Matthew (25): The End of the Age (in Parable, Backward) (II)

We are now at the end of our study of the Olivet Discourse and we continue to look at the remaining parables of Matthew 25. Remember we talked about how Jesus has organized His teaching in Matthew 24 and 25 in a chiasm and what a chiasm is. We learned that Chapter 25 repeats the teaching of Chapter 24 but in a chiastic structure, which means the second half of all that teaching goes in reverse of the way that it went in chapter 24.

And so that means when you look at Chapter 24 Jesus taught first on His Second Coming and then a judgment that would happen for unbelievers. And then after that, He taught on His coming for the church, which we call the Rapture and the judgment that would follow for believers at that point. And that means now in Chapter 25 we are studying parables that go in reverse order - we start with the Rapture and end with the Second Coming.

And as we go into that last part now, the part of the Second Coming of Christ and the judgment that will follow for those He finds on Earth, you may think it’s not going to be very relevant for a Christian. But that's not true. There's actually a lot more going on there than we may think, and it is certainly very relevant for us and you'll see why, as we get through it. Picking up where we left off, we were at chapter 25 Verse 31. This is what we read - Jesus says. 

Matt. 25:31 “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.

Matt. 25:32 “All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats;

We're going to pause for just a moment as the stage is set for you here. Jesus has just returned to the topic of the Second Coming, His return at the end of this age, to set up a Kingdom age on this earth. And how do we know that? Well, we know it for two reasons. First, the chiasm again, it tells us we're going backward. We're going back to the first topic of Chapter 24. But even if we didn't know about the chiasm, we could tell that He was talking about the Second Coming by the details.

First, He says, this is a return that will be one of glory, accompanied by angels and all the world will see this coming. And we know that's not the rapture, because the rapture or the Coming of the Lord is hidden in the clouds, and not accompanied by angels. It's accompanied by those saints who have already passed away, and it is invisible to the world. The world will simply see the consequences of it.

And then secondly, Jesus says that in this coming, as we see now in Chapter 25, He has come to judge all the nations, to separate the sheep from the goats. That again tells us this is not the rapture, because the rapture follows with a moment of judgment for believers, not for unbelievers.

So Jesus is describing events here of His second coming at the end of a seven year period that we call tribulation. And at that time, Jesus says, when He comes, He will sit on a glorious throne to judge the nations that He finds waiting for Him on the earth at that time. This judgment that He's describing though, is not the final eternal judgment for unbelievers. According to the Book of Revelation, the final eternal judgment for unbelievers happens only after the 1000-year Kingdom has come to its end.

But here, in Chapter 25, Jesus is describing His second coming, which happens before the Kingdom even begins. This is a judgment for those who are on the earth and still alive to determine whether or not they may enter the Kingdom, and not a judgment of the eternal fate of unbelievers. Jesus explains more about what happens in this judgment, starting in Verse 32, but He also alluded to it earlier in Chapter 24. Remember in the chiasm everything we're learning in Chapter 25 is a repetition of what we've already heard in Chapter 24. So let's go back to Matthew 24 verse 30. Jesus describes this same moment in these words, He says, 

Matt. 24:30 “And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory.

Matt. 24:31 “And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.

Here again, this is His Second Coming, and at His Second Coming, Jesus said He will appear as a bright light in an otherwise pitch-black sky. Remember, the sun, moon and stars have all been taken away by this point, and so all the world has no choice but to see Him because it's the only light they can see coming out of the darkness in power and in glory. And, Jesus says, when this site is revealed to the world, all the tribes of the earth will mourn. And why are they mourning? Because the unbelieving world took the mark of the beast during the time of tribulation, that is, they worshiped the Antichrist as Messiah, and so now as they look up and they see the true Messiah returning to defeat the Antichrist, they realize it is not going to go well for them.

And so they are mourning, and at that moment, Jesus says in Matthew 24 that He sends his angels around the globe to gather the elect from wherever they are and bring them back to Him and Jerusalem, where He has come. The elective are the believers, primarily Jews of that day, who have come to faith during tribulation and they are still alive. They've never died and they're being collected.. That's what we learned back in Chapter 24. Back now in Chapter 25 Verse 32 we learn something new – we learn that it's not just the elect  that are going to be gathered at that time, but all nations will be gathered to Jesus, which means these angels are also collecting the unbelievers who are on the earth and still alive wherever they may be.

So who are these unbelievers that Jesus is now collecting to Himself from anywhere on the earth? Well, we know who are not.  These are not the unbelievers who are participating in the army of the Antichrist that was battling against the Jews in the city of Jerusalem in the War of Armageddon. We know it's not those unbelievers, because Revelation 19 and Zechariah 14 both tell us that everyone who participates in that battle, everyone who is in the army, including the Antichrist himself, will be killed by Jesus when He returns.

So the nations of unbelievers that are being gathered now must be all unbelievers on Earth who are not fighting in the army but were still somewhere else on the earth, all of whom were worshiping the Antichrist before Jesus came back. And now you have Jesus seated on a throne, gathering all of these rebels as well as His elect together in one spot for a judgment. And now Jesus has to decide what to do with all of these people. And that's the purpose of this judgment. It's a judgment to determine who is able to enter into the Kingdom, which is now about to start and who is not.

And to explain that moment in more detail, we go forward from this point into a parable. Jesus begins a parabolic form in Verse 32. He starts talking about a shepherd and sheep and goats. He's comparing Himself to the shepherd, and He uses a very common scene from everyday agrarian life in the day of Jesus, that is, of a shepherd doing a task that every shepherd did at the end of the day.

Goats and sheep under the care of a single shepherd would be allowed out during the day to go grazing and pasture. They mixed together sometimes and they could just graze anywhere they wanted. But at night it was common to put these animals back into their separate pens to segregate them back into their proper area. And so the shepherd would bring this herd back at the end of the day from the field, and he would line up the sheep to enter into their pen. And as he's doing that, of course, some of the goats are still mixed in and following along with the sheep, so the shepherd would stand right at the door of the pen, and as the sheep began to file in, and if he got a goat, he would then drive the goat out of the line and separate the goats from the sheep. So the sheep went into the pen first. The goats were not put in a pan. They were just separated, and then later he would move the goats where they needed to be.

So Jesus says, if you want to understand what He’s going to be doing in this judgment, just use that comparison and you have a pretty good idea. Christ will determine who are His sheep and who are the goats. And He will separate them one from another at this point. Now, we ask, so what is a sheep in this parable? And what is a goat? What do they stand for? And we’ll find out as we read through the rest of this parable. Matthew 25 verse 33 - Jesus says 

Matt. 25:33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.

Matt. 25:34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed

of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

Matt. 25:35 ‘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;

Matt. 25:36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’

Matt. 25:37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink?

Matt. 25:38 ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You?

Matt. 25:39 ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’

Matt. 25:40 “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent

that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

Matt. 25:41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;

Matt. 25:42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink;

Matt. 25:43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’

Matt. 25:44 “Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’

Matt. 25:45 “Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’

Matt. 25:46 “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

So, to determine here what a sheep is and what a goat is, you only need to look at the ultimate outcome for each of these two groups.  Verse 34 is the sheep who enters the Kingdom; Verse 46 are the goats who will enter hell. The sheep here represent the believer for only the believer will have the opportunity to enter the Kingdom on that day, and for the same reason, we know the goats are unbelievers, because only unbelievers are consigned to hell. So the separating of the sheep from the goats is a judgment to determine who may enter the Kingdom on this first day because they have faith and who will be put to death on this day because they do not.

And death is the only option at this point to not enter the Kingdom because Scripture says this - the kingdom, when it comes, will fill the entire Earth. Scripture says it this way in Psalm 22

Psa. 22:27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, And all the families of the nations will worship before You.

Psa. 22:28 For the kingdom is the LORD’S And He rules over the nations.

That's just one of the many quotes in the Old Testament and they say the same thing - that the Kingdom fills the earth. The knowledge of the Lord fills the Earth on day one in the Kingdom. It is all the earth that is the Kingdom, and all of it is filled with believers and nothing except believers. So if the Kingdom fills the whole earth and only believers can be in this Kingdom, then by definition there will be no place left on earth for unbelievers. And therefore, the only other option for an unbeliever who's living on the earth right before the Kingdom begins is to be put to death because there is no place for them to live on the earth.

Now you may wonder at this point why don't these unbelievers just confess Christ now at this moment, rather than face death and certainty in hell. Clearly these goats now recognize that Jesus is Lord? Why don't they just make this confession of faith now? Well, in fact, these unbelievers will confess Christ, either now or at least at some point, because Scripture says so. Paul says in Philippians 2 verse 10  

Phil. 2:10 so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, (referring to hell) 

Phil. 2:11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

So we know on the authority of Scripture that all humanity, including these unbelievers will sooner or later confess Christ. But notice what Paul did not say in Philippians 2. He did not say all will have saving faith. In fact, it is literally impossible for these unbelievers now standing before Jesus to have saving faith in Jesus because any confession that they might make at this point cannot be based on faith - because Jesus can be plainly seen as Lord, and faith is not sight.

Paul uses the word “hope”, a synonym for faith in this context. He says this in Romans 8 24 “for in hope, we have been saved”. You could say it this way - in faith, we have been saved. But hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see with perseverance and we wait eagerly for it – then, Paul says, that is a principle of Scripture. This is a precept of your Bible.

You cannot have faith in something that you already see. Those two things are mutually exclusive. Once something is self-evident, there's no doubt in it, and it no longer depends upon faith to believe in it or to acknowledge it. Therefore, once these goats, these unbelievers see Jesus, the time for faith will be over. They will not be able to show faith in Him because sight nullifies faith. Anything they would say at this point is merely stating the obvious. And you do not get credit for stating the obvious.

Salvation is based on faith. That is a confidence in something unseen. Without faith, they will be judged and put to death and enter hell like all unbelievers. Now, as His judgment moment plays out, Jesus starts by saying He puts sheep on one side, His right, and goats on the left. And then He begins to tell them what their fate will be, starting with the sheep, saying they will enter into the Kingdom.

Notice in both cases, the two groups begin to question their respective fates. The believers in verse 34 ask Jesus to explain why is this their judgment? Starting with the sheep, Jesus says the sheep are blessed by God to inherit the Kingdom of God. Jesus uses the word “inheritance”. And He uses the word to describe not only the fact that believers are coming into the Kingdom, but they're coming into something waiting for them in the Kingdom. They're coming into their eternal riches, to their eternal reward, something all believers will have in the kingdom.

And understand why Jesus says the Kingdom is our inheritance.  To understand it, we need to think carefully about what an inheritance is. And inheritance, simply put, is something you receive because you are an heir of someone who died. And remember, you did nothing to become an heir. You didn't earn it. You were made heir by the actions of your parents and the mere fact that they brought you into this world and made you part of a family that alone qualified you to be a new heir. So the opportunity to share in that inheritance had nothing to do with your choices or your actions or anything you did to deserve it. You simply were born, and as a result, you became an heir.

But you can influence how much of your father's wealth might be assigned to you in his last will and testament. Because presumably, if you do a lot to please your father during your earthly life, you may influence him to assign you a greater portion of the inheritance relative to your other brothers and sisters. And in the same case, if you fail to please your father, you may receive less. But regardless of your behavior, you are an heir by birth alone. That is the analogy that the Bible uses to describe our rewards in the Kingdom. It is an inheritance. To give you some background:

First, the Bible says we are fellow heirs with Christ. Paul says this in Romans 8 verse 15: 

Rom. 8:15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”

Rom. 8:16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, Rom. 8:17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.

Now you know it's the Bible that says that our faith adopted us into the family of God. We had to be adopted into the family of God by faith in Jesus Christ because we did not come out of our mother's womb believing in Jesus Christ. Everyone, all humanity, are born naturally into this world as children of wrath, as members of Satan's family, technically speaking, because we all have the same sin nature that Satan himself has. So we were born in the nature of Adam, which is to say of Satan, and that is why the Bible says in order to go to heaven, you have to be born again.

You have to be born again by faith in Jesus and in this spiritual rebirth you then are adopted by God into a new family, out of the family of Adam, into the family of Christ, and become part of the family of God. That's what Paul just said. And the rest of that passage, Paul says, if you are a part of the family of God, then you are an heir of the Father, an heir with Christ, because Christ Himself is an heir. He is an heir of all things in creation. Listen to this verse from Hebrews, Chapter 1 verse 2. The writer says:

Heb. 1:2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.

Now the Father, we were told, appointed His son, Jesus, to be an heir to receive an inheritance of everything in creation. And at this point we ask, if Christ is the heir, then who's dying to give Him that inheritance? Notice in Hebrews Chapter 1, the writer also said that it is through Christ that all things were made. Christ is the creator in the Godhead. He is the Word, as John says. He is the one who spoke everything into existence.

So Christ plays both roles. Christ is both the one who has the inheritance because He created it all, and He's also the one who dies to leave it to His heirs, to those who are in the family of God. And when He died on the cross, His inheritance, that is, the creation itself became available to Christ's heirs. Anyone who is in the family of God, anyone who is in His last will and testament or the covenant received what was available when the one with the inheritance died, that is, when Christ died.

But here's the interesting twist with Christ. Three days after He died, He was raised back from the dead. He became alive again, and that's why He is also an heir. Christ is an heir as well because He receives back His own inheritance. It would be just as if your rich father died, and all the kids get the inheritance, and then three days later, your father came back to life, and as he comes back to life, he wants his inheritance back. He says, “you can have it again when I die the next time. But I'm back now. I want it back.”

Now that's where this changes for Jesus, because He'll never die again. So when Jesus came back to life, He received back His own inheritance. That means He is an heir and He is choosing willingly, the Bible says, to share His inheritance with the rest of the sons and daughters of God. That's how we are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. Our inheritance, then, is a share of all of what Christ created in the creation - the world and all it contains, and we will receive our share of that as our reward in the Kingdom. Some portion of this world in its new form in the kingdom will be ours. 

That's what Jesus is telling the sheep in this moment about the judgment - from the point of view of an inheritance. He's saying they were heirs, chosen by God before the foundations of the world, to be adopted into the family of God. And like the children of a rich father, these believers did nothing to make themselves members of the family of God. The father gave them birth again. They were born again by the spirit, and they entered into an adopted family by the kindness and mercy of God. They simply found themselves as heirs at some point in time. And as Paul says in Ephesians 1 verse 5 

Eph. 1:5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,

So now that the Kingdom has arrived, these believers are being welcomed not only into the existence of the Kingdom but also into the receiving of their inheritance. They'll have some portion of this Kingdom waiting for them because they have served Christ well. And Jesus begins to give them the list of things that He saw them doing. James and his letter sums this up in such a simple way - in one verse:

James 2:5 Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?

That's our future, made heirs by the choice of God through our faith in Jesus Christ, heirs with Christ of something glorious to come. We are all heirs by our faith alone. Interestingly, when you think about these sheep for a moment, we know that they have to be relatively immature believers with relatively little training, perhaps even no discipleship, because they came to faith during the seven-year tribulation. If they had had faith already, prior to that, they would have been raptured with the church. So we know that they have had a very short time, something less than seven years to know of what it means to follow the Lord. And they came to faith in probably the most dangerous time in all the history of the church. They probably had very little chance for fellowship with other believers or to be discipled. They had very limited opportunities to grow in service to Jesus. And we know they've been under persecution most of that time.

So we think of them a tad like soldiers who received a battlefield promotion. They were just thrown into the fight and then given this new assignment, and now they've got to figure it out as they go. Now they had the spirit with them, and that makes all the difference obviously, but what they didn't have is that patient steady stream of discipleship opportunities yet what they're hearing now after that walk with Jesus is over, after they've run their race, as they stand before Jesus for this judgment and they find out not only are they saved and going into the Kingdom, they're told they’ve served well and they will have an inheritance. And to that, it seems they're so surprised - the sense of the text is that they didn't even know they were serving Jesus when they were doing what they were doing. And so to help them understand that, Jesus begins to recount the good things they did in versus 35 and 36.

Jesus lists six things that these believers did, including things like giving Jesus food, water, clothing, medical care and the like, visiting Him in prison and so on. And He says, these are the things they did for Him. Notice He calls these individuals “the righteous” - and that is a confirmation to  us that these were people who were saved by their faith. And in versus 37 38 they respond to Him, saying, “We don't remember seeing you. This is the first time we've ever seen you. How could we have been doing all those things for you?” And the answer He tells them is this - He points to another group of people somewhere nearby, standing there and He calls them “My brothers”. And He says to these sheep, “When you did those things for these people, you were doing them for Me.” Who is this other group of believers that He calls “My brothers”? These other people that were there with the sheep in tribulation, the people that these sheep, these believers served during this time, who are they?

We know that Jesus must be talking about believers, other believers who were being persecuted in tribulation and His calling them “My brothers” is a likely reference to the Jews who were living during tribulation who ultimately came to faith at the end of the tribulation at the Second Coming of Christ. And in that time, the Book of Revelation says that the Jewish people will be the most persecuted people, the biggest target of the Antichrist during those seven years. Satan, who will be very active during that time, will indwell  the body of the Antichrist, we're told. And in that way he will seek to exterminate the Jewish nation using unprecedented levels of persecution.

But the Lord has the plan to rescue his people from out of tribulation, ultimately to bring a remnant of Israel to faith at the end. And in the meantime, during those seven years, the Lord knows that His people will endure great trials and be at great risk, and they will need the comfort and support of allies.

And here's what we're learning now – we’re learning that the allies that Jesus sends to those persecuted Jews during this time of tribulation will be the new gentile believers who have come to faith in tribulation. In that faith response, they will serve the Jewish people of that time in compassion, seeing them persecuted and feeling a desire to show Christ’s love to them. They will feed these people, they will clothe them, and they will protect them. They will assist them in all these various ways.

And perhaps they will do the same for gentile believers as well, doing all of these as a response to the faith that they now have. And they will do it at great personal sacrifice, for sure, because anyone who aligns themselves with the targets of the Antichrist will likewise be targets. It'd be much like those who hid the Jews from the Nazis during World War II. And in all that they're doing here, it's a demonstration of faith. Jesus says their service during this time is viewed as if they rendered it directly to Him.

Granted, they might not have been disciples in their faith, that they probably had very little contact with the local church, that they couldn't study their Bible and perhaps didn't even have access to a Bible, that none of them knew much about eternal rewards - nonetheless, despite all of those handicaps, just their faith alone was enough to cause them to serve others under such difficult circumstances. And their selfless service became a testimony to their faith and ultimately an opportunity for eternal reward in the Kingdom.

Now, at this point perhaps you are starting to feel the pressure to find your spiritual gift and the pressure to volunteer and do something for the church or whatever it is you're thinking. If that's what you're thinking right now, then let the story of these sheep be an encouragement to you because they are the model of how you get ready for your internal eternal rewards.

Listen to what Jesus told these believers, and hopefully that will take the burden off your shoulders – the burden that you've put on yourself by how you've perceived what the Bible is saying. Remember what Jesus said about what it would be like to serve Him. He said this in Matthew 11 verse 28. 

Matt. 11:28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 

Matt. 11:29 “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.

Matt. 11:30 “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Jesus said serving Him will be like resting from heavy burdens because serving Jesus is doing something your heart wants to do. When you serve Jesus, you do it with spiritual abilities that He gave you. He gives you the opportunities in your path. He brings the fruit from your service. He causes good things to happen. He directs people into your path. He solves the financial dilemmas that you come to. Jesus does all the work.

So what exactly are you doing? Well, you simply show up. Serving Jesus is not about your ability. It's about your availability. Notice back in Matthew 11 verse 29, Jesus even says if you want to serve Him, you want to put down the heavy laden burdens that you have and take up His easy yoke, by learning from Him. He said, “Take up my yoke upon you and learn from Me.” And what you learn is that He's gentle and humble. He teaches you and He uses a process of teaching so that learning itself is not hard. It's not burdensome. The experiences just flow from one lesson to the next. You just follow Him. Wherever He's going, He'll send you where that is. He'll tell you what to do. He's giving you the power to do it. He's going to achieve the results through you.

When you think about it, there's not a lot of burden involved in that. It's like Jesus gave us a box and on the side of the box it says some assembly is required and at the same time He gave you all the materials and all the tools to build it, and a bunch of easy written instructions in plain English. And all He asked you to do is open the box, take a step, serving where you are, do something. He's not asking you to figure out the whole plan. He is not asking you to move mountains on your own, and that kind of work is actually a form of rest, He says. If you compare that to the burden of working to serve the world and the world's demands and the world's interests and the world's priorities - well, serving the world is truly a burden because the world is never satisfied and the work is never easy, and the rewards are fleeing at best.

So if you think that what we've learned is that serving Jesus is just another burden on top of all the other ones you already have, then you're not doing it right. The work of serving Christ is supposed to replace the heavy burdens of serving the world. You're supposed to say “no” to something, so that you can say “yes” to Jesus. And if you think about that more, going back to the sheep for a minute, look how easy it is. When they were serving Jesus, they were just feeding or clothing some needy Jew. They were trading something in the world that they already had, for an opportunity to serve in that way.

So maybe they took food off their own table - that was a sacrifice - and they gave it to someone who needed it. Or maybe they had to sacrifice their family’s safety, to put themselves at risk, to help these persecuted Jews. Or they had to give up space in their house for a refuge. All because they felt compelled to show love to someone else. They weren't Bible experts. They probably never set foot in a church. They certainly didn't spend decades seeking the perfect mission opportunity somewhere and all of that. They didn't even know they were serving Christ. All they knew was that they had a heart for someone in need that God directed them to for a very specific purpose.

That's what serving Jesus looks like when you know you're serving a gentle and humble master. You don't feel pressured. You don't resent the fact that you have to make a sacrifice. You don't even think of it as work. You feel you're finally doing what you were created to do, and the sacrifices will be an honor and a privilege. The results seem to come easily. You find joy in it. You wake up every day excited to do it.

If you're stressing over serving Christ or missing out on eternal reward, here’s something to consider. Wake up every day and look at what's on your to do list or on your calendar, and just ask yourself this: how do I make everything that I'm planning to do today about serving Jesus in those places I'm going, in those things that I'm doing? How do I show Christ’s love to everyone I'm going to interact with today? If you take that attitude every day, the Lord is going to direct you. He'll direct you into moments. He'll direct you to people, and He'll give you opportunities to serve. That is a light and easy burden.

Now, we need to go back to cover Jesus’ comment to the goats because they're still sitting in this passage.  And as it turned out, they too, were confused by their circumstances in Verse 41 when Jesus turned to the goats on His left and said, “Depart from me” Remember, the Kingdom is the whole earth. So when Jesus says to depart from Him, what He means is they're not going to remain here on the earth. And notice He also calls them “cursed ones”, which means they're under the curse of eternal judgment. They're going to go into the eternal fire, which Jesus says later, is originally prepared for the devil and the fallen angel.

Now, there's a popular myth today that says when unbelievers die today, and they go to hell, that they're greeted by Satan, who's down there waiting for them. But the Bible is very clear that Satan is not in hell, nor will he ever be in hell. The Lake of Fire, which is a different place than hell - that is Satan's future home. And one day, he will join unbelievers there, and that will be their home together. But today this is his home. Satan roams the world.

Now back to the goats. At this point, the goats are equally confused, maybe even more confused in some ways than the sheep were because they can't tell the difference between themselves and these other people who lived through the same seven years they did and have lived to the end, just like they did. And Jesus is telling this other group that He's really happy about them, but He's looking at the goats and saying that they are not ok, and so they try to make sense of it. And if you think about it from their point of view, it is logical. They’re probably kneeling before Jesus there, confessing Jesus - remember, again, Paul said every knee will bow, every tongue will confess.

So from their vantage point where they are, they're doing the same things the other group is doing. Why are they not getting the same credit? And earlier, when the sheep asked for their explanation, notice Jesus never said anything about their faith. Instead, He alludes to it by calling them righteous. But He never says the sheep shall enter His kingdom because they had faith in Me. But of course, we that that’s what caused them to act the way they did. That's why they're called righteous.

But in what the goats heard, they just heard Jesus talking about the sheep’s good works. Now, when it's time for them, the goats, that is, to be judged, Jesus tells them they lack the good works, they never served Jesus and their lack of service in this case is a reflection of the way they never knew Jesus.

Remember that one slave from the parable of the talents who buried his one talent, who said he knew that the master was a hard man and that caused him to put that talent away in the ground, and in reality, he was just lazy? As we looked at that parable, we realized his behavior was evidence that he never really had a relationship with that master, and didn’t really know him. He said he was a hard man. What he didn't know is that his master was also a man who rewarded his servants and encouraged them to do well, and knew their abilities and was giving them talents according to their abilities. In other words, he was a stranger to his own master. And in that detail, we find out why that one slave was put into the place of gnashing and weeping of teeth. And that is, he was an unbeliever in the way the parable is applied.

And now you see that pattern here again in this parable about the goats. These unbelievers lived through the same tribulation as the believers. But they did not have that inclination to serve Jesus because they did not know Him. They did not understand Him. They certainly did not share the compassion for the persecuted Jews that the sheep did. They were living exactly according to the biblical principle that Paul gives us in Galatians. They were not only not sympathetic with the Jews, they were the ones persecuting the Jews. Paul says this in Galatians 4 verse 28. 

Gal. 4:28 And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise.

Gal. 4:29 But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also.

Paul gives us a precept of Scripture here. The unbeliever will always persecute the believer. The one who is born of the flesh has an instinctive desire to put away things born of spirit, to oppose them, to persecute them. You see it in examples like Isaac and Ishmael, and Paul says it's always been that way and always will.

And so the unbelieving world in the time of tribulation led by the Antichrist will go on a tremendous persecution campaign against any who believe in Jesus and against the Jews, and that is simply a way of revealing their hearts. These goats could not understand why they were being condemned, but that's because they don't understand who Jesus is. Because they don't know that they are sinners, they don't have a reason for a savior. If you don't realize you're going to be judged one day, then you're not concerned with finding a way to be forgiven. If you don't realize what it means to have saving faith, then you won't understand when you're condemned for lacking it.

The only thing Jesus could do to these people was explain the difference in behavior, not because behavior is what makes the difference, but because it reflects the difference in their hearts. And it's the only thing these goats could relate to. That's what living for Christ is in a nutshell. You know when you're pleasing Jesus, because you'll be able to point to these examples of your works as evidence of your faith. And that’s called being a witness, a witness being someone who testifies to the truth, and that's the goal of serving Jesus. It's about creating in your life a witness that leads people to know and follow Jesus.  

And Jesus delights to reward those who serve Him well. So do make every day about seeking to show the love of Christ wherever you're sent, whatever it is you have to do on that day, however you go about your day. You have a bad moment with the delivery man who showed up late, you have a bad moment in the office, or at home with your spouse, you have a tough situation somewhere else in your life – and that’s where you have an opportunity to do the things that please Jesus. And in the process, you may find bigger opportunities here and there. Christ may call you to something greater now and then, but those aren't the things that we get an opportunity to do every day. Every day is about serving people in love and thinking about how you're serving Jesus in light of your witness, and about how it has a possibility to influence others for the sake of the gospel.