Sunday, June 26, 2022 PM

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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Let's open our Bibles and turn to Matthew 25. Matthew 25, we'll be reading verses 14 through 30.

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Let's begin with the word of prayer. Father, we thank you for this night. We thank you for the joyous fellowship that we have in Christ by your spirit.

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And we ask now that you would help us as we read your word, that you would encourage our hearts and that you would clarify your truth in our lives.

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And may we give an amen to the truth of your word. We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

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Matthew 25, beginning in verse 14. For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them.

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And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability.

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And immediately he went on a journey. Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them and made another five talents.

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And likewise he who had received two gained two more also. But he who had received one went and dug in the ground and hid his

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Lord's money. After a long time, the Lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them.

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So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying,

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Lord, you delivered to me five talents. Look, I have gained five more talents besides them.

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His Lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You were faithful over a few things.

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I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your

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Lord. He also who had received two talents came and said,

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Lord, you delivered to me two talents. Look, I have gained two more talents besides them.

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His Lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things.

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I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord. Then he who had received the one talent came and said,

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Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.

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And I was afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.

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But his Lord answered and said to him, You wicked and lazy servant.

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You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed.

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So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest.

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So take the talent from him and give it to him who has ten talents. For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance.

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But from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.

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And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

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So having gone through a detailed study of Matthew 24, and seeing the very clear time indicators of the judgment that Jesus proclaims there, coming upon the city condemned to judgment,

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Jerusalem, we then see a change of subject matter when we come to chapter 25.

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Having regarded the end of the Old Covenant, the question remains, what is it like to still live in the light of the fulfillment of the

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Old Covenant, namely Jesus Christ? What is it like to live following Jesus, who is the fulfillment of all these shadows and types?

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Hey, we're not going to be going to the temple three times a year and having all these feasts and these dietary laws and offering up these sacrifices and everything's going to be different.

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Now what is that like? Well, Jesus has been teaching in depth throughout the Gospel of Matthew, the kingdom of heaven is like, the kingdom of heaven is like, the kingdom of heaven is like.

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And he's saying, what's it like to live with Jesus as king in the New Covenant? How are we supposed to live in anticipation of his ultimate victory in return to set all things right?

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And so, when we come to chapter 25 and verse 1, and he says, then the kingdom of heaven shall be like, and he has another parable following that up about the kingdom of heaven, we are to read these and interpret these in light of everything he's been saying before in Matthew 13 and 18 and 22 and so on.

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So now we come to this parable of the talents, the last of the kingdom parables. Just prior to the declaration of the return of Christ to judge all mankind.

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And so we are looking at the parable of the talents. Now we see some similar themes in this parable as to the other parables that we have looked at.

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Namely, that the king, or in this case a man traveling to a far country, the one who has the authority, who is going to be the king of the kingdom, that he goes away for a time.

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And as usual, it's a long time. And those who are left behind have an opportunity to either do what is right or to do what is wrong.

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And that everything that they have, that they're working with, belongs to him, belongs to this king, belongs to this person of authority.

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And so when he comes back, there's going to be a rendering, there's going to be a reckoning, there's going to be a judgment, and it's going to be made manifest by what they have made of what belongs to the king.

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And we see that he distributes some talents. These are fairly significant amounts of money, that's what these are.

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And these are precious metals weighed out in significant amounts.

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Now he hands out these talents. Now what's the, why were they given out and in what order, in what reasoning were they handed out?

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What does the text say? Okay, so according to their ability, their ability to do what?

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Make more money. So the king is investing with his servants, leaving with his servants these amounts of money and he gives to each according to their ability and he expects them to do something with it.

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And he's going to be gone for a while and they're going to have plenty of opportunity to do something with it. Now the one who had five, took those five and labored and worked hard and ended up with five more.

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The one who had two, took those and worked and put things at risk and labored and came back with two more.

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Now what was the reward for these servants? What was the reward for these faithful servants?

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What does the text say? You were faithful over a few things,

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I'll make you ruler over many things. What good is that?

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Congratulations, you've been promoted, there's more responsibility. Some of you know that. What's the real reward here though in the text?

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Enter into the joy of your Lord, there it is. Yeah, enter into the joy of the

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Lord. To know his pleasure and his delight in these faithful servants as they took what was his and did something with it that brought him more glory.

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Don't forget that the metaphor, the word picture behind glory is from the

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Hebrew kibbutz, which means weight. The Old Testament says that Abraham was a glorious man.

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He was very weighty, he had many servants and much cattle and a great deal of wealth. He was a significant man in the world in which he lived, he was very weighty.

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Ralph Bullard was a weighty man. Everywhere I went with Ralph Bullard, he'd sit down and everybody in the room just gathered around him like he was the center of gravity.

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I'm serious, he was a glorious man, he was a weighty man. Now, in this case, this ruler, this king, handed out these talents, these significant amounts of weight, of precious metal, and they took those and they came back with more and they added to the weight, they added to the glory of their

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Lord. So they took what their Lord had given to them and they took that and they ultimately glorified their

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Lord even more. You see what happens in the text. And so, they are rewarded with joy.

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They enter into the joy of the Lord. He is very pleased with them. Now let's look at this third servant.

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He was given according to his ability. He was given one talent instead of two, instead of five, he was given one talent.

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And let's consider his complaint first of all. What were his actions?

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What was his complaint? Why was this the wrong perspective? So he got one talent, what did he do with it?

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Right. Yeah, so he calls up, he founds a new financial institution called

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Bunker Inc. And he goes and takes this talent and he hides it in his bunker and says, there now, it'll be safe.

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Didn't I do good? But why did he do that? Why did he take this amount that his

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Lord had given to him? Why did he go hide it and bury it? What was his complaint? Gathering where you have not scattered seed.

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Yeah. I knew you to be a hard man. He had to be afraid he would lose it.

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Sure. Afraid that he would lose it. Afraid that he would. Yeah. But see, what does he say?

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What does he say? I knew you to be a hard man. But hard man how? That if I failed to make any money with it, that you would, that you'd do something terrible to me.

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Is that his complaint? He didn't have it. And didn't care about whether.

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Right. Yeah. He didn't have it.

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He had no respect for him, no reverence. He did not, he did not want. He did not want to increase the glory of his

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Lord. He found fault with his Lord. You're a hard man. I don't like the fact that you reap where you have not sown.

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I don't like the fact that you gather where you did not scatter seed. You know,

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I, you know, what is he doing here? Here is the servant out of the three who has the least ability out of them all.

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The least ability. But he thinks he has a higher morality than his

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Lord. He knows more about what is right and fair and just than even his

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Lord and his King. He knows more about what is fair and equitable and just.

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And has a higher sense of morality than his other fellow servants who are of greater ability and better work ethic than him.

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He's the lazy servant, but he thinks he knows more about work. He's the cowardly servant, but he thinks he knows more about courage.

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He's the unjust servant, but he thinks he knows more about righteousness. And he thinks he's more holy than his

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Lord. And so he tells his Lord how his Lord is wrong. Uh, how'd that go?

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That didn't go well at all. Now Romans 3 tells us that the law speaks to all those who are under the law.

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That every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may become guilty before God. Meaning that we may think we have a lot of legitimate excuses to point fingers at everybody else around us, including blaming

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God. But in the light of God's word, where God's holy character is revealed in his law and we see

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God for who he really is, we're left with Job with our hands over our mouths. I've got nothing to say.

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Now for some people that comes way too late. And they are only brought to that place and time at the day of judgment where they are left without any excuses and they realize

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I've got nothing to say, I stand condemned. Like we saw about the man in the parable of the wedding feast where the man was caught without any wedding clothes and he had nothing to say because he had no justification.

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So we see an illegitimate complaint from the wicked and lazy servant.

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And remember that Jesus says that the standard with which you judge, you shall be judged.

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So here watch this Lord take up the standard of this servant's judgment and use it to judge him.

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What does he say? Verse 26, you wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed.

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So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers and at my coming

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I would have received back my own with interest. He says, if it's true that you knew these things and believe this complaint that you've just made about me, then you should have acted upon it accordingly and you would have had something to give to me when

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I got caught. He didn't even live up to his own beliefs. And so in the claim to a higher, superior righteousness and morality, he didn't even live up to it.

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It was not his principles, it was simply his criticism.

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That's right. So the point is, not that merely he was lazy.

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Not merely, the fact of the matter is, his wickedness is found in the fact that he did not want to bring glory to his

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Lord. Right? I don't want to increase the glory of my Lord, I don't want to increase his wealth,

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I don't want to do anything for him, I'm all about me and self -preservation. Jesus says if you seek to save your life, you're going to lose it.

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But if you lose your life and give yourself for him, and like these other two who gave themselves to the magnification of the glory of their

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Lord, and they made their lives all about his glory, well then look. Look at their eternal life. Look at their eternal reward.

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But we see the catastrophic end of the wicked servant. We read in verse 30, cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

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Now, what we're looking at here is a parable that tells us about the kingdom of heaven.

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And again, if we want to understand the kingdom, we have to look at the king. And having been given all authority in heaven and on earth,

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Jesus is king of everybody whether they like it or not. And there are plenty who have been made in God's image, who live on Christ's turf, breathe his air, and enjoy day after day on his time, and have no desire whatsoever to give glory to their

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Lord, even though they live in the 2 ,022nd year of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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They don't want to give him the time of day. They don't want to give him anything or increase anything to his glory.

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So what is the end of that? There'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth. It's about a rejection of the

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Lord of glory versus those who love the Lord, who are indeed born again, saved, their hearts are different, they're a part of the new covenant, filled with the

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Spirit of God, who desire to glorify God. I want to live my life to glorify the

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Lord. I hope he's pleased with me. I want to take what he has given to me, whatever it may be.

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My unique set of skills and opportunities and wealth and the days that he has accorded to me, and I want to take up my opportunities and my relationships, and whatever it is,

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I really want to take it and to use it for something good and lasting. I want to use it for my

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Lord. You see the difference between the two attitudes, which come from two different types of hearts.

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And we see as with the other parables of the kingdom, the story ends with the master coming back or the king coming back, and then the two different types of people are sifted.

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You have the good fish and the bad fish. You have the wheat and the tares. You have the sheep and the goats.

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So you have a separation time and again. Here's the wise virgins, here's the foolish virgins.

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When the master shows up, when he comes back, he sifts everything and puts everybody into two groups.

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And that's going to happen when Christ returns. And we see that there's a difference.

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There are those who enter into the joy of the Lord because they love the Lord. They work for Him and labor for Him and do things that are meaningful to Him.

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And then there are those who don't want to give glory to God and they just live for themselves. And that difference is exposed at the end of all things.

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And that's how this parable gives clarity to the kingdom of heaven.

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And when we read this passage, immediately after it, what do we finally get to?

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The end of chapter 25. When the Son of Man comes in His glory, verse 31, and all the holy angels with Him, then

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He will sit on the throne of His glory. So when He returns,

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He returns in glory. I'm going to get ahead of myself and start preaching my notes for the next Acts sermon.

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But all the nations, all the ethnoi, all the people groups are going to be gathered before Him.

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And He's going to separate them one from another. As a socialist divides the brown from the black, from the white from the yellow.

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What? That doesn't say that. He's going to separate them as a

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Marxist divides the poor from the rich. No? What's He going to do?

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All the nations, all the ethnoi, all the different people groups are going to be gathered before Him. And He's going to separate them one from another as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.

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Sheep from the goats. So here's the classification that matters to our Lord. Here's the classification that matters to the

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King. He will set the sheep on His right hand but the goats on His left.

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And He's going to 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.

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Now we just looked at wise servants who made much of what the

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Lord had invested with them. You want to know what those talents look like and things that are meaningful to the

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Lord that please the Lord? You ready to see some of it? Here's some examples.

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If 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, I was naked and you clothed me,

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I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer

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Him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and take you in or naked and clothe you?

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Or when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you? And the

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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.

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Who are Christ's brethren? You know what's very significant to Christ when it's all said and done?

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How we loved the brethren. How we loved the brethren. And that is a great deal to Christ when it's all said and done.

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How we loved the brethren. By this all men will know that you are my disciples by the love that you have for one another.

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You know, it should not be that we would continue in sin thinking that grace would abound.

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It is not that we should continue in the old ways of the flesh and act treacherously against one another or to slander or to steal or to treat one another lowly.

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It's a joy to be a part of the family of Christ. To constantly receive and to give the blessings of living by the fruit of the

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Spirit with one another. And this matters a great deal to Jesus. It matters a great deal how we treat the brethren not only in our churches but also in our own families.

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How we treat one another. Husbands and wives and parents and children. How we treat one another in Christ.

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Well, this is like those who were wise and invested wisely to bring glory, more and more glory to their

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Lord. It's not the only ways to do it but this is a good example. So this is not an exhaustive list of what

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Jesus is interested in because there's a lot more in the Word that we can find. But here's an example. And it should humble us, right?

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It should humble us. Sometimes we think, well, this means we must build empires for Jesus. How about loving each other?

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Let's start there and watch things grow. Alright. Verse 41. Then he will say to those who are on the left hand, depart from me you cursed into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

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So again, when the Son of Man comes, and John 5 says when he comes he raises all the dead both the wicked and the righteous at the same time and brings them before him and he sifts them and he judges them.

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So he has all mankind before him at the same time. He says to those on the left, depart from me you cursed into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

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If I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. 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.

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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?

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And 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.

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And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

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Do you see how the kingdom is all about the king? It's all about the king. Jesus says, the way that you treat the least of these my brethren, you do it to me.

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And by not loving the brethren, you are not loving me. It comes down to Christ.

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The kingdom comes down to the king. How do we treat the king? How do we relate to the king? And at the end of everything, that's what matters.

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That's what matters. That's what makes the distinction. Our relationship to the king. That's what matters.

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If we reflect upon that and we go back and we look at all of the kingdom parables,

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I think that that principle will ring true. Any questions or thoughts as we have wrapped up our study on the kingdom of heaven?

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Yes? I don't business who the king is, but they want to be the king of their own lives.

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And we've had discussions about it, and they've been mad at me, and I've continued to be kind to them, but they're making their own choice.

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And it grieves me to see that in the end, how they're going to see.

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And yet, while we're sitting here tonight, I'll bet then they won't even give up. They'll say, I'm just so mad about it.

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You know? It's just so interesting to me. They understand the plan of salvation, and they don't want it.

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Yeah. Jesus says in order to follow him, you have to take up your cross, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him.

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And for a variety of reasons, it seems absolutely reprehensible for people to deny themselves.

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Whether it's my agenda, my way of living, my interests, my vices that I'm not going to give up.

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Many times it comes down to my identity. I'm not going to give up my identity to take upon Christ.

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I want to be known for being something else. It's amazing because in both their lives, you can't be one thing and yet you still.

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Right. Yes. It's true. Yes, Brian. I put this in that vein because the point you have made in my days is hand to hand.

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Every man at his best.

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Right. Yeah. And this is acknowledged by the writer of Ecclesiastes, sometimes on a very despairing note.

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What's the point? But then Jesus tells us the point. Yes, Brother Ken. Reading what it is, this is a secondary, the socialist and the

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Marxist towards the capitalist. It is this cry of, you're unfair.

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It is, it's critical fear. The oppressed. Nothing is ever, we're always being mistreated, and you're never.

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So it's interesting to see how that is not a new thing. It's been around a long time.

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Yes, the one talent servant was very upset about the unequal distribution of resources according to a meritocracy.

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So it is interesting that you see that. It's interesting the goat is calling

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Lord. In Matthew 7,

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Jesus says, not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven.

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Some of them are not going to hear, enter into the joy of your Lord. They're going to hear, depart from me, you workers of iniquity.

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I never knew you. Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is

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Lord. Somebody told me a true story about a missionary in India or someplace, and he was trying to win this man to Christ over a long period of time.

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And finally, the guy comes in and says, look, I've had it. I don't want your religion.

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I don't want your Bible. I don't want your Jesus. I don't want any of this. And the missionary says, well, go to hell then.

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Yeah, that's unfortunately the only alternative. Jesus did not mince words about that, showing that there's no hope for those who rage against the king.

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Well, I hope that this has been a helpful study for all of you.

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Next Sunday evening, we're going to have our special 70th birthday and rejoice and reflect upon all that the

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Lord has done for us and rejoice in His goodness. And then after that, we'll pick up on our next study.