the expulsion of the goats. First, in verses 31-33, the separating shepherd. Second, in verses 34-40, the welcome of the sheep. Third, in verses 41-46, the expulsion of the goats.
We see behind the disguise in our first point: the separating shepherd. This is Jesus’ final parable. It’s not the final one we will study, but it is the final one he told before his arrest. He was no longer disguising his identity but was open about his divinity as seen in verse 31, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory.”
Jesus was applying a well-known prophecy from the book Daniel to himself. He was claiming to be the Son of Man who was one with the Ancient of Days. He claiming the right to sit on God’s throne. Growing up, it was likely that your dad had a chair at the table where he would sit. You would not sit there; if you tried, you’d find out why it was his seat; Jesus says that he will sit in the Father’s chair. No one would have missed the implication; Jesus was claiming to be God.
You see that in the use of the word “glory” twice in verse 31. At the end, Jesus “will come in glory” and he will sit on his throne “in heavenly glory.” When you are dealing with more glory than you can begin to comprehend. He is more impressive than any of us are impressable.
That’s not how the religious leaders saw him. They thought he was an upstart. That’s not even how the disciples saw Jesus at this point. They thought he might be the Messiah, but it never entered their imaginations that he was the God whom they grew up worshipping. The incarnation is God coming in disguise. When introducing this parable, Jesus says the disguise will be thrown off with him as the judge; that’s verse 32’s, “All the nations will be gathered before him.”
Everyone who has ever lived will be assembled together for him to judge. That’s a gathering. Perhaps you’ve watched a football game at the Big House at U of M. You know the awe such experience forces upon you; you are small in a sea of humanity and the focus is not on you. That stadium can hold about 115,000 people. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway once held 400,000 people. That’s nothing. The Maha Kumbh Mela festival in India brings 400 million people. That’s nothing. The assembly of which Jesus is speaking will bring everyone who has ever existed to one spot and the focus of that event will be Jesus on his throne of judgment.
On that day, the Pharisees will be a miniscule pinprick in a sea of humanity. Pontius Pilate will be one man among billions as will you and I. Him, myself, you, Saul, David will all come before Jesus; he will decide our eternity. This final judgment shows you that this kingdom of God we’ve been studying for months is far more real than this world.
The judge of all will then separate us; “he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.” There will be no trial or appeal of the verdict. We will all be separated by his word just as surely as the light separated from the darkness by God’s word at the beginning.
The divine separater is the shepherd—the good shepherd as Jesus called himself; he knows his sheep and he knows the goats. The sheep and goats with which we are familiar today are not of the type in ancient Palestine just as golden retrievers are not the same type as a Chihuahua; “it can take a practiced eye to distinguish the two species,” as France said regarding their goats and sheep—the saved and the damned.
To many the sheep and the goats look the same. As we will see in this parable, many goats think they are sheep and many sheep are surprised to find out that they were sheep all along. Only the separater knows how to distinguish; think back to wheat and the weeds. We are not as able to distinguish between the authentic and the counterfeit as we’d like to believe. We’d be wise to leave final judgment in hands of the one who will give the final judgment. We don’t sit on his throne. You don’t sit in your dad’s seat. You surely don’t sit on God’s seat. Jesus does. Don’t forget your place. Pray that your place would be to the right with the sheep. Live as if you want to be to the right; that’s our second point: the welcome of the sheep.
What you are to desire most in all of life is to be directed—at the end of history—to the right because as verse 34 puts it, ‘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.”’ I can’t think of a better naming than, “you who are blessed by my Father.” If you are eternally blessed by Jesus’ Father, there will be no one and nothing that can curse you ever again. If God is for you, who can be against you? That’s the hope held out at the end of history.
It’s held out for those who are directed to the right. They are directed to the right because of what they’ve done; they cared for those in need. They did what we studied last week with the Good Samaritan; “go and do likewise.”
Neither this parable nor that of the Good Samaritan, though, tell you everything regarding this final judgment. Don’t imagine that this parable teaches that caring for those in need somehow excuses not following the other parables. This parable is no more important than the parable of the unjust judge telling you to never stop praying and it’s no less important. It’s no more important than the parable of the forgiving father telling you to come home and it’s no less important. It’s no more important than the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector telling you to be humble and it’s no less important. I decided not to put tonight’s parable last because some make it the most important as if love somehow trumps faith. No, each of the parables teach us a different aspect of faith expressing itself through love—a unique petal part the blossom of faith and they blossom together.
Let’s look at this petal; verse 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, 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.” Such lack was common in that culture. The great mass of Jesus’ contemporaries were often low on food, drink, and clothing. We tend to think of this parable as being about “them.” These hardships were a, “that’s been me and that will likely be me again,” sort of experience. This isn’t the haves helping the have not’s; this is the currently having helping the currently have nots. This is a Luke 3:11, “anyone who has two tunics, give one away,” not a, “you have forty-two t-shirts, give one away,” sort of care. It’s like the Bill Wither’s song, “Lean on me, when you’re not strong, and I’ll be your friend. I’ll help you carry on for it won't be long ‘til I’m going to need somebody to lean on.”
The sheep didn’t think they were better than those they helped. There’s a great danger we need to overcome in helping. Helping can make us think we’re better than those we’re helping. We’re not and that’s not the spirit of those directed to the right on judgment day.
Those directed to the right aren’t proud and the king is proud of them for that and so tells them that what they did was actually for him; they’re confused, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?”’ That’s the hiddenness of the kingdom which we’ve seen time and again in this series. The hiddenness is part of the perfection; it’s how the king is proud of us without us becoming proud. We become like the wife in Sammy Kershaw song She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful. That’s the sheep—they don’t know they’re virtuous. In this life, the saints often know their sin; we rarely know their righteousness.
The sheep don’t know themselves; they don’t know their recipient. They’ve been helping their neighbor, their aunt, that friend whose car broke down, that man who lost his job just as they could lose theirs, and yet they were helping the king; “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” As we’ve seen throughout this series, life reveals you and God. How you use your time, your money, how you deal with your spouse, your children, how you pray, how you receive God’s word, how you help—underneath that all, it’s about us and God. It’s always you and God, me and God.
It’s about us and Jesus; there’s a delightful slip of the mask in verse 40, ‘The King will reply, “I tell you the truth…”’ Now, who says that phrase, “I tell you the truth”? Someone in the Bible says it over and over again so often that you can identify him by it and almost no one else says it. “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” “I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.” “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me.” In some parables, there is a stand in for Jesus like with the son of the vineyard owner. In this parable, though, this slip of the mask shows you the king is Jesus. This, “I tell you the truth,” is a wink to let you know it’s him. The one who judges you is the one died for you. That’s good news if you are one his sheep.
That’s who will judge and in this parable he reminds us how he will judge. This parable teaches us that our thoughts about the final judgment and end times should have little to do with trying to decipher a timeline and everything to do with faith expressing itself through love. It’s not the man who reads the tea leaves of history who knows what the end is about. It’s the man who loves his neighbor as himself. Liese is right to say that, “this one sentence—[“whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me”]—has been far more important for the care of [others] than whole systems of philosophy.” Your view of the end always drives what you do today and you can uncover your functional view of the end by how you act today. How do you treat others today? How do you treat those who need help today?
How do you treat God today? In his first coming, the Son of God came to identify with us. He took on our flesh. By the time of the second coming, you and I would do well to come to identify with him—by faith in him and by caring for those made in his image. The alternative to identifying with the king is what you would expect in any functional kingdom; the alternative is exile and that’s our final point: the expulsion of the goats.
Those directed to the right are blessed by being welcome into the fullness of a kingdom prepared for them. Those directed to the left are cursed by being expelled, “into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” The kingdom is prepared with the king’s subjects in mind. Not so with the king-opposers; they will wind up in a place prepared not for them but for the devil. Their place is with him. Refusing to identify with the king isn’t heroic. It will leave you with nothing—not even a place prepared for you but a place prepared for Satan.
That will be the destiny of those so wrapped up in this age that they care nothing for God; those, as Calvin put it, who “are so intoxicated by their fading prosperity, that they imagine they will always be happy.” They have plenty of shirts and plenty of food and drink and shelters and this life is to them all there really is. They don’t realize that this life is all about God and that their responses to it reveal how they treat God. They miss the point. The king will tell them, “I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink.” They are the priest and Levite from last week. They miss the point, which is “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.”
The goats are surprised to find that they’ve missed the point. “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?” They truly believe that if they knew it was the king, they would have helped, and that’s the point. They only would have helped if they knew it was the king. That’s the sort of religiosity for which Jesus has no patience and so he comes in disguise. He knows how to test the heart to see what’s really in us not what we want others or even ourselves to think is in us.
The goats are as ignorant of their heartlessness as the sheep are of their virtue. The goats think they would have been good if only they knew they were dealing with God, but they were always dealing with God, as were the sheep without knowing it. “Bad righteousness expects to be called good and is surprised when it isn’t; good righteousness sees little righteousness in itself and is surprised when it is considered righteous at all,” as Bruner explains.
There is a great surprise, an eternal surprise, coming at us all. Everyone in that great sea of humanity comprised of those who have ever lived—Cain, Abel, Enoch, Jacob, Esau, Lot, Hannah, Jezebel, Mary, you, me, your sister—everyone will spend eternity pondering the surprise of, “why me?” The question is whether we will be saying “why me?” in glory or, “why me?” in hell; that’s verse 46, “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Every day in every way in this life, I am dealing with God and so are you. This last parable of Jesus tells you that regarding whether you care about those made in His image—the way you deal with them reveals the way you deal with God and that will connect with how He will deal with you. That’s true regarding how you treat your children; it’s true regarding how you treat those with whom you work; it’s true regarding how you relate to those who are down and out in ways you could easily down and out.
The Son of God came to identify with us in being down and out. He’s telling us this parable about his identification with us in need as he’s heading to the cross on which he pre-eminently identifies with our need. Can you see God in disguise there? Can you see God in disguise here? Everything about your eternity hangs on how you receive him. “Watch how they treat the waiter.” “Watch how they treat Jesus.” “Watch how they treat God in disguise.” Amen.