Why does Almighty God identify with people who are suffering?

“The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats”

(Matthew 25:31-46, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, September 14, 2008)

Matthew 25:31-46 ³¹ "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. ³² 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. ³³ And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. ³⁴ 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. ³⁵ 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, ³⁶ I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' ³⁷ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? ³⁸ And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? ³⁹ And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' ⁴⁰ And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.' ⁴¹ "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. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, ⁴³ 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.' ⁴⁴ Then they also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?' ⁴⁵ 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.' ⁴⁶ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

Introduction – The humble Son of Man and the glorious Son of Man

The passage before us this morning is the final teaching episode of Christ recorded in this gospel. Matthew is from beginning to end a message about a King. This greatest of all kings came as the humble Son of Man. He faced all of the indignities that seem to come with this world. He was despised and rejected by men, and was called a “Man of Sorrows.” He came to His own people and they would not receive Him. His greatest act of humility is about to be described to You in the weeks ahead as we carefully consider Matthew 26-28. There we find that He dies on a cross as our Substitute. He is the humble Son of Man, but He knows that He is more than that. He knows that He is a King who is the Son of a great Father. He says that those who follow Him are “blessed by my Father.” Above all, He knows that His existence will not be over when He dies. He knows that He will rise from the dead and that He will return as the glorious Son of Man. The fact that He first came as the humble Son of Man, and that He is coming again as the glorious King of a resurrection kingdom makes Jesus Christ a very interesting person. This passage is the way He chooses to speak to those around Him about what will surely happen one day.

He will separate people (31-33)

The Son of Man will come again in glory. He will not be alone. We learn from other passages in the Bible that He will bring with Him all who belong to Him who have finished their earthly race. These are called the dead in Christ, and they will rise first. Here and in other places we learn that He will bring angels with Him, and that He will sit on a glorious throne, something He did not do in His first coming. When He came as a man who would die for us, He did not seem like a king. When He returns in glory, no one will have any doubt that He is in charge.

All the nations will be gathered before Him. Here is the One who is not only King of the Jews. It is too small a thing for Him to be King only over the Old Covenant people. He will judge the world. He has perfect power and infallible discernment. Have you every looked at these words carefully? Verse 32 says “He will separate people one from another.” What a King! Some He will place on His right, others on His left. That one fact is what all eternity is about.

Those on his right (34-40)

Then He will speak. First He will address those on His right; the ones that He insists are blessed by His Father. It is wonderful that He calls us by that Name. This is why we have eternal life. We were blessed by the Father. That is why we came to believe, to call upon His Name, and to serve the Lord. We were blessed by the Father. We are told of what must be God’s electing love for us, since we hear that it is ours to inherit the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world. As wonderful as all this grace is, it should not surprise us. We know from the Bible that this grace and mercy of God is the only way that we could ever be called “the righteous.” It is only by this grace of God that we could ever have a share in resurrection blessings.

What does surprise us is that when the King comes in glory, He will refer to our works in caring for Him when He invites us finally into the greatly blessed eternal kingdom that He has for us. He will claim that we fed Him, gave Him something to drink, welcomed Him when He was a stranger, clothed Him when He was in need, visited Him when He was sick and in prison. That should shock us, since we know that He is the One who has done everything for us. He is the Bread from heaven that gives life to the world. He is the Fountain of resurrection water. He is the gracious Host who drew us near when we were lonely. He is the Healer. He is our robe of righteousness. We know that we did not do anything for Him so long before we were born, but do we really think that we have done well in our works of charity in our years on earth by any objective standard? When we look at ourselves and one another, just how is it that we come out of this judgment as those who have fed the hungry? When did we do that? When did we visit prisoners? If we did do it a little bit, what about all of the times that we did not do it?

Somehow, for those who have been blessed by His Father, Jesus will see our smallest expressions of faithful kindness, and will only see those things, despite the horrible mixed message of our lives. It is interesting that the things that He points to are not outrageous acts of devotion or accomplishment. They are things that are obvious and simple that almost anyone could do. Someone is hungry. Feed him. Someone is lonely. Visit him.

What is so beautiful about this passage is that the Lord chooses to remember those small things that we have done to “the least of these my brothers” as things that have been done to Him directly. What strikes me here is the love of the Lord of glory for the ones He calls His brothers; even the “least” of his brothers. You may think that you are nothing right now. You are just a little boy or girl and you don’t understand my words or you just are not all that interested in sermons, but you are Jesus’ little lamb, and if anyone does anything nice to you, then Jesus is going to bring that up in front of everybody when He comes back as a great King. On the other hand, you may think that life has passed you by. You used to be able to think so clearly, and now you keep on forgetting things, or you have pains in places that you never even knew existed when you were young, and you just can’t get around, and it wears you out emotionally. Jesus thinks you are so important, and He loves you so much, that if anyone just makes a meal for you, Jesus is going to say that when they served you they were actually serving Him. Isn’t that wild? That is how much the Lord loves you. That’s why He came the first time to die for your sins, and that’s why He is coming again to give you resurrection life. If you will believe that you matter to the Lord that way, no matter how badly this life has injured you, I think you will also be pleased to feed the hungry too.

Joni Earekson Tada became a quadriplegic as result of a diving accident at age seventeen. She believes that God loves her. I saw a picture in her headquarters in California of a poor African man who has no wheelchair. He just rests his legs across an old metal barrel to get comfortable. Joni and the hundreds of people that work with her make sure that people like that get wheelchairs. Jesus notices things like that. Of course Joni is great, but so is that man.

Those on his left (41-45)

When God sees His beloved and blessed people, He will see the few things we have done for others, seemingly as if we were like Mother Theresa or Joni. But what will the Lord see for hypocrites who want the praise of men, men who will not embrace the way to God through the grace of the cross? Their end is not the same. What the Lord sees in them are the things from our own lives that we don’t want to be seen. We were supposed to do good things for someone, but when it came down to it we decided that we probably did not have $100 to give to anyone, so we didn’t do this, or that, or something else. We did not see “the least of these” as in any way special, because we did not see ourselves as one of the least of these who have received blessing from God’s grace alone. While we have shameful things like this in our lives, this will not be our story in the end. We will have eternal life.

Eternal life (46)

Almighty God especially identifies with the weakest of those among His people, the ones who are suffering. Why is that? It must be that God is love, and that the least are those who know that they can’t save themselves. They need God’s love. We have been visiting a friend in the hospital since we came back from vacation. She is in her nineties, is in a coma, and is unresponsive. We wonder how she could still be alive. More than that we wonder why in the providence of God she is still alive. I don’t have an answer to that question, but I am thinking it has something to do with the fact that after she is dead we won’t be able to visit her, and when we visit her, in some way we visit Jesus.

You can’t feed the hungry if everyone has plenty to eat, but then you can’t feed Jesus. This age is a time of broken and hurting things. The age to come is not like that. The Lord saw us as broken. We could not fix ourselves. We had less of a chance of saving ourselves than my friend in the coma has of rising up and walking. Somehow, we are supposed to see what is broken, and to go about fixing it; this despite the fact that fixing things that are broken is largely beyond us. So we feed the hungry, give water to those who thirst, clothe the naked, and befriend the outcast, the sick, and the prisoner, even though we know that in this age we will always have the poor with us. Yet we look to Christ, who identifies with us in our brokenness, and we let Him fix something or someone broken through us. When we do that, we are living grace, and seeing Jesus in a sad world. One day the Lord will fix everything. Joni is going to be out of her wheelchair on that day. Our friend in the hospital will look at us again with her sweet warm eyes. Together we will look to Him who is love, and know that we are loved. This is the glorious kingdom that the Lord has for us. The Son of Man who died for us will return. He will come again in glory, and He will speak.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. In what ways is this passage different than other parables?

2. How does this passage tell the story of divine sovereign grace and good works?

3. What are the similarities and differences between those on the King’s right hand and those on His left hand?

4. What are some of the things that make this a difficult and challenging passage?