April 30, 2006: Lesson: Matthew 25.31-46

Sermon Title: I'd Rather Be a Sheep than a Goat

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INTRODUCTION:

  1. A church congregation decided to have four separate worship services each Sunday.

    1. A section for those people who were new to the faith,

    2. A service for regular members who preferred the more traditional worship service,

    3. A service for those who'd lost their faith and wanted to get it back,

    4. A separate service for those who had some unsuccessful experiences with other churches and had some complaints.

    5. The four services were named: Finders, Keepers, Losers, Weepers.

      1. This is an old playground expression

      2. It is not ethical.

  2. This sermon about Finders, Keepers and Losers, Weepers.

    1. It is not about chance.

    2. It is not about fate.

    3. It is about choice.

    4. It is about finders who are kept and losers who are rejected.

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MAIN BODY:

  1. All nations are gathered.

    1. All nations are separated into two groups.

    2. We ought to enquire into the meaning of the separation.

  2. How is it accomplished?

    1. What standard or measure is used to determine the fate of those designated sheep and those designated goats.

    2. There is an experience in the life of Belshazzar, King of Babylon that occurs in the final moments of his reign.

It is recorded in Daniel 5 (Page 721).

King Belshazzar made a great festival for a thousand of his lords, and he was drinking wine in the presence of the thousand.

Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar commanded that they bring in the vessels of gold and silver that his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them.

So they brought in the vessels of gold and silver that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them.

They drank the wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.

Immediately there appeared a human hand that wrote some words on the wall for all to see: mene, mene, tekel, and parsin.

The king and his guests were terrified.

He demanded that someone be brought who could understand the words and tell him the meaning.

The queen came into the banquet hall and said that there was a holy man endowed with the spirit of the gods. His name is Beltshazzer. His name is Daniel.

So Daniel was called into the banquet hall and interpreted the words and told the king the meaning.

Daniel rehearsed the history of Belshazzar's ancestor Nebuchadnezzar.

Daniel simply and clearly highlights the pride and selfishness of Belshazzar.

And you, Belshazzar his son, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this! You have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven! The vessels of his temple have been brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines have been drinking wine from them. You have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know; but the God in whose power is your very breath, and to whom belong all your ways, you have not honored.

"So from his presence the hand was sent and this writing was inscribed. And this is the writing that was inscribed: mene, mene, tekel, and parsin. This is the interpretation of the matter: mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; tekel, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting; peres, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians."

Then Belshazzar gave the command, and Daniel was clothed in purple, a chain of gold was put around his neck, and a proclamation was made concerning him that he should rank third in the kingdom.

That very night Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was killed. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.

      1. Belshazzar was weighed in the balances, and found wanting.

      2. He was a light-weight when God needed a heavy-weight.

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  1. What balances might we conclude are the balances in which human kind is weighed?

    1. Jesus is not sitting here as judge.

    2. There is another who acts as judge.

    3. The other are the scales in which all human kind is judged.

    4. In John 12:47-50 (Page 876) Jesus tells us the nature of the judge that we all must face.

I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge, for I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I speak, therefore, I speak just as the Father has told me."

The word that I have spoken will serve as judge.

    1. Paul says the same thing in Acts 13:46-47 (Page 896)

Then both Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, "It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you. Since you reject it and judge yourselves to be unworthy of eternal life, we are now turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us, saying,

'I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles,

so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.'"

    1. Paul also likens the word to a sword in his letter to the Hebrews, Hebrews 4:12-13 (Page 972), as the judge of the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

  1. We are weighed in the balances by the word.

    1. What is the word that has been spoken?

      1. Broadly it is the record of the teachings of Jesus.

      2. The teachings of Jesus are designed to promote one grand idea.

    2. The word is love.

      1. The word is designed to help us understand and apply love.

      2. Eknath Easwaran, observes: (1)

When I travel on the freeways, I see stickers that say, "I love my dog," "I love my cat," or "I love New York." If I were ever to put a sticker on my car, it would just say, "I love." This is our human legacy, and we claim our legacy when the mind is stilled. This is what the Bible means when it says, "Be still and know I am God."

    1. Love is the substance of the two great commandments.

      1. Love is on one side of the balance scale and we are on the other.

      2. The opposite of love is not hate, but apathy.

      3. The greatest sin that one can commit is the sin of selfishness.

A Ruffles potato chip ad shows two Inuits sitting in the midst of a vast, uninhabited, frozen waste. One is sublimely scarfing down his bag of Ruffles, while the other drools longingly in his direction. In reply to the request for a chip, the first man declares to his lone companion, "But if I gave one to you I would have to give one to everybody." Then the Ruffles slogan: "So good you'd better get your own bag!"

      1. Forget those ridges. Christian theology is more Nachos than Ruffles.

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    1. The goats have not sufficient love.

      1. They have been weighed in the balances and found wanting.

      2. It does not mean that they have not done good works.

      3. What it means is that their good works were done primarily from a selfish motive.

      4. They gave so they could get.

    2. The sheep have sufficient love.

      1. Love does no harm, Romans 13:8-10 (Page 923)

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet"; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, "Love your neighbor as yourself."

        1. Love does no wrong to a neighbor.

        2. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

      1. John writes in 1 John 4:17-21 (Page 991), those who say "I love God" but hate brothers and sisters is a liar.

Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

        1. To hate here is not to hate as we understand the word.

        2. To hate is to love less.

      1. Love is so beautifully defined in 1 Corinthians 13.4-8a (Page 934)

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

    1. The sheep are weighed and their love is found sufficient.

      1. There is still a bit of selfishness in the sheep.

      2. Selfishness is a human condition and is not totally eradicated until the resurrection.

      3. The sheep have much more love than selfishness.

      4. What the sheep have done was out of the motivation to help, to give and not receive.

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CONCLUSION

  1. Our task is to allow God to help us move from selfishness to love.

As Mother Teresa in Teachings of the Christian Mystics has written (2):

Being happy with [God] now means:
 Loving as he loves,
 Helping as he helps,
 Giving as he gives,
 Serving as he serves,
 Rescuing as he rescues,
 Being with him 24 hours,
 Touching him in his distressing disguise.

    1. This is not a giant leap from selfishness to love.

    2. It is a pattern of growth towards that to which God has called us.

    3. We do this a little bit at a time.

Theodore Monod wrote the words to the song O the bitter Shame ands Sorrow

O the bitter shame and sorrow,
 That a time could ever be,
 When I let the Savior's pity
 Plead in vain, and proudly answered,
 "All of self, and none of Thee!"

Yet He found me;
 I beheld Him
 Bleeding on th' accursèd tree,
 Heard Him pray, "Forgive them, Father!"
 And my wistful heart said faintly,
"Some of self, and some of Thee!"

Day by day His tender mercy,
 Healing, helping, full and free,
 Sweet and strong, and ah! so patient,
 Brought me lower,
 while I whispered,
"Less of self, and more of Thee!"

Higher than the highest heavens,
 Deeper than the deepest sea,
 Lord, Thy love at last hath conquered:
 Grant me now my supplication,
 "None of self, and all of Thee!"

    1. You cannot give up all of your self.

      1. You cannot give up all your selfishness.

      2. If you cannot give up all your selfishness at least you can have more love that selfishness.

  1. If you have more love than selfishness than you are one of the sheep.

  2. I'd rather be a sheep than a goat, wouldn't you?

1. Eknath Easwaran, Take Your Time: Finding Balance in a Hurried World (Tomales, Calif. Nilgiri Press, 1991), 215.

2. Mother Teresa in Teachings of the Christian Mystics, cited in Christianity Today, February 8, 1999, 72.

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