Ennathinks

The fourth and final story in the Olivet discourse brings Jesus’ teaching on waiting to its climax.

What should the church do during the waiting period?

To this question Jesus has already answered through three parables: while the master is away, the bridegroom is delayed, the talents are entrusted, and after a long time the master is returning. The final story answers a different question:

What happens when He returns?

Christ is going to come and sit on his glorious throne. This is not a parable about possibility but a picture of certainty.

All the nations will be assembled before him. Not only the church. Not only unbelievers. But all the nations, all the peoples. Then he will separate them into two groups. The division is real and irreversible. Eternal destinies are settled.

What is striking is that both groups are surprised. The righteous did not realize they were serving Christ. The others did not realize they were neglecting him.

The goats are not portrayed as violent, oppressive, or openly rebellious people. They were simply passive when they encountered the needy. Yet that passivity becomes the basis of judgment.

What lessons can we glean from this story?

1. The Church Must Embody Visible Love

The church is called to be a community of love.

John, writing his Gospel at the close of the first century, records Jesus giving a new commandment during the Upper Room discourse: “Love one another.”

In what way was it new?

It was new because it became visible in the life of the church. The community that gathered around Christ displayed a kind of love that the world had rarely seen. Masters and slaves sat at the same table. Widows were cared for. The poor were remembered.

Tertullian, the early Christian writer, records how pagan observers would sometimes exclaim:

“See how they love one another!”

That statement was not about Christian doctrine. It was about Christian behavior.

The church today is called to the same visible love. Not love merely preached from pulpits, but love displayed in community life.

2. Faith Must Be Lived Out

Faith is not there merely to be recited as a creed or sung as a song. It must be lived out.

Paul instructs:

“Behave wisely towards outsiders; buy up every opportunity.” (Col. 4:5, NTE)

Today we spend enormous energy searching for opportunities to preach the gospel. Paul’s instruction is slightly different. Live the gospel in such a way that opportunities are cultivated by the watching world.

Young people today are often not looking for an elevated pulpit. They are looking for an authentic person with whom they can share their struggles. They want someone who will listen without immediately judging or cursing them. They want people who will ask questions and stay with them long enough for them to discover their answers.

Faith must be visible before it becomes audible.

3. Indifference Is Dangerous

Notice something remarkable in this story.

The righteous are not self-congratulatory and the unrighteous are not openly defiant.

True goodness flows naturally from the person.

Jesus had already taught this principle when speaking about giving:

“When you give money, don’t let your left hand have any idea what your right hand is up to.” (Mt. 6:3, NTE)

What does that mean?

It means let it happen like you sneeze or blink. You do not carefully plan either of them. They happen naturally. Helping others should flow from us in the same way.

But the unrighteous were shocked.

“When did we see you hungry or thirsty… and didn’t do anything for you?” (v.44)

Their problem was not open rebellion.

Their problem was indifference.

“If it had been you, Lord, we would have done something.”

But for the least, for the unnoticed, for the ordinary needy person, compassion never flowed from them.

They were not openly disobedient. They were simply passive.

Jesus teaches that indifference is also disobedience.

Passivity is not neutral ground.

4. Christ Is Present in the Ordinary

Ministry is not always dramatic.

Most often it happens in the ordinary rhythms of life.

The needs mentioned in this story are surprisingly ordinary: hunger, thirst, sickness, loneliness, nakedness, and hospitality. The responses expected are equally ordinary: giving food, offering water, providing clothing, welcoming strangers, and visiting the sick.

Christ identifies himself with these ordinary situations.

The ordinary pressures of life need not defeat us. Christ has given his people authority to overcome the daily obstacles, irritations, and challenges that seek to distract us from faithful service. Dr. E. Stanley Jones, commenting on Luke 10:19, interprets the snakes and scorpions mentioned by Jesus as the ordinary difficulties and irritations of daily life. God meets us in the routines of life.

A voice note to a couple navigating their first pregnancy.

A listening ear and a crying shoulder for a woman who is abused by her own husband.

A simple note written to a friend who has lost his father.

A phone call to a student who has failed his semester examinations.

A small connection given to a person searching for employment.

These are ordinary things.

And Christ is present in the ordinary.

Ministry is not always dramatic. It is daily faithfulness.

5. Judgment Is Real and Final

When we read this story of judgment and separation, we should not dismiss it as mythology or symbolic language with no reality behind it.

The whole Bible teaches that judgment is real.

In the grand narrative of God’s mission to renew creation through a new heaven and a new earth, judgment is the penultimate act. Evil must be dealt with so that renewal can flourish.

There is a real separation.

There are eternal consequences.

Christ will visibly return.

Every person will stand before him.

Every life will be evaluated.

Works do not earn salvation, but they reveal the reality of one’s relationship with God.

Salvation is by grace.

But grace produces a life that can be publicly examined at judgment.

Conclusion

The question at the final judgment is surprisingly simple.

Not:

“Did you know about Christ?”

But:

“Did your life show that you knew Him?”

The master has been away.

The bridegroom has been delayed.

The talents have been entrusted.

The waiting period will not last forever.

One day the King will sit on his glorious throne.

And when the waiting ends, the question will not merely be what we believed.

The question will be what that belief produced.