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In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Dear Saints, I’m excited because I just noticed something for the first time that I have, I don’t know how many years I’ve been alive, and I’ve never seen it before in the Nicene Creed, that we say I believe in the Holy Spirit, I believe in one holy Christian, an apostolic church, I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. I never, I never noticed that it said I look for that.
I know you’re saying, now, what are you doing being a pastor and not noticing those sorts of things? But can you…
I think that’s the advantage of the church here now that we think of the end of the world and we’re thinking about these things and we’re paying attention to this. This is how… that we’re not… we don’t just believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. We are actually looking forward to it. We’re looking forward to that day when the Lord will return in glory. We’re looking forward to that day when the shepherd will gather all the nations together and separate the sheep and the goats, and we’re longing for that day.
Now, this is an amazing thing because I think that whenever we think of the second coming of Jesus and the day of judgment, we are mostly filled with dread, and I don’t think that’s how the Bible wants us to be. Well, I know it’s not how it wants us to be, but I want to take away that dread from two different directions.
I want to pull the dread off of your hearts this way and pull it off this way. First, this way, I think that the way we think about the last day has a lot to do with how we consider the troubles of this life. On that day, when the Lord Jesus returns, He will bring an end to all the enemies of the Christian and all the enemies of the Christian church. And we know that there are a lot of enemies. We put them in three big categories, the world and the flesh and the devil.
And I think how we think about the last day has to do with what we consider most. Do we think mostly about the trouble of the world and the trouble that the devil brings to us or about the trouble of our own flesh, our own sin? Because we know that we are sinners. We know that we are guilty. We know that we’ve broken God’s law. We know that it’s a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God and that the Lord, when He comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead, that we are going to be amongst the living and the dead. So that it will also be a judgment day for us, and that’s a terrifying thing.
But when the Lord speaks of His return in glory, He first wants us to know that He is coming to make things right. And if we are burdened under the sins of the world and under the assaults of the devil, if we are realizing that all of these things are arrayed against us as the Lord’s people and are fighting against us, then that day comes as our deliverance, as our rescue.
Remember the picture of the guy trapped in the dungeon of the castle? And I have to say remember because I preach this all the time, and I don’t want you to think that I’m forgetting and I’m becoming an old man that tells the same stories over and over again. But remember this picture that goes like this: that day will come soon enough, I’m sure, that you’re trapped in the dungeon and you’re locked up in prison and the castle is surrounded by an army that’s throwing the cannonballs at the castle.
And every time the cannonball hits the side of the castle, it shakes and the dust falls from the ceiling and the castle is rattled to the roots of it, and there you are in the dungeon, and it’s a horrible place to be, until you realize that the army surrounding the castle is the army of your father who has gathered up all these people to come and rescue you. And then, every time the cannonball hits the side of the castle, you think, I’m one step closer to deliverance.
This is how it is in this world of troubles, that every trouble reminds us that we’re one step closer, and that on the last day, the Lord Jesus will be victorious over all of His enemies, which means He will be victorious over all of your enemies. Contrast that to a secular worldview, which says there is no life after death, there is no judgment, dead is dead, and the world will just go on until the sun explodes or whatever, and we realize that there is no hope for justice. There is no hope for things being made right.
There’s no hope for crimes and for sins being punished as they ought to be. It’s just everything is suffering and injustice and despair until you die and it’s over. The Christian knows, the church preaches, the Bible tells us that there is a day coming when the Lord will sit on the throne and His judgment will make everything right.
All of the wrongs committed against you, all of the things that have done, all of the hurt that you’ve experienced, all of the bad things, all of this will be made right. And that’s why we long for that day, like sufferers longing for rescue, like the sick longing for healing, like those who are lost in darkness longing for the light to come. And the light will come that last day as a day of justice, as a day of righteousness, as a day of vengeance of the Lord on all of His enemies.
That day comes to us who are the Lord’s people as a great gift, as the Lord making things right. Now that takes away the dread of that day on the one hand because we know that all of – especially if you’ve suffered in life, especially if you’ve been sinned against, especially if you’ve been hurt and abused and you’re just dealing with all of the consequences of all the nonsense of living in this fallen world – to know that the Lord will come back and He will judge those who have hurt you. He will make things right. That comes to us as a great comfort.
But we also have the middle kind of dread. We’re going to take this dread off the other way, and that is the dread not just of living in the sinful world and being attacked and assaulted by the devil. In other words, all the problems in the world that are out there that the Lord is going to fix, that’s good, but there’s a lot of problems that are in here. There’s a lot of sin that you and I have accomplished. There’s a lot of laws that we’ve broken, ten of them.
There’s a lot of things that we’ve done wrong. And we think that when the Lord comes back to judge the quick and the dead, that now we stand before Him and we will be judged by Him, and how is that going to go? That, I think, is the dread of it, and it should frighten us a little bit because, like Hebrews says, it’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
But here we come into a mystery, into, I think, what looks like a contradiction in the Scripture. In fact, I want to give it to you two different ways. The Bible, on the one hand, says that we will be saved by grace through faith apart from our works, and on the other hand, the Bible says that we’re going to be judged by our works.
We’ve got a hint of that in the gospel lesson, the sheep and the goats, where all the things that the sheep did are listed and all the things that the goats didn’t do are listed. That’s not the main point of that text; we’ll get to the main point in a little bit, but we know that judgment is going to be by works and yet how can it be that the judgment is based on works and salvation is based on faith?
Or let me even see if I can put it to a point. The Bible teaches this: it teaches on the one hand that everyone will appear before the judgment seat of Christ to be judged for all that they’ve done, and the Bible also teaches that the Christian will not be judged. Now how can both of these things be true? Can I just read you two texts? This is just a great thing for us to meditate on.
I want to read first from 2 Corinthians 5, verse 10. Paul writes this: “Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well-pleasing to Him, to the Lord, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”
Now compare that to John chapter 5, the words of our Lord Jesus, who says this in verse 24: “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 to life.”
Now, which is it? Will we appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive what we’ve done in the body, whether good or bad, or will we not come into judgment? How do we sort that out? This is, you know, the atheists like to collect these things and put them in books to show the contradictions in the Scriptures, but it is for us very helpful to meditate on these things and to think deeply about it.
I think what the Lord has done is given us a hint at it in our gospel lesson. When those who are gathered to His right, the sheep, there’s no mention at all of any of the sins that they’ve committed. There’s no mention at all of the things that they’ve done wrong. There’s no listing of all the mistakes that they’ve made. Why? Why? Because they are all forgiven.
And here’s how it works. The Lord Jesus, who loves you, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, He has taken all of your sin, all of your failures, all of your law-breaking, all of your mistakes, all of the things that you’ve failed to do right, and all of the wicked, evil things that you’ve accomplished in your mind, and in your mouth, and in your hands, all of it, He has taken upon Himself, and he has carried it all to the cross.
And there He is, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, which means your sin, so that that sin, your sin, all of it, has already been judged. It’s already been condemned in Christ. And by His crucifixion, all that you have done wrong has been cast into the sea. It’s been forgotten. It’s gone.
The Lord doesn’t remember it. Can you imagine trying to talk to the Lord, like, “Hey, Lord, remember that time that I…” What are you talking about? He’s forgotten. It’s been wiped out. It’s been wiped off of the book by this blood of Jesus so that when it comes to the judgment day, when it’s time for you to appear before the Lord, the only thing left to judge are all the things that you’ve done right. You don’t even remember doing any of them.
And the Lord, now for you, for the forgiven, for the Christian, the judgment day now is not a day of condemnation, but a day of commendation. It’s not the day when all your sins are punished; that’s happened already. It’s a day when all of the good works that the Lord has worked through you by the power of the Holy Spirit when those things are rewarded.
This is why it’s not a fearful day. Look, I know you’ve sinned. You know I’ve sinned. We’re all in this mess together. That’s the whole reason why the Lord Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave and put a baptismal font right here and His body and blood right there, so that He could take away all of those sins so that there is nothing to be afraid of on the judgment day.
And that’s what Jesus means when He says that for those who believe My Word, there is no condemnation, there’s no judgment, there’s no condemnation, there’s no judgment. They passed from death to life already. We’ll stand before the Lord on that day so that the Lord can surprisingly give more gifts to us and welcome us into His kingdom.
Now, this is an amazing thing, then, to know, so that we would look for the last day. All the trouble that’s troubled us, the Lord will judge. All the sin has been taken away, and so that that last day now comes to us, not to expose our guilt and our shame and show us the things that we’ve done wrong, no.
It shows us it’s the Lord Jesus who’s revealed in His kindness to us. When He says it like this in the Gospel of Luke and He’s talking about all the events, the crazy things happening on the last day, when He’s returning again in glory, and He says, “Lift up your heads because your redemption draws near.” The last day is not judgment drawing near, destruction drawing near, fright drawing near, shame drawing near, guilt drawing near. No. The last day is Jesus drawing near, and He was crucified already for you and risen from the dead so that it’s nothing to be afraid of.
So, that on the last day, He’s already told you what you’re going to hear, which is amazing. He’s rehearsed the words, and here we can rehearse listening. He’ll say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Now, there’s one thing that we want to put our attention on to end with, and this is, I think, the point of the text that Jesus is giving to us in Matthew 25. He told three parables to prepare us for the last day. The first one is the five wise, five foolish virgins, and that prepares us to be ready and also to wait. He told us the parable of the talents, and that tells us that while we’re waiting, we’re not just sitting around; we’re actually trying to do stuff to serve Him and bless the neighbor.
And then he tells the parable of the sheep and the goats, which very quickly is not a parable; it’s just a description of this last day. And the thing that Jesus wants to lean in on is not that the sheep are those who are doing good works and the goats are those who are not doing good works. It appears to us that both the sheep and the goats were doing things.
They were both feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, visiting those in prison. It seems like they were doing that, and that’s not the point. Jesus is not telling us to go and do good works. In fact, the parable assumes that we’re already doing the good works. The question is, who are we doing the works for?
Because remember what Jesus says to those who are on the right. He says, “I was hungry, and you fed me.” Now you have to think that the sheep are thinking about all the people that they fed, and they’re like, “Well, I remember feeding my kids, and I remember helping feed my parents, and I remember feeding the neighbor, and I remember that barbecue, but I don’t ever remember you being there, Jesus.”
“I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you helped; you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.” And the sheep are thinking about all the, and they’re just, and so they say, “Jesus, when did we see you hungry? When did we see you thirsty? When did we visit you in prison?”
And Jesus says it like this: “As you did it to the least of these, My brothers, you did it to Me.” And here’s the point, the punchline of all of it. When Jesus tells us the parable of the ten virgins, we think the bridegroom is gone and coming back.
When Jesus tells us the parable of the talents and the master who’s gone and then comes back, but the master is gone and we’re waiting for him. And then he tells the sheep and the goat, and the king is gone, and he’s going to come and judge. But here’s the point is that Jesus is not gone. He’s not absent. He’s not far away.
When He tells you that He’s coming, it’s true that He will return in glory on the last day and show Himself to us as He in the radiant splendor of His resurrected ruling glory, but that doesn’t mean that He’s not here. In fact, He is here. He says it like this: “When you feed the hungry person, the brother – you feed Me.”
He’s there. Jesus is there in your brother’s need. He is there in your sister’s sickness. He’s there in your neighbor’s imprisonment. He’s here with us, and that means that when we serve one another, we are serving Him.
The Christian is not to think that we are the servants of an absent Lord, but servants of the Lord who is present with us in the need of our neighbor so that when we bless one another, we are blessing Him, and He receives it as that blessing.
Can you imagine that all the humble work that we do, not only just to love the people that we love, but to love the people that we don’t love? All of that the Lord Jesus receives as a gift, and He honors us for it. It’s an amazing dignity. It’s like the Lord taking a scribble on the back of an envelope, and He gives it like first prize in an art gallery.
He takes all the little dinky, trying to love the neighbor stuff that we’re doing, and He says, “This is your crown of glory on the last day.” And not only that, not only is the Lord not absent for us in our love for one another, He is not absent from us in His serving us.
The Lord who is returning on the last day is here right now. Jesus is here in the Word. He was there in the water when you were baptized, and He’s here on the table, His body and blood, and here He is not to be served, but to serve you and to forgive your sins.
So, we are waiting. We’re waiting for the last day. We’re waiting for the Lord to return in glory. We’re waiting for the angels to blow the trumpets and the voice of the archangel to shout and the dead to be raised and all people to be gathered together and the judgment of the quick and the dead.
We’re not just waiting; we’re looking for that day, right? But we are not looking for the absent Lord to return. We’re looking for the present Lord to return. The one who is already here with us is the one who is coming for us.
And this is our confidence on the last day. Not a day of fear, not a day of judgment, but the day of deliverance, the day that we long for, the day of the resurrection of the dead, and the day that we see the Lord who is here face to face in glory. So may God give us this comfort of His own presence while we wait for the last day. May God grant it for Christ’s sake, Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
