Virgins, Servants, and Sheep
Matthew 25:1-34
Introduction
We are on week seven of a nine-week series on Heaven.
Today’s sermon is a continuation of last week’s sermon on
the life-defining topic of God’s eternal judgment. Now,
just hearing today’s sermon will be helpful. But you really
need to hear last week’s sermon as well to get a full
understanding of this supremely important topic. So I encourage
you to get a copy of last week’s sermon on either CD, tape or on
the web.
So, we are exploring this serious yet exciting topic of how God will
judge the lives of Christians to determine their degree of eternal
reward. We are doing so by asking and answering five
questions. Last week we explored three questions. This
morning we will explore the next question which is: What measurements
will God use to evaluate our life?” Then in the last two
sermons in this Heaven series, we’ll explore the last question:
“What all will be included in our eternal rewards?”
How Will God Evaluate Our Life To Determine Eternal Rewards?
We are going to examine four standards of measurement as to how Christ will judge our life.
1. First Measurement: Only good works
done for the glory of God in the power of the Holy Spirit earn eternal
reward.
One truth is undeniably clear from the Bible: God does everything
for His own glory. Likewise, we are commanded and called to do
everything for the glory of God.
· 1 Corinthians 10:31 makes this clear:
“…whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
· So clearly, when Christ judges the eternal
value of good works, one measurement will be, “was a particular
deed done more for God’s glory or ours?”
· Every second we are sinner and saint, so we are incapable of doing any act from pure motives!
· The question is always a matter of degree,
in any given act are we operating more in the Spirit than out of our
sinful nature.
Now here is the most important point of this whole sermon.
· Just as salvation is solely a gift from God,
so our ability to do anything of value for God is a gift from God.
· The faith that saves is the same faith that
produces good works, and all faith is a gift of grace.
· The Bible, in places like the book of Romans
and Galatians, tell us clearly that it is impossible to please God
without the Holy Spirit living in us, and empowering us to love God and
love others.
· Being a follower of Christ and obeying
God’s holy standards is not a hard thing. It’s an
impossible thing!
· Unless you have the Holy Spirit living in
you, and unless you are operating in the power of the Spirit, you are
incapable of doing the good works of faith that please and glorify God,
and that will earn eternal rewards.
This is one of the main points of the “Parable of the Ten
Virgins.” Like all parables, this one operates on many
levels of meaning. One level of meaning is this:
· The oil is the Holy Spirit, the Bridegroom
is Christ, and the wedding banquet is the eternal kingdom of God.
· The five foolish virgins represent those who
try to live a moral life, but are motivated by legalism, and do good
works solely through their own abilities.
· This group is not legalistic Christians; they are not true Christians at all.
· They do not have the Holy Spirit living in
them, which is the only sure mark of being an adopted child of
God. Therefore, they are shut out of God’s eternal kingdom
completely.
· The five wise virgins are authentic
Christians filled with the Holy Spirit, and so they were granted
entrance into Heaven, into the “wedding banquet.”
You must fully grasp this foundational truth or the rest of this sermon
will be received as legalism, condemnation, or guilt.
· Your ability to become a child of God in the
first place, and then to live as a child of God are both gifts from
God.
· Doing works that please God require
God’s gifts of grace, faith, and the Holy Spirit working through
you. That is why the “good works” of the unsaved do
not earn eternal reward.
Now that’s good news! It means that this thing of doing
good works, and earning eternal reward, is not something we have to
feel guilty about, or fret about, or try to muster up enough self-will
or self discipline to do.
· God gives us the standards that we must live
by to please Him, and then God gives us the desire and the ability to
live by these standards! That’s the amazing gospel!
· The gift of faith and grace that saves is
the same gift of faith and grace that empowers us to love God and love
others. It’s a package deal!
Which leads us to our next standard of measurement as to how Christ will judge our life:
2. Second Measurement: Every true
Christian does good works as authentic faith always produces such works.
· In places in the Bible like the book of
James, God makes it clear that there is no such thing as faith without
good works. This would be like having a fire with no heat.
· The same faith that saves a person is the
same faith that bears the fruit of good works. You can not have
one without the other.
· So, every Christian will bear some degree of
the fruit of the Holy Spirit and so will engage in acts of love toward
God and others. It’s an inescapable reality for every
believer!
This again is good news!
· It means that no Christian will stand before
the throne of grace and hear the most dreadful words that any human
could ever hear from the lips of God, “Go way from me, I never
knew you!”
In the parables we just read, the foolish virgins shut out of the
wedding feast, and the wicked servant “thrown outside into the
darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,”
where not Christians who failed to do good works, or who died in a
state of being “backslidden.” Remember the gospel truth from last week, “You cannot earn your
way into heaven, and you cannot sin your way out of heaven!’
No, these foolish virgins and wicked servants represent the unsaved.
Every Christian, when he or she stands
before the judgment seat of Christ will hear these words: “Come,
you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom
prepared for you since the creation of the world.”
That’s the good news of the gospel!
But now here’s the sobering news of
the gospel. Not every Christian will hear these words from the
lips of Christ, “Well done good and faithful servant,”
because not every Christian lives like a good and faithful servant.
Here is where the degree of eternal reward
comes in. The most shocking Bible passage that reveals this truth
about eternal judgment is:
1 Corinthians 3:1-15 (we are going to read only verses 7-15 now):
(In speaking about doing the work of God, Paul says:)
“Neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything,
but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the
one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded
according to their own labor. For we are God's co-workers; you
are God's field, God's building.”
“By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise
builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should
build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the
one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones,
wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because
the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire,
and the fire will test the quality of each person's work.”
“If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a
reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet
will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the
flames.”
This Bible passage reveals that:
· Only ministry (good deeds) done based on serving Jesus Christ earn reward
· Each of our acts of serving God and others
have a varying degree of value to them in God’s evaluation
· There are some acts of ministry that will
not survive God’s judgment, and so will earn no reward.
· Even if all a person’s life work was
completely devoid of all eternal value, he or she will not lose
salvation (since salvation is not based on good works). They will
just enter heaven “as one barely escaping through the
flames!”
So this leads us to the next standard of measurement as to
how Christ will judge our life to what determine whether our
life’s work is gold, silver, wood, or hay:
3. Third Measurement: Christ evaluates
our life based on the measure of faith given to us, not in comparison
to the works of others.
One of the parables we read earlier was about three servants who were
each given different amounts of money to invest. It says that the
amount of money they received, was “according to their
abilities.” When the master returned, he judged them based on how they each used
the amount given to them. The two servants who invested wisely,
each received the same reward. The one who earned five more bags of gold did not get a greater reward
then the one who earned two more bags of gold, as each doubled their
money.
In Romans 12:3-8, we discover the application of this parable:
“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not
think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of
yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith
God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many
members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in
Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all
the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given
us.”
This is good news! This means that my ministry will not be evaluated in comparison to say a Billy Graham!
· God will judge each of our lives based on
how well we used the measure of faith and grace given to each of us.
We will not be judged by the world’s standards of success.
The woman who faithfully raises her children will be as richly rewarded
as the missionary woman, if each served according to their particular
callings.
The man who lovingly cares for a wife who became unexpectedly bedridden
for the remainder of her life, will be just as richly rewarded as the
man who sold everything he had to declare the gospel to an unreached
people group.
· God will judge our life based on how well we
responded to the person right in front of us at any given time with His
love and His gifts and His power and His gospel!
Which leads us to our fourth standard of measurement as to how Christ will judge our life:
4. Fourth Measurement: Christ measures our life by the standards of faith, hope, and love.
The world measures the value of a life by fame, beauty, talent, power,
and material possessions. Even within the institutional church,
there is a tendency to measure the value of person by how many souls
they won to Christ, how much money they give, how big they can grow a
church, or how talented they are in singing, preaching, or worship
leading, etc.
But listen to 1 Corinthians 13 and discover how God measures the value of any particular act of ministry::
“If I speak in human or angelic tongues, but do not have love, I
am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the
gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if
I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am
nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my
body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain
nothing.”
“….And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
What an amazing, confronting, shocking passage!
· Christ is warning us that if we preach and
teach without being motivated by loving God and loving others, even the
most polished and Biblical of sermons is just noise!
· If we operate in the gifts of the Holy
Spirit without also walking in the fruit of the same Spirit, such
ministry is building with hay and sticks and will burn.
· We can do mighty acts of faith, yet if they
are not also mighty acts of love, they may minister to others, but we
will profit no reward from them.
· We can be sacrificially generous to the
poor, even follow Christ’s command to sell all we have and follow
Him, yet if we do so motivated by fear, guilt, shame, or legalism
instead of love, we gain nothing in terms of reward.
· We can exercise such an extreme degree of
self-discipline so that we live a life free from every habitual or
grievous sin, but if we do so in our own power and for our own glory,
than all such obedience will not earn a single reward.
· When we stand before the judgment seat of
Christ, and Christ evaluates every act and every word of our life, He
will examine the motivation in our heart, not the external act.
Christ will determine the eternal value of each act as to how much it
was driven by the love, faith, and hope empowered by the Holy Spirit
within us.
When Christ separates out the “sheep” from the
“goats” what is the basis on His judgment?
“….for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty
and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed
me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care
of me, I was in prison and you visited me…. as you did it to one
of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to
me.”
Now here again is the most important point of this sermon. The
faith and grace that grants us eternal life in heaven, is the same
faith and grace that empowers us to live a life of faith, hope, and
love that pleases God and earns eternal reward. Both our
salvation and our good works are a grace gifts from God!
If you focus on the earning reward, you’ll never live a life that
earns reward. If you focus on being a good person in your own
strength, you’ll cut yourself off from the power of the Holy
Spirit that transforms you into a good person.
Here is the secret to living a life that pleases God primarily, and as a secondary benefit also earns eternal rewards:
- Pursue a dynamic, growing, close relationship with the triune God through Christ!
- A life of abiding in Christ is the only life that empowers us to love God and love others.
Here this same secret directly from God’s Word in John 15:5-12:
Jesus Christ assures us, "I am the vine; you are the
branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much
fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in
me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such
branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain
in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be
done for you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much
fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."
"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my
love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just
as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love. I
have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may
be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved
you.”
Micah 6:8 assures us: “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
A life lived in close relationship to Christ is the only life that
bears much fruit that pleases and glorifies the Heavenly Father.
A close relationship with Christ is the only life that keeps
one’s life work from being burned up in the fire of judgment.
Living a life in intimate relationship with Christ is the only life that fosters deep joy now and forever!
Christ is our reward, now and forever!