Sheep and Goats

2:41 Let's listen to the story of the sheep and the goats. I am sometimes asked who I think the great preachers are today. My wife says it's one less than I think. But I think if I were to be able to describe the great preachers, there are folks like you, who preach in the midst of a congregation, know their pain and hurt,

3:19 speak to people caught on the barbed wire of life, people with confusion and questions. You preach to their joys, you're there when they are married and when they have a child. You preach to their sorrows, to their hurts. And so I'm honored to be here to speak with you. I have no doubt that many of you could stand in this pulpit and even better than I speak a clear good word from God. but since it's my assignment to speak to you tonight look at Matthew chapter 25 Matthew 25 beginning at verse 31 When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory.

4:29 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He'll put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 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.

4:58 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. I needed clothes and you clothed me and I was sick and you looked after me I was in prison you came to visit me then the righteous will answer him Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink when did we see you a stranger and invite you in needing clothes and clothe you when did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you the king will reply I tell you the truth whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine you did for me then he will say to those on his left depart from me you who are cursed depart into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels for I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink I was a stranger and you didn't invite me in I needed clothes, you didn't clothe me I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me they also will answer, Lord when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison and did not help you you'll reply, I tell you the truth whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.

6:41 Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. Let me tell you the history of this text. Not the kind of history you'll get in a theological seminary, I mean my own personal history. First time I ever remember hearing this passage, I was in my early teens. My cousin and I were in the search for a church that would minister to us. We defined that as a church that would have a basketball team. And we found it in the Broadway Presbyterian Church in New York. I discovered a lesson in that early day and that is that every silver lining has a cloud. because in order to be able to play on the team, you had to go to Sunday school.

7:44 It was there I came under the influence of Miss Larch. Miss Larch was a student of biblical prophecy. It seemed to me she particularly liked the passages that dealt with judgment, probably because of the boys that were in her class. and she talked about the judgment of the sheep and goats. I was back in my literalistic phase of interpretation and I thought she was talking about real sheep and real goats.

8:20 And I pictured this whole thing like a county fair. It seemed to me it was a little beneath the dignity of Jesus to be sorting out animals, but Miss Lortz also told me that God counted the hairs on my head, and so if he was into that kind of trivia, sheep and goats made some sense.

8:42 I came back to the passage about three years later. By that time, I figured out that the sheep and goats didn't stand for animals, but for people. that in the passage the Christians were sheep and those who were not Christians were goats.

9:06 I didn't quite know why the good people would be called sheep and the bad people would be called goats. I must confess that 50 years later I still haven't figured that out. I was up in western Washington a couple of years ago and I was talking to a man who raised sheep. I mean, he was into sheep, big time. Got about 50,000 of them. So I said, you know, you've been around sheep all your life. When you think of sheep, is there a single word that would describe them? And he shot back the answer. He said, stupid. They are the stupidest animals you'd ever want to work with. I don't know what to do with that. Those of you who are pastors might be able to help me. So I tried it again.

9:58 I said, well, what about goats? He wasn't as quick with that, but he thought, and he said, you know, they're stubborn. What kind of self-will around us? Well, sheep are helpless, dependent, defenseless, and they're not too intelligent. I came to the passage though and you know understood this was the last judgment I pictured it I pictured it because this was the judgment of the nations you know there'd be a huge crowd of people like the crowd that would pack into Macy's department store just before Christmas to be jostling each other. And then up on the balcony, Jesus and some angels would appear.

10:55 The angels I knew were all musical. They played harps, but a couple of them would put the harp down and they'd pick up a trumpet and there would be a trumpet blast. And then there would be the announcement. This is the judgment of the sheep and goats. those of you who are sheep get over to the king's right those of you who are goats over to the king's left I knew that for me and the fellas in my Sunday school class that'd be easy we'd saunter over to the king's right what troubled me was how this was going to come down with my friends and my gang in New York I thought about an angel who had the assignment of explaining all this to them I mean they didn't go to Sunday school they didn't go to church they didn't know anything by the last judgment even though they regularly consigned one another to hell I don't think they really thought it was going to happen and so I pictured an angel trying to explain to these fellas what this was all about.

12:13 Angel would go over and say, all right, you fellas are goats. You go over to the king's left, your right. What do you mean, we're goats? We're goats. What do you mean, we're goats? How come we're goats? Well, it's the way you treated the king. I didn't treat him. He was hungry, he didn't give him anything to eat, he was thirsty, he didn't give him anything to drink. He needed clothes, he didn't clothe him. He was without a place to live, you didn't take him in. He was sick, you didn't minister to him, he was in prison, you didn't go to see him. You see, you've got to be crazy. Well, he ain't never seen that king, he's never been around our neighborhood. angel would explain well it isn't the king directly but those the king cares about loves they were in your neighborhood you didn't take care of them I can imagine my friend Andy Medina saying I went up to visit my brother in the penitentiary that count and Carl Bicaldi saying wait a minute I mean around my neighborhood you take people in and it'll slit your throat you don't want to do anything like that

13:39 no i thought it was gonna be a pretty hard selling that half of that angel can have a lot to explain and my friend just wouldn't you know get it came back to this passage more recently and i saw something that is so obvious i missed it

14:03 And that is not only do the goats ask why they're goats, the sheep ask why they're sheep. What have you got to do with that? It seems to me that the sheep are as confused as the goats. When did we see you hungry, thirsty? When did we see you in need of clothes, sick or in prison, do anything to help you? And I take it that by the king's response he is saying that what will really matter to the king are the little unremembered acts of kindness and love that we may not even think about.

15:00 But to count a great deal with him. Now let me tell you what this text isn't saying. This text isn't saying that if you go to the checkout counter in the supermarket and you see a box there for needy children that you take your spare change and throw it in the box and when it hits the bottom they pour you away into heaven. It's not saying that at Christmas time you put something in the pot at the Salvation army kettle and you know when the ring of the coins hit the bottom of the kettle you brought your way in. If you know anything about the New Testament you know that you can't get heaven on the cheap. Not talking about our spare change. What he is talking about, I think, is found in that phrase where the king says in verse 34, come you who are blessed by my father.

16:11 take your inheritance, the kingdom. That phrase, blessed of my father, is not a throwaway line. I think it's crucial in the passage. It takes you back into the early part of Matthew,

16:34 what we call the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus introduces that story or that sermon by talking about people who are blessed. blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven to be poor in spirit is to recognize your bankruptcy to recognize your need to recognize that you're a debtor and you have no coins to get you out of debt but those are the people who enter the kingdom then he says blessed are those who mourn mourn about what more about their bankruptcy about their destitute spiritual condition these are the people who will be comforting And then he says, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

17:49 Meekness in the Bible is not an inferiority complex. meekness is a a Godward attitude it's to be in submission to God because of your need of him and they're the ones who will inherit the earth this kingdom that has been prepared in the beginning of the world the middle of the attitude is Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

18:31 Righteousness in the Old Testament, the New Testament, is not a thing. I mean, you can't buy ten pounds of righteousness. Righteousness always deals with relationship. So that when we read that Abraham believed God and it was counted for him for righteousness, it meant that he had a relationship with God.

19:03 And that relationship with God is shown in our relationship with others. So that we are always concerned about the sin that destroys the relationship. It says we hunger, we thirst for that. We hunger and thirst for this relationship with God, hunger and thirst to have a right relationship with other people. because that is our condition blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy if you really want to have a relationship with other people one of the things that goes with that is that you give mercy instead of anger and judgment and then blessed are the pure in heart for they'll see God This kind of righteousness that we need so desperately and that we mourn for, that comes because we recognize our poverty of spirit, not the righteousness that prays in the marketplace and makes long prayers, wants to be seen in people.

20:28 It's got integrity. It's honest. And then, blessed are the peacemakers. For they shall be called the sons and gathered daughters of God. The mark of being in his family is you're always trying to make peace. you're always trying to help people understand that the warfare between God and men and women is over. That God has signed a peace treaty, the blood of his son, and he is satisfied with the death of Christ, take away the sin that separates us from God, and we need to be satisfied with what satisfies him.

21:23 And we're concerned about peace with other people. Wherever we go as peacemakers, we want to break down the walls between Jew and Gentile, between Caucasian and African American. between Catholics and Protestants.

21:50 Wherever we go as best we can, we are trying to do what we can to bring people together because they, if they know God, ought not live in animosity towards one another. That's the mark of those who are his sheep. And when you are that kind of person, little acts of kindness and love and generosity of spirit come from your life as normally and naturally as wool grows on the back of a suit. So I thought about all of that. I tried to picture what that judgment would be like. I'm sure it's a distortion, but you know, it's the best I could do.

22:51 I can imagine myself standing before the king. The king would say to me, Robinson, do you have your date book with you? I'd say, yes, Lord, I do. I know I wasn't supposed to bring anything with me, but I brought it in and got past customers. Yeah, I do. I have it right here.

23:22 The king would say to me, okay, look up March 6, 1996. Oh, yes, yes. That was the day Lord at Newsweek magazine said that I was one of the 12 outstanding preachers in the English speaking world. I don't know anything about that

23:51 I never read news magazines. I mean you know how inaccurate they are, they have something like that in there, you couldn't believe it. No, do you remember that day, after class, as you were leaving, everybody else had gone. There was a young woman sitting one row from the back.

24:25 And you asked her how she was doing, and she said, oh, all right. And then you said, well, how are you doing, really? She began to week. And she said that her father had died. And a few weeks before her brother had also died. She found the grief more than she could carry. And you stopped and you spent some time and didn't keep another appointment. Do you remember that? I guess, Lord, I... Yeah, no, no, I don't... Maybe I... and you'll say I remember it when you stopped and talked to that young woman you were talking to me Look up in your book, November 17th, 1983.

25:34 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Lord, I remember that. That's when I was president of the Evangelical Theological Society at the meeting in Dallas. I remember I have it here, I read my paper on the relationship of the hermeneutics to the homiletics. The king will say, well, I don't know about that meeting. I never... I never attended many of those. I found them a little too stuffy. And I read the title of your paper and I didn't know what it meant so I didn't bother to read Do you remember before you left Denver to go down to Dallas, your wife Bonnie told you about a couple at the seminary. I allowed them to have a 26 day check in a 31 day month.

26:58 They're having a hard time. and your wife felt that you needed to do something for them, can you put some money in an envelope and just wrote a note and said,