31 – “When the Son of Man comesin 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 separatethe people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
33 – We 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.’”
Brian Wilkerson shares the story of Bert and John Jacobs—two brothers from Boston—who started a T-shirt business in 1989. For five years they traveled the East Coast, hawking their shirts in the streets and selling door-to-door in college dorms. They lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, slept in their van, and showered when they could. They didn’t make much money and didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Five years later, in the summer of ‘94 they arrived home from yet another t-shirt road trip with $78 in their pockets and they were about ready to give up. That’s when they created a smiling this stick figure named Jake and a simple phrase that captured their imagination: “Life is good.” Inspired by their new friend and his contagious grin, they emptied their bank account and printed up 48 Jake shirts for a street fair in Cambridge. By noon they were sold out, and a BUSINESS was born—but not just a business—a MOVEMENT. You see, Bert and John were no longer just selling CLOTHES; they were on a MISSION to spread GOOD VIBES wherever they could. Today, Life is good, Inc., is not only a $150 million company with thousands of outlets. It’s a MOVEMENT that’s raised millions of dollars for charity, drawn people together, and shaped contemporary culture with its message of optimism, simplicity, and goodness. My guess is, many of you have one of Jake’s shirts in our drawers at home. But even if you don’t—there’s SOMETHING we all love about Bert and John’s story, isn’t there?
- Maybe we love the fact that it’s the story of a couple of local boys who made good.
- Or maybe we love it because proves that there’s still a market for simplicity and quality in our culture.
Or maybe it’s because it speaks to a LONGING we all have to work at something we love and at the same time makes a positive impact on the world around us. I mean, all people want to believe that life CAN be good, that work can be MEANINGFUL, and that we can make a DIFFERENCE in this fallen world.
Well, I’ve got Good News for you, news that can put a smile on your face as big as Jake’s. What happened to Bert and John can happen to you, no matter what line of work you’re in, no matter how successful or disappointed you’ve been with life to this point. Life can be good—our work can be meaningful—if we join with our Heavenly Father in ministering to the needs of others by furthering His kingdom.
Now—the phrase, “kingdom of God” is a bit “Christianesey” so let’s make sure we are all on the same sheet of music. When most people hear this phrase they tend to think of Heaven—our eternal reward. But that’s not correct. The kingdom of God isn’t a time or a place. It is a LIFE—a life lived under the rule of God. It is the only life that is truly GOOD because it is a life that turns WORK into MINISTRY. And since it’s a life where God rules—it’s a life that makes a real difference in this world—an ETERNAL difference. This KINGDOM LIFE is the most rewarding life possible. Wilkerson rightly points out that there are two things a person has to do to experience this kind of life.
(1) First you must put your faith in Jesus Christ.
You see the kind of life I’m referring to—is only available to Christians—people who have admitted to God that they are fallen—sinners. They believe Jesus is God’s Son Who died in their place and they act on that belief by asking for Jesus’ forgiveness. Then they invite Him into their hearts and lives as Lord. They repent of their SIN—but more than that, they also repent of their old way of LIVING—and turn to living the way God would want them to. This leads to the second requirement.
(2) You must turn your life in to a mission.
It must become your goal to look at everything you do as an opportunity to extend the Kingdom of God—an opportunity to let Him use Your life to share His great love with others. A couple weeks ago we talked about ANOTHER two brothers—Simon and Andrew—we talked about the time Jesus came and called them from fishing for fish to fishing for men. Remember? Now these two brothers weren’t criminals or slackers or party animals. They weren’t even unbelievers. As far as we can tell, they were hardworking, church-going, family men. Maybe their language got a bit salty out there in the boat, but as far as we can tell they were living fairly decent lives. But Jesus called them to repent from the way they had been living and follow Him into a NEW way.
And to be clear, it wasn’t that what they were doing was so WRONG; it was just that it was TOO SMALL. They were running a BUSINESS. Jesus was offering them a MISSION. At this point they were making a LIVING. Jesus wanted them to make a DIFFERENCE. Jesus had something much bigger in mind for these two brothers than a pretty good life on the shores of Galilee. He wanted them to go out and change the world in His name.
Let’s stop at this point and try to PERSONALIZE this for you. If Jesus were to come walking into your life today, if He were to interrupt you at work tomorrow, or on your way to school, or as you work around the house, and tell you to repent, EXACTLY WHAT might he be asking you to repent of? Maybe there is some besetting sin in your life, some tendency or attitude or behavior that’s wrong and keeps getting in the way of the life you were meant to live. If that’s the case, then repentance means turning away from that.
It could be that you’re living a pretty good life. It could be that you’re following Jesus. But you’re following him for your OWN sake, to serve your OWN interests rather than the interests of others. You haven’t joined Him in His work in the world. If that’s the case, then you are like these two fishermen because what Jesus wants you to repent from is not a life that’s so WRONG, but a life that’s too SMALL. You’ve settled for making a LIVING when you could and SHOULD be making a DIFFERENCE. Listen to what a commentator named David Garland writes about this passage:
“The call and response of these fishermen should shatter our comfortable world of middle-class discipleship. Disciples are not simply those who fill pews at worship, attend an occasional Bible study, and offer to help out in the work of the church now and then. When one is hooked by Jesus, one’s whole life and purpose are transformed.”
And Garland is correct. Until we radically re-orient our lives around Jesus and His work in the world—until we’ve done that, we haven’t fully experienced the life of the kingdom.
Many Christians think they can follow Jesus and not be on mission. They separate the Gospel of going to Heaven from the Gospel of going into the world. To be honest, when I became a Christian at the age of seven, it was all about me and Jesus. My focus was the fact that Jesus would forgive me of my sins and be my friend through all of life. Jesus would take me to Heaven when I die. Chances are, when you came to Christ it was the same. Your profession of faith was about you and Jesus. Jesus would forgive your sins. Jesus would heal your wounded heart. Jesus would set you free from addiction. Jesus would answer your deep questions about the meaning of life. And yes, Jesus would take you to Heaven when this life is over.
Now—the gospel is certainly about you and Jesus. But it’s more than that for disciples who would go the second mile—and fully experience KINGDOM LIVING. In fact, in the words of Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision, if it’s just about you and Jesus then your understanding of the Gospel has a “hole” in it. Stearns tells the story of being called from his comfortable and lucrative position as CEO of a prestigious company to take the helm of World Vision, a struggling non-profit Christian organization that was focused on serving the neediest people in the world. It wasn’t an easy or quick decision, and he tells the story quite honestly in his book. Listen to what he writes in the introduction:
“Being a Christian requires much more than just having a personal and transforming relationship with God. It also entails a public and transforming relationship with the world. If your personal faith in Christ has no outward expression, then your faith has a hole in it. Jesus didn’t just say, ‘Follow me, and I’ll take you to Heaven.’ He said, ‘Follow me, and I will send you out into the world.’ The gospel isn’t just about Jesus and ME; it’s about Jesus and MISSION. It’s about Jesus and others. It’s about following Jesus for the sake of others.”
I agree with what Sterarns says here. We must understand that as Christians, we are MADE for this mission. Ephesians 2:8-10 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
These verses make it clear that we aren’t saved BY good works but we ARE saved FOR good works. We were formed to do good from the beginning of creation and we were transformed to do good when Christ forgave us and made us new. The world is looking for this “mission” attitude in us. Todd Hunter says:
“People today aren’t asking of Christianity is TRUE; they’re asking if it is GOOD. People are tired of hearing us TALK about good news. They want us to BE good news in our communities and the world.”
In our text for this morning Jesus is saying that Christians should be known for the way they respond to human need. Let me put it this way. Jesus is saying we need to understand God’s grace—we need to strive to comprehend it such that it changes us—because when we finally stand before Him—when we are finally face-to-face with GRACE personified—it will matter how gracious we have been in this life! On that day we will care how much we have showed compassion for those who needed it—the compassion to share the Gospel message—and the compassion to LIVE it out by helping others.
And the fact is millions of people around the world NEED our compassion. In his book Stearns’ takes his readers on a tour of the developing world.
First, there are the HUNGRY. One of every seven people in the world doesn’t have enough to eat, one out of four children in developing countries are underweight—and nine million people a year die of hunger or related causes. Hunger leads to all kinds of other problems. When you’re hungry, you can’t work, you can’t go to school, you can’t play, your body can’t fight disease—and you can’t bear and raise healthy children. Every hour of every day is obsessively devoted to searching for sustenance.
Then there are the THIRSTY. Imagine waking up every day and instead of turning a faucet—spending the entire day with no water readily available—for drinking, cooking, or even washing. Imagine spending four or five hours every day going to fetch water for your family, carrying it back in buckets or on top of your head. Then imagine that the water you just brought home to your family was teeming with bacteria, parasites, and waterborne diseases that will make you and your children sick. This is a daily reality for 1.2 billion people in the world.
There are also the MATERIALLY POOR. These are the people Jesus is referring to when he says, “I needed clothes.” The average American lives on about $100 per day. A billion people in the world live on less than $1 per day. To be materially poor is to have no options. There is no way out of their situation because you don’t have the financial resources that are required.
And then there are the SICK. In the U.S. and Europe, two out of every 1,000 children die before their fifth birthday. In Africa, 165 of every 1,000 won’t make it to their fifth birthday. Malaria, TB, and AIDS are the big three causes for this statistical fact. Listen. If you were to take all the children who have been orphaned because of AIDS and have them hold hands, the chain of children would stretch from New York to L.A. nearly five times.
So in listing the people who need our compassion, there are the hungry, the thirsty, the materially poor, the sick—but we haven’t even talked about the REFUGEES and the PRISONERS. These are some of the most needy and vulnerable people in the world. And of course, they’re not just across the border in developing countries; they’re right here at home as well, in our cities and suburbs. My point is that the world needs the compassionate action of Christians like you and me who will further the Kingdom of God—people who see their lives as a mission to help others in Jesus’ name.
By the way, this kind of KINGDOM LIFE—compassionately working to help others—opens the door for us to meet people’s GREATEST NEED—to hear of the love of Jesus. Let me put it this way. People won’t open their HEARTS to Jesus’ love until we fill their STOMACHS. Actions speak louder than words. This week I read about a man named Vance. Vance is an African American living in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood so he stands out. But what really sets Vance apart is that he is a servant-hearted father who cares not only for his own kids, but also for the many other kids who play in the streets by his building. One night at 9 p.m., there was a knock at Vance’s door. The 16-year-old boy who lives a few doors down needed help tying his tie. He had a big presentation at school the next day, and he had no father to help him get ready. After Vance had finished tying the tie, the boy sheepishly asked, “Do you have a pair of black dress shoes I could borrow?” Immediately, the Spirit brought to Vance’s mind the $60 pair of shoes in his closet that he hadn’t even taken out of the box yet. He was certain God was telling him to give the boy those shoes. Vance cringed inside. He told the boy to wait at the door as he headed into the apartment to look for any pair of shoes but the expensive pair. Before he went to the closet, though, he told his wife what he sensed the Spirit was saying to him. She agreed that it sounded like God had given him a great idea. So Vance got out his new shoes and brought them to the boy. His last hope was that they wouldn’t fit. After all, how many 16-year-olds have size-12 feet? They fit perfectly. Just a few weeks after Vance gave away his new shoes, he and his wife sensed God telling them to start a Bible study for the kids in their building. After much prayer, they decided to invite the kids to their apartment for a Sunday evening study. They ordered four Bibles in case any kids came. That Sunday, seven kids showed up at Vance’s apartment—led by the 16-year-old owner of a new pair of shoes. The following week they ordered more Bibles, and 14 kids showed up! Who would have thought the kingdom of God would come to the kids of that apartment complex just because one man chose to give away a new pair of shoes?
Okay—-what is involved in following Jesus for the sake of others? What does God expect of us as we seek to go the extra mile when it comes to ministering to people in need?
(1) First, He wants us to FEEL what HE feels for the needy.
God wants our hearts to break for the suffering people in our world because that’s what His heart does. So, if all those statistics and pictures that we looked at earlier made you feel uncomfortable and disturbed that’s good. We SHOULD be uncomfortable, disturbed, and angered. After all, that’s how Jesus felt. How many times in the gospels do we read that Jesus was moved with compassion? How many times do we see Him stop what He’s doing to relieve someone’s suffering? How many times is He disturbed by the exploitation or neglect of people created in the image of God?
And Jesus still feels that way today! When Jesus refers to “these brothers and sisters of Mine,” in our text He is expressing His identification with the needy and vulnerable.
- Remember, Jesus was homeless at the time of his birth.
- He began his life as a refugee, chased from his own country by a baby-killing tyrant.
- He grew up in a working class family, and as an adult he had no place to lay his head.
- He was rejected by his own people, abandoned by his followers, brutally beaten by sadistic soldiers, executed for crimes he didn’t commit, and buried in a borrowed tomb.
Jesus knows what it means to be needy and vulnerable, so He feels a kinship with them, and He wants us to feel it, too. But that can be hard for us. First of all, most of us don’t rub shoulders with these kinds of folks every day. And when we hear about them on the news or read about them in a book, they seem so distant. Statistics and images don’t always sink in.
To help it sink in, Stearns suggests that we imagine waking up this morning and reading in the paper that 100 jetliners crashed yesterday, killing over 26,000 people. Imagine the grief and the outrage we would feel! Imagine the outpouring of money and volunteers that would follow such a catastrophe! Imagine the intensity with which governments and agencies would do everything in their power to stop such a thing from happening! Then imagine that it happening again tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. The fact is it is happening every day in our world. 26,500 children die every day of preventable causes related to poverty. We need to be grieved, disturbed, and angered by that. When we see stories about suffering our hearts should break—our compassion should move us to action. In my mind this is the most amazing part of Jesus= lecture. Do you remember what He said? Jesus said that when we visit the sick and clothe the naked and feed the hungry and visit in the prisons, it is as if we were ministering to Him. Here are His exact words: “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.” (Verse 40) This brings to mind something Mother Teresa said, “In the poor we meet Jesus in His most distressing disguises.”
(2) And that leads to a second thing God expects. He wants us to do more than FEEL. He wants us to DO something to help.
Jesus commended the righteous in this 25th chapter of Matthew because they DID something–they FED somebody, they gave someone a DRINK. They WELCOMED a stranger into their lives. They put CLOTHES on someone’s back, they TOOK CARE of someone who was sick, they VISITED someone who was locked up. Notice they didn’t do EVERYTHING but they did SOMETHING. They didn’t help everyone; they helped someone. They didn’t solve world hunger or rid the world of disease or get all the homeless off the streets. They did what they could, where they were, with what they had. That’s what God asks of us.
There’s a lot of good being done in the world by and through Christians like you who don’t excused themselves FROM doing anything because they can’t do everything. They get up off their chairs and do SOMETHING. They go the extra mile of ACTION. For example, they help with Manna or the Soup kitchen or go on a mission trip and build a house for a needy family or give to the Lottie Moon offering or teach ESL or help a poor grandmother get clothes for her grandchildren or whatever. Hearing about needs—seeing them—makes these KINGDOM CHRISTIANS feel challenged and convicted and they let their feelings issue into action. I’m thinking of David and Pat Cash who saw that the kids in the orphanage in Morocco didn’t have shoes. That compelled them to gather shoes in all the various sizes and get them to that orphanage even though it took two trips to Morocco to get the job done. I’m thinking of two Redlanders who went on a mission trip to Kenya years ago and saw the incredible need of orphans there so they donated a huge chunk of their retirement fund to build a new building in an orphanage there—a building designed to care for all the abandoned infants who are brought there. I know of at least two other Redlanders who met children in Nairobi and paid for their education. Every month they have sent a check to make sure those kids can go to school.
In the D.R. when our docs have encountered people with medical needs they weren’t equipped to deal with they always left money to make sure people got surgeries or medicine. I could go on—but in case you’re not feeling the compassion that leads to action, let me share with you Richard Stearns’ paraphrase of Jesus’ words in Matthew 25: “For I was hungry, but you went out to eat, again. I was thirsty, but you drank bottled water. I was a stranger, and you wanted me deported. I needed clothes, but you needed more clothes. I was sick, and you pointed out the behaviors that led to my sickness. I was in prison, and you said I was getting what I deserved.”
And this brings to mind four MAIN barriers that keep us from feeling enough compassion to actually DO something to help others.
a. The first is simple SELF-CENTEREDNESS.
Many times we ignore texts in God’s Word like Philippians 2:4 which says, “Forget yourSELF long enough to lend a helping hand.” We are so focused on our own to-do lists that we don’t see the needs of others. This is sad because the truth is, the number one enemy of compassion is self-centered BUSYNESS—constant ACTIVITY that leaves us no time to help others in need. I read somewhere that a good way to define the word “BUSY” is to make it an acronym which says, “Being Under Satan’s Yoke.” And I like that because that is what Satan does, he makes us busy doing things we think are important but are really trivial in comparison to helping someone in Jesus’ name.
The sad truth is we even can crowd our lives with “spiritual” things to the extent that we are too busy to help someone. John Ortberg tells the true story of a husband whose wife was facing an important operation. The woman asked her husband if he would look after the children over the weekend while she recovered. He refused saying he was going to attend a huge Promise Keepers rally, an event that would teach him how to live as a Christian husband and father. Think about it, this guy refused to serve his wife on the grounds that he had to attend a conference where he would be taught and inspired to serve his wife. And before we jump at criticizing this guy let’s ask ourselves: Have we ever hung a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door of our hearts because we were busy doing “spiritual” things? Are you ever like the priest and the Levite in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan—people so busy in religious things that they had not time to stop—they just passed by the injured man?
Well, friends nothing is more “spiritual”—nothing is more Christlike—than dropping what you are doing to help someone. Genuine Christian servants are never too busy. Like Jesus, they are always available to help someone who needs it.
b. A second barrier is JUDGEMENTALISM.
Many Christians refuse to help the needy around them because they believe their situation is either their fault—or that they are just lazy—or are trying to take advantage of the system. And—there ARE people out there who take advantage. I’ve seen them all over the world. I’ve been burned before by people I helped and then later learned were deceiving me as to their needs. Let me say a couple things here.
First, we must not let our experience with the fakes and frauds out there harden our hearts—because there ARE REAL people who are suffering—and need our help—even here in our county. And it is better to keep your heart tender by helping a not-so-needy person than it is to let it become so hard you help no one. To avoid being burned—give your money to places where you know it will help others—and get involved in ministries like Manna or the Soup Kitchen.
Second, we need to remember that there are people out there whose need is NOT their fault. There are single-moms on welfare who are there for no fault of their own. And the fact is our system makes it nearly impossible for them to get off welfare. There are people who are born in to poverty and it is VERY hard to get out of that. My point is we must not let our JUDGEMENTALISM get in the way of feeling compassion for—and DOING things to help others.
c. A third barrier is MATERIALISM.
Instead of using our financial resources to help others, we keep it ourselves. And this is important to note because we can’t hoard our material wealth and at the same time serve others in the name of God. As Jesus said in Luke 16:13, “No servant can serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and money.” Now, circle the word “cannot” because Jesus didn’t say, “you SHOULD NOT serve both God and money.” He didn’t say, “It’s HARD to serve both God and money.” No Jesus said, “You CANNOT do this. It is impossible.” You can’t focus your life on getting more things and at the same time give to help people as Jesus did. So in essence we have to decide whether we want to be rich in worldly things or be a blessing to others—whether we want to GET or GIVE—whether we want to “lay up for ourselves treasures on Earth where moth and rust corrupt and where thieves break in and steal.” or in “Heaven where moth and rust do not corrupt and where thieves do not break in and steal.” The most important decision we have to make in life once we become a believer is “Am I going to be a kingdom-builder or a wealth-builder?” We can’t be both.
d. A fourth barrier is PERFECTIONISM.
And when I say this I mean some people never try to serve others because they think they aren’t talented enough or smart enough. They have it in their minds that they have to be perfect before God can use them. Well, the truth is if God only used perfect people, nothing would ever get done because none of us are perfect. But that’s okay because as 1 Corinthians 1:27 says, “God purposely chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the powerful.” In other words, God delights in pouring His strength into weak, imperfect people like me and you. In 2nd Corinthian 4:7 the Apostle Paul puts it this way: “We are like clay jars in which this treasure is stored. The real power comes from God and not from us.”
And to illustrate this point, I’d like to introduce someone to you. Her name is Shari Mays and she was a close friend of my wife Sue before we met back in the days when Sue was attending Del Tech in Dover, Delaware. This is a picture of Shari and you can see that she was far from perfect because she had Muscular Dystrophy. But in spite of her “imperfection” God used Shari in a powerful way to proclaim His love—and the greatest example of that was a summer that she spent serving with Sue and another co-ed, Arlene Bonjanie, as a missionary to Baltimore’s inner city. That summer Shari and her two companions led Backyard Bible Clubs and did puppet shows. They worked with children and teens. They served at the Canton mission center and spoke in local churches, and they learned very quickly that Shari’s WEAKNESS was actually one of the STRENGTHS of their team because Shari and her wheel chair attracted the kids. It even made adults more open to hear the gospel. I mean, they wanted to hear what Shari had to say. God’s power shone through Shari precisely because of her imperfection. Shari and Sue and Arlene had an amazing summer. I am still moved to hear Sue tell me of the powerful things God did in and through them. Shari died only a few months after her stint as a summer missionary. And at her funeral the minister read from her summer missions application. Listen to what Shari had to say about the relationship between her imperfection and her ability to have the power to serve in Jesus’ name: “At the age of three, my family learned that I had muscular dystrophy, a cruel disease that strikes young children and usually kills them early in life. The doctors told my parents that I would probably not live to be older than four or five years old. Little did they know that God had a purpose for me with that disease and that He intended to use my life as a witness to His works. As I grew older, I developed an awareness of God and a deep love and respect for Him. At the age of eight I publicly accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. I was baptized and began to grow as a follower of God. There have been many times in my life that I have had the chance to witness to people because of my handicap. Many people wonder how one such as I can continue to strive and work towards our life goals and accomplish as much as we seem to. But I can only tell them that it is not me that is able to accomplish these things, but Christ working through me. Many people have asked me if I feel as though God is punishing me or if I would rather not have lived and this really opens the door for me to share with them how God has used me and provided me with such a happy life and many valuable experiences that others have never had. I continue to look forward to the opportunities God has in store for me and when I have fulfilled my purpose in life, I will go to be with my everlasting Father in Heaven.”
Shari’s favorite verse was, “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” (Philip. 4:13) And she obviously understood the principle of this verse—that when it comes to serving in God’s name our power has nothing to do with it, it is God’s power. Shari’s comments remind me of something another great missionary, Hudson Taylor, once said. “All God’s giants were weak people.” And they were.