The Fruits Of Grace

The Fruits Of Grace Matthew 25:31-46 New King James Version (NKJV) 31 "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, Come, you blessed of 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 took Me in; 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 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You? 40 And the King will answer and say to them, Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me. 41 "Then He will also say to those on the left hand, Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting 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 take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me. 44 "Then they also will answer Him, 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, Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch 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 everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." This is the Word of God, for us the people of God, Thanks be to God! One of the things I love about writing a sermon is that often, I need to hear what the scripture and the sermon are saying myself. My spirit needs to be fed with the Word regularly, just like every other Christian. You see, when I'm preaching a message that is on my heart, I'm not only preaching it to you, but to myself as well. No matter how many years you've been serving the Lord and studying His Word, you still need to hear and be taught the Word yourself. To me, if a person can't stand in front of a mirror and give the message they are writing to themselves and step on their own toes, then they have no business preaching that message in the first place. So, if I'm stepping on anyone's toes during a sermon, I've already stepped on my own as well, because if you truly care about the people you're ministering to, you'll give them the whole truth of the Word and not some watered down, feelgood message. The Holy Bible is the inspired Word of God handed down through His prophets to be a guide to us for a good and holy life. The other thing I love about writing a sermon is that not only do I get the oppurtunity to preach the gospel of Christ, but it also gives me the chance to dig deeper into the scriptures and learn even more for myself. No matter how many times you study the bible and the history of the church, you always find some little nugget of information you hadn't seen before and sometimes you may find a meaning to a verse that you had never realized even after having read it several times. For instance, while studying for this sermon, I found that the writer of this scripture, Matthew or Levi as he was also known, was biliingual. He could read and write in both Hebrew and Greek and may have even written The Book of Matthew in both languages. It's not a major revelation by any means, but is quite interesting. What's more important is that Matthew the tax collector was a witness to the actual events of the gospel of Christ. As one of the twelve disciples, he gives us a firsthand account of many of the events of Jesus' ministry. How truly amazing it must have been to be Matthew. Our scripture today starts with Jesus' own description of His return to judge the world. "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory." I don't know that our human minds can even comprehend the awe and the wonder of our Savior's return. Can we even begin to imagine how glorious His second coming will be? Are we capable of visiualizing the throneroom of our Redeemer decending from among the clouds? Also, what will we feel inside if we were to see all of this? Will we be joyous and crying tears of joy? Or, will we be fearful and shaken to our core? The answer to this may lie in the next verse. "All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats." We have to remember that at this time is when it is prophecized that Jesus will judge all of those who are still alive on earth at the time of the tribulation. This is not the judgement at the end of the millennial reign. The judgement told of in this chapter of the Book of Matthew is like the parable of the wheat and the tears. Jesus will gather the wheat, the sheep, the saved into his barn while He also gathers the tears, the goats, the lost and casts them into the eternal fire. How wonderous it would be to hear the Lord say, "Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world". You see, Jesus tells us here that we were meant for the kingdom of heaven from the very beginning, from the foundation of the world. We were never meant for hades, the place of the dead, or hell as it is also called and we certainly weren't meant for the lake of fire that comes after the final judgement of the lost as He told us in verse forty-one. "Then He will also say to those on the left hand, Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. The lake of fire wasn't created for human souls, but for Lucifer and the other angels who rebelled against God. We were always meant for God's kingdom, but we, as flawed human beings, let our own sin get in the way of that. So many people in the world today read bits and pieces of the bible and then say, "I don't think God would send anyone to hell" or "I can't believe in a God who would condemn anyone to an eternity of punishment", and some ministers have even started teaching such a message, but if you truly read your bible my friends, you'll see that God never condemend anyone to hell. They did it themselves through their sin. They chose the path of destrcution for themselves by being disobedient to our Father.God just handed down the sentence. Aside from our sin, which is quite simply our disobedience to God the ways in which He gave us to live, we human beings are often guilty of neglecting our fellow man and being selfish or even self-centered. We have to remember that when we neglect our fellow man, we are neglecting the children of God. I can only imagine the heartbreak and sinking feeling of having Jesus tell you "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 take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me. Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me. These verses make me think of Hebrews chapter 13: verses 1-3 1 Let brotherly love continue. 2 Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels. 3 Remember the prisoners as if chained with themthose who are mistreatedsince you yourselves are in the body also. We're all parts of the Body of Christ. We certainly don't want to hurt the other members of that body do we? How often are we ready to write off someone who has been in trouble with the law, who is in prison, who is homeless, who is handicapped, who is disfigured, or who is dying of a disease that scares us. All too often we don't offer them help. Maybe we're afraid to help, or 'too busy' we say. Maybe we don't offer to help the homeless man because we've given money to people on the street before just to see them drunk or high later. What if the person we refused to help was the person who genuinely needed the help? What if, as the verses from Hebrews said, it was an angel of the Lord that we neglected unawares? When we become a Christian, when we're born again, when we pick up our cross and carry it daily, we will produce fruits of that grace that we have received. We will do works of charity such as visiting the sick, visiting the imprisoned, helping the homeless, because of the grace we have been given, not so that we may be given God's grace. All the charity work in the world won't get you into the kingdom of God when it's done for your own glory and not because of your faith and desire to glorify God. Vice versa, a profession of faith without it leading to love and acts of compassion is useless as well. Our Lord's brother taught us this as well. James 2:14-26 New King James Version (NKJV) 14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believeand tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness."[And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. 25 Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. I pray that you all have honestly gone to our Lord Jesus Christ and asked Him into your heart. I pray that you are filled with the Holy Spirit and that spirit is bearing fruit in your lives. God bless you my friends. Pete.