26th Sunday after Trinity + Matthew 25:21-46 + November 13, 2016
Order of Holy Communion - Pg. 15
Hymn #91 Let the Earth Now Praise the LordIntroit - 83
Readings
Collect for Trinity XXVI
Sermon on the Holy Gospel
Grace
and Peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
1) When
Christ returns on the Last Day, then we will experience what we confess each
week in the Creed, that, “He shall come again with glory to judge both the
quick and dead.” All nations will be gathered before Him, living and dead, a
multitude innumerable. Jesus describes this in John 5:28-29 when He says, “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their
graves will hear his voice and come out-- those who have done good will rise to
live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.” St. John, prophetically seeing this event, writes
in Revelation 20:12-13, “I saw the dead, great and small,
standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened,
which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done
as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death
and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged
according to what he had done.” There at the
judgment seat of Christ will stand every person who has ever lived throughout
the course of human history. It is interesting that whenever the Scriptures
speak about the final judgment it speaks of the judgment in terms of one’s
works and deeds. The parable before us today is no different. The sheep and
goats seem to be separated into their respective groups because of what they
have done and what they have left undone in their lives. But if we imagine that
our final judgment is based upon our good works then we have misheard not only
the parable itself but the very gospel of Christ.
2) When
the Son of Man comes in all His glory and the holy angels gather all the
nations, Christ will then “separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from
the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.” The first words out of Jesus’ mouth show us that this separation has
nothing to do with works at all. He says, “Come,
you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance.” The life of the
world to come, the eternal bliss of paradise is called an “inheritance.” An inheritance is not something which is earned, but
something earned by another and then freely bequeathed to the next of kin. In
the Old Testament, the Lord gave the Promised Land to Israel out of sheer
grace. He tells them in Leviticus 20:24, “You will possess their land; I will give it
to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey.” The Promised
Land of Canaan was a prototype of the sweet and blessed country of heaven. That
inheritance is Christ’s because He is the Only-Begotten Son of the Father. But
in mercy, God the Father makes this eternal inheritance available to all who
believe the gospel. As St. Paul teaches us in Galatians 3:26, “You
are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” When Christ tells those
on His right hand side that they are to take their inheritance, He is giving
them what He promised them at their baptisms. He is fulfilling every promise of
gospel that remained unfulfilled during their earthly life. Eternal life,
paradise with the Triune God, is not something that is earned, it is an
inheritance that is freely given.
3) He also calls this blessed inheritance “the kingdom prepared for you since the
creation of the world.” By this Christ refers to the election of believers
to eternal life that happened in eternity, before the foundation of the world.
The doctrine of election is summarized by St. Paul in Ephesians
1:4-5, that God the Father “chose us in
Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus
Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” The
doctrine of election teaches us that God, from eternity, predestined believers
for everlasting life. The entire point of this doctrine is to show us that our
salvation is from eternity. And if it is from eternity, then we have not had a
part it in, for we were chosen before the foundation of the world and before we
could any good work of love for our neighbor. This Kingdom, this inheritance,
has been prepared for all who believe the gospel, all who do not reject the
gospel of the forgiveness of sins. And this doctrine is given to us that we may
firmly believe that our salvation is in God’s hands “and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matthew
16:18). This doctrine shows us that God only predestines believers to eternal
life so that we may not doubt our salvation. As St. Paul writes in Romans 8:30,
“Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He
called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” It shows us that we do not earn this call, this justification, and this
glory, but receive it by sheer grace.
4) Only after Christ calls it an inheritance and “the kingdom prepared for you since the
creation of the world” does He get to their good works. The works they have
done are not flashy. They are not what the world thinks of as good works. They
are simple acts that help one’s neighbor in the most regular of needs. These
sheep at the right hand of Christ gave food to Christ when He was hungry, drink
when He was thirsty, shelter to Him when He was exposed, and clothes to Him
when He was naked. These sheep at Christ’s right hand visited Christ when He
was sick and imprisoned. Christ says that all these works were done for Him
personally. And here’s the kicker. The sheep at Christ’s right hand had no clue
they were doing good works for Christ. Shocked, they ask, “When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?”
They had no idea they were helping Christ. They had no idea their works of love
for neighbor had such a heavenly impact. They simply did good works for the
neighbor, without any thought of reward. They did these works not to earn their
heavenly inheritance, but because Christ had promised them a heavenly
inheritance. These works were not the cause and source of their salvation, they
were the fruit it. This is the same reason why the goats also have no idea that
their works were for Christ. If they had of known that they would have most
certainly done those works for their neighbors. The point is that neither the
sheep nor the goats knew they would be judged by their works.
5) Frankly, the sheep did these works because they were
sheep and the goats didn’t do these works because they were goats. Or, to use
an analogy that Christ uses in Matthew 12:33, “Make a tree good and its fruit will be
good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by
its fruit.” All men, women, and children, everyone born in the natural way
is born a bad tree because everyone is born in sin. But Christ makes bad trees
into good trees through the gospel, for “it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who
believes” (Romans 1:16). Paul
says that “if
anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold,
all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Faith in
Christ is what declares sinners to be righteous in God’s sight. Faith in the
gospel is what makes you into a good tree. And a good tree bears good fruit
naturally, spontaneously, and without thinking. To mix metaphors, the goats
were bad trees, they had no faith. They had pushed faith away from themselves
by rejecting the gospel. As bad trees, it was impossible for them to bear good
fruit. “For a good tree does not bear
bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit” (Luke 6:43). Thus the sheep
and goats are not separated and judged by their works alone, for good works
only flow from faith in Christ. No faith? Your works aren’t any good before
God, no matter how good they look in the eyes of the world, for as St. Paul
says, “whatever is not from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23) and “without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Hebrew 11:6).
6) We
don’t even have to use the analogy of good trees and bad trees. There is one
built into the parable itself, right at the beginning. “When the Son of Man comes in glory” and all the nations are
gathered before Him by the holy angels, “He
will separate them one from another, as a Shepherd divides his sheep from the
goats.” We must not lose sight of the fact the King who sits on the throne,
the Judge of the living and the dead, is also the Good Shepherd. Did He not
say, “I am the good shepherd; and I know
my sheep, and am known by my own? (John 10:14). He knows those who are His
sheep. And His sheep hear His voice. They hear the voice of their Good Shepherd
in His word purely preached, in His visible Words of the Sacraments. So all
true Christians take the opportunity to hear the Word properly preached and
study the Word since it is the very Word of God, the living voice of the Good
Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep upon the tree of the cross.
Because they are sheep, belonging to the Good Shepherd, they hear His voice and
live lives according to it. It’s not one’s works that make a man into a lamb of
Christ. It is faith that makes us into the lambs of Christ. Good works will
follow because of what we are.
7) While it is tempting to look
at this parable, and all the passages that deal with the final judgment, and
divorce it from the rest of Scripture and make the final judgment rest solely
upon our deeds, we mustn’t. When we do this we do not rightly divine the
Scriptures, nor do receive any comfort. If we want to stand at the judgment
seat and plead our case based on our works, we will find ourselves eternally
lacking, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But if we
want to appear before the judgment seat and plead instead the merits of Christ
that He earned for us and gives to all who believe the gospel, then we will
find that the righteous Judge is also Good Shepherd who has laid His life down
for us. Do not fear the final judgment, for the Judge you will meet is your
Good Shepherd who said, “Most
assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me
has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from
death into life” (John 5:24). Amen.
May
the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard you hearts and
minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.