(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

If you have your Bibles with you, I encourage you to find your way over to Matthew chapter 25.

And as we look at Matthew chapter 25, I just really wanna begin to share my heart with you this morning, because as I've said before, and I'll continue to say, I believe that we're all on a journey, a physical journey, but we're also on a spiritual one.

And on that spiritual journey, as we begin to walk with God, that first on-ramp, if you will, is that we have to begin to connect with God.

And we do that by accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

We connect and admit that we're simply sinners, that we do things that God doesn't like, and then we simply have to believe that Jesus is the one and only Son of God that was sent to this earth to pay the price that we deserve.

And he did so upon that cross.

He was buried, but yet gloriously arose on that third day and now sits at the right hand of the Father.

And then we simply have to confess that Jesus is the Lord of our life.

And if today is that day where you've been thinking about it, praying about it, not sure what to do about it, if today's one of those days that you wanna make that decision, we wanna rejoice with you in that, we wanna celebrate with you on that.

And I'm gonna be like a flight attendant, I'll give you some directions this morning.

And it's understanding that you can go out to our prayer tent on your way out this morning and they'd love to pray with you and put some information in your hand.

But more importantly than that, if you wanna take that next step this afternoon at 4.30, we're having beach baptism.

Now let me make y'all clap a little louder.

Now hold on.

I looked just before we came back out, and as of this moment, there were 44 people signed up.

Woo!

I know Pastor Richard and I, as we're gonna be down there, here's what I'm telling you, we're gonna baptize them until they stop coming.

Amen!

So if you wanna be part of that this morning, you've been putting it off, don't do it any longer.

Go ahead and do it today.

The other thing about that connect is once we connect with God, we gotta connect with other believers.

We gotta form relationships to help us all along the journey.

The second thing is we have to begin to grow.

We have to begin to grow in our personal knowledge and understanding of who God is and what he wants for us in our lives, and how he wants us to live and work and act, and all those things.

Well then more importantly than that, we need to begin to grow with others.

We need to begin to come together as believers and dig into God's word, and there's no better way to do that than become part of one of our life groups here at the church.

Again, you can go out to our Connect 10 and they can get you signed up, they can give you information on how you can become part of our life groups.

But then we move into that next phase, that last point of serve.

And for those that know me, you know that that last part is my heart.

It's who I am at the very core of my being is I'm simply a servant of God.

I wanna be used by God in whatever way that looks like, however he wants us to do it.

And we all need to get to that point.

So we have to begin by serving God.

And what does the service look like?

What does serving God look like?

Well, every day, every Sunday here at the church, there are servants, there are volunteers that welcome you when you come into the building.

If you wanna become part of the welcome team, again, head out to the Connect 10 and we can help you with that.

That's what serving God looks like.

But then yesterday, we had our new campus cleanup and prayer over at the new campus and 28 people showed up to help.

Y'all can clap for that.

You know, I'm gonna clap for that.

Kevin Starr and I, we were simply overwhelmed.

But there was one picture that I took yesterday that I really think encapsulated the day.

And they're gonna put it up for you.

As Brother Bob Pops, known by some.

And I'm not gonna begin to tell you how old he is, but this is what I can tell you.

Here's where I'm gonna challenge you this morning.

If he can do it, why can't you?

That's what a servant of God looks like.

He can't do, as I talked about, all the things.

Our minds wanna do things, but then our body won't let us.

There's a lot of things his body won't let him do anymore, but he can come, sit on the back of a pickup truck, and hand out bottled water to volunteers.

That's what a servant of God looks like.

And I'm gonna challenge you this morning, if you're gonna be a servant of God, I'm gonna challenge you this morning to be a servant of God.

And think about that passage, and what I want you to see and understand is that if God, in the form of His Son Jesus, stepped off His throne and came to earth and humbled Himself to pay the price that you and I deserve and become a servant, how much more should we be servants of Him?

I mean, I think that's the lesson that Jesus is really trying us to see and get us to understand.

And as you lead up to chapter 25 and toward the end, this whole 23, chapters 23, 24, and 25 are really this last discourse.

It's the fifth and final sermon of Jesus as He's getting ready to leave.

And He's really wanting people to know and understand.

He really wants them to be ready for His coming when He comes back.

So He gives us warnings.

He gives us some stories and parables.

And as you go through those chapters, you begin to see and understand His hearts.

And then He gets to the end of chapter 25 in verse 31.

And that's where He begins to talk about Judgment Day.

And as you read all those other parables, Jesus likes to give illustrations to help us understand things.

Well, this particular passage, 31 through 46, it really isn't a parable.

It's really a prophecy.

It's really a prediction.

It's a vision, if you will, of a real-life event that's going to happen.

He's trying to warn us and prepare us for what's going to happen.

So if you have your Bibles, I encourage you to join me there in Matthew 25, the beginning in verse 31.

And it says this, it begins by saying, When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.

All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.

And He will set the sheep on His right hand, and the goats on His left.

Now, the first thing I need you to see and know and understand about this particular passage is there are really three main characters that we need to see.

The first one is the sheep.

And the sheep represent believers.

Then there's the goats, which represent non-believers.

And then the shepherd, the king, is Jesus.

So with that in mind, as you begin to, I don't know about you, but I'm a visual learner.

I like to see things.

I like to paint pictures in my mind.

And so as I look at these verses, and I begin to picture what's happening.

And it says that Jesus comes and sits on His throne.

Now understand, this is the second coming.

This isn't the first coming where Jesus came as a baby and grew and then began to teach us the ways of the Lord.

It's not where He was a servant and humbled Himself.

This is when Jesus comes back again.

And unfortunately, my Bible says that when He comes back the second time, the time for winning the lost will be over.

That He will come as a righteous judge.

And He will come to separate the sheep from the goats.

So as you visualize this, as you visualize that Jesus is on His throne, it says all of His angels with Him are sitting there, and then at His feet are all the nations.

Well, who are all the nations?

Well, I believe that all the nations is everybody, whether Jew or Gentile, whether believer or non-believer.

It's everybody.

And He will come and then He will begin to separate the sheep from the goats, the believers from the non-believers.

And you know, I don't know, as I think about sheep and goats, they look a lot alike.

And sometimes you can misunderstand or misidentify them.

But you see, they are very different in the way they act.

They're very different in the way they eat.

So I mean, so like sheep, for example, they like to flock together.

They like to stay together.

And when distress comes, they run to one another.

Whereas with goats, as cute and cuddly as they may look, they're, well, they're terrors sometimes.

You know, because they act erratic, they're all over the place.

And when trouble comes, they run in every which direction.

And then if you know goats, goats love to eat anything and everything.

And generally it's things they're not supposed to.

Well, see, I see a lot of similarities between sheeps and goats when it comes to a believer and a non-believer.

You see, as believers in Christ Jesus, we like to gather with other believers.

When trouble comes, we like to go to other believers to help us.

Whereas when you think about goats, what happens is this.

Non-believers, they devour anything and everything of the world.

When trouble comes, they scatter.

And they do anything and everything they want to do.

So we have to know, we have to understand what that looks like.

As we look at this passage, as we see this picture of what it looks like and understanding that what God has done is basically He set up courts.

He has begun to pass judgment.

And He's begun to share things of what's going on.

Now, one of the things that I didn't mention to you earlier, and I don't know about you, but I love how through the power of the Holy Spirit, God can reveal Scripture to us.

How when we can read a passage of Scripture over and over and over again, and it really not sink in, it really not come to us, but then all of a sudden that hundredth time we've read that passage of Scripture, it's like God pulls the emergency brake and begins to reveal to us what it means.

Well, I want to share very quickly with this particular passage where it became real for me.

How it became alive to me.

And it happened back in 2018 when I was in Haiti.

And as I began to think about what we had gone to to help this community, a school and a church that had been planted there, and they didn't have electricity.

The only way they could get power was to fire up the generator.

They didn't have clean running water, so we had gone to help them establish a well.

And so we were able to do those things.

That was great.

But then one of the things that we were also going to do is we were going to travel up into the mountains of Andro.

And we were going to go and feed a school that had been planted out of this church up there.

And the only way you could get up there, because it really wasn't a road, it was more like a path, was you couldn't drive a regular car.

It had to be four-wheel drive or any other way but that.

Let's just say there was a lot of praying going up this path as we were traveling because it was narrow and cliffs and all kinds of things, but we made it, obviously.

But when we got there, and I'm hoping they're going to be able to show you a picture here, a couple of pictures here real quick, of where we were.

And we had gone to this school.

Now, if you look at this school, it's really a lean-to.

That's the school.

And they were separated, about five different sections under one roof of different grades.

The teacher was at the back side with a blackboard, and all the teachers sat there.

That was school for them.

And as I began to look at nothingness around us, because we traveled for an hour up through nothing, and all of a sudden this school appears, I began to really just think.

Look at these children because we'd gone to feed them a meal that is, for most of these kids, it would probably have been the only meal they were going to get that week because they were in the middle of nowhere.

But then here's where it happened.

The brother of Christ came up to me.

As we were talking, and there in that bottom picture, around, Ramil actually was talking to a voodoo priest, that's who the guy in the blue shirt is.

And the brother said to me, Michael, would you like to share the gospel with the kids?

And it was at that moment, that very instant, that God broke me.

And I began to weep and talk to my brother and simply said, Who am I to tell them anything?

Who am I to come up into their nothingness, my privilege of who I am and what God has blessed me with, and come up to them and tell them anything?

And I said, No, I can't.

But you see, that moment propelled me to answer the question, Who am I?

And let me tell you the answer that I found that's true for you.

You are a child of the King.

You've been called to share His love with others.

You are called to proclaim the gospel message of Jesus to those around Him.

Each and every one of us.

Because the funny thing for me is, at that moment, I mean, I've been pastoring a church for six years.

And somebody asked me, Will you share the gospel?

And I couldn't.

Scripture reminds us, be prepared in season and out.

So as we continue to look at this passage, in verses 34 through 40 it says this, He says, Then the King will 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.

For 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, I was sick and you visited Me.

I was in prison and you came to Me.

Then the righteous will answer 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?

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

And the 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.

You see, so the shepherd has become king, just as the shepherd boy David also became king.

And the King, Jesus, He begins to share the message with the sheep.

He begins to share, He says, Listen, you have inherited the kingdom of God, which I have prepared for you.

And you see, as you think about that, is what God is conveying here, is He's conveying an inheritance.

An inheritance is something that someone decides they want to give.

But here's the key.

And here's the key that I need you to see.

It's the key of what that looks like.

And it's the key as a danger that we can sometimes have.

Because there are those that believe we can work our way to heaven.

Let me be clear to you this morning.

My Bible says, through Jesus' words, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father but by Me.

No one.

That is the truth of the Gospel message.

That's the truth of knowing and understanding what it says.

But see, so we can't work our way there.

And here's the danger.

Because that inheritance, it's unearned.

We can't earn it.

There's nothing we can do to deserve it.

All we can try to do is somehow, some way, give back with what God has given us.

So he goes on and he talks about here.

He begins to share here there in verses 35 and 36.

He lists these six deeds of mercy.

He talks about these gifts of mercy that we give to other people.

But here's what you need to know.

Here's what you need to understand.

This is an example of what we should be doing.

It's not a complete list.

Because the list of how we can bless others, how we can give back to others, how we can be mercy givers to others, that list is endless.

Just as the needs are endless.

And we need to hold on to that.

We need to focus upon that.

We need to understand what is really going on.

Because, I mean, do you really have to be wealthy to buy somebody a hamburger?

I mean, do you?

I mean, think about it.

Do you have to be a nurse to take care of a sick person?

Now, if you need a nurse, we've got a ton here in the church, so just let us know.

But you don't have to be.

Do you have to be a pastor to go visit somebody that's sick or needs prayer?

No.

Whatever the situation, whatever the need, God will equip each of us to do that need.

To help people where we find them.

No matter what it is.

No matter where it is.

So, as you begin to look and you go down into verses 37 through 40, you begin to see that it says, then the righteous will answer him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry?

And feed you.

And it goes on down the list.

And so the question is, this is the surprise moment for the righteous.

It's like, when?

When did we see this happen?

And that's when he says, when you did it to the least of these, you did it unto me.

So what is the least of these?

You know, that's kind of the question that we all think about is, well, what does the least of these look?

And oftentimes in our mind, we paint pictures, sometimes that may not necessarily be right.

But here's my definition of the least of these.

A least of these is somebody who finds themself in a particular situation or place that's unexpected.

Let me give you two examples real quick.

The first one is this.

Last fall in October, I had the wonderful opportunity to take a group down to Cape Coral, Florida.

And we went down there.

And by the way, let me just tell you, this team, none of them had ever been on a mission trip before.

And they began, and let me just add to that, if you want to be changed, if you want to see what God can do for you when you decide to humble yourself like Jesus and serve others, come on a trip with me.

If you don't have a passport, get one.

Been thinking about it, praying about it, well, I don't know if I want to, get a passport.

We got a trip coming up to Africa in March.

But when you go on a trip, when you become a servant of God, it can radically change your life.

It will make you do things that you never thought you could do.

It will make you climb ladders when you're afraid of heights.

It will make you pray for somebody when you're extremely quiet.

It will make you ask somebody, do you know Jesus, when you've never shared the gospel.

That's what God can do when you humble yourself.

But you see, the least of these, and they're going to show you a couple of pictures from that trip real quick, is these were servants that went to help those that found themselves in an unexpected situation or place.

Because what happened is the waters rose from Hurricane Ian there in Cape Coral, Florida.

And the waters rose, and in some places it covered the houses.

And here's what didn't happen.

What didn't happen is that water rose and it got to the doorway of a house.

It didn't knock to find out who lived there.

It didn't knock to say, oh, you're wealthy, you're a believer in Christ Jesus, you can take care of this if something happens.

No, the waters rose and affected everyone the same.

We went to trailer parks, and we went to half-million-dollar homes.

The least of these are those that find themselves in an unexpected place or situation.

The second quick example I'll give you was about six weeks ago, we were in Cuba.

And I don't know about you, but in our earthly minds, when you go into a situation and you see needs, we want to put our Americanized thoughts of what they need.

Well, we did that.

And as we began to talk, I sat down with Pastor Roy, and I was like, you know what, what do y'all need?

He said, we need a cow.

Y'all are thinking, what, huh?

A cow?

Okay, well, what's stopping you to get one?

It's expensive.

Okay, I get that.

How much is expensive?

$150.

I went, okay.

Went back to the team and told the team, and first thing somebody says, can we buy them two?

Can we buy them two?

I said, well, let me ask.

So I went back again to Pastor Roy, and I said, hey, would you like a bull?

Because he wanted a cow that was pregnant so they could have milk and continue the process.

So I'm thinking, hey, let me go ask, do you want a cow or a bull to go with that so you can keep the process going?

He said, no, we share bulls in the community.

We can just borrow one.

Yeah, I know.

And he said, no, what I really would like is a second cow.

I'm like, okay.

So I went back to the team.

They said, well, of course.

So this past week I got a picture.

Y'all help buy the least of these a cow.

By the way, the team's voted.

Her name's Valerie.

The least of these is anyone who finds themself in an unexpected place or circumstance.

But as you know, as we think about service, we think about that we've all heard of do-gooders.

They do things so they get recognition.

We see a Christ follower, a believer in Christ Jesus, does things without the thought of reward.

They do things simply to simply try to give back out of the love and the abundance that God has given us.

The last part of this that I want you to see there in verses 41.

Sorry, number 41, it says, then on the left, he will also say to those on the left, apart from me you cursed into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

For 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.

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?

Then he will answer them saying, assuredly I say to you in as much as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.

So here was the surprise for the unrighteous.

And instead of an invitation into the kingdom of God, they were sentenced.

Separation, they were sentenced as it says, into everlasting fire.

You know, in scripture, there's this question that we, we've all heard, I think.

It asks, am I my brother's keeper?

Well, simply put, yes.

Yes, we are our brother's keeper because the person who helps those in need will inherit the kingdom of God.

But the opposite also is true because it says the person who fails to do so will be punished.

You know, and I think at the very end, when we talk about this judgment scene is, is I think there's gonna be a final exam, but I think there's only gonna be one question on it.

And I think the question may be something like this is, did you follow the great commandment?

Is did you love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength?

And did you love your neighbor?

You see, the answer to that question has eternal ramifications.

Now, I know that talking about fire and brimstone and judgment isn't popular preaching these days.

I get that.

Because we all want to feel good and we want to, you know, sit around holding hands, singing kumbaya and all those fun things.

I get that.

But you see, here's what I do know.

This book is a love story.

It's a love story of how God loved you enough to send his son to die for you.

But also as I read this love story, you know, all love stories have tragedy in it.

So does this one.

You know, there's just not all good things in here.

There's some bad stuff in here too.

There's lots of rebellious people in here.

There's a lot of people who didn't do what God told them to do and they had to pay the price for it.

And then as we, you know, in the Old Testament, and then we come to the New Testament, we found that those who didn't do what God told them to do also had to pay a price.

And here's what I know for sure.

If someone who proclaims the gospel truth, if I don't tell you the whole story, I might as well not even speak.

Because half truth is no truth.

If we believe that we can work our way, that, you know, there's so many other ways unto heaven, that we think, well, God is a merciful God, which he is, but he's also a righteous judge, and he will judge every one of us.

And the reason I know that is because it's in here, but more than that is my Bible has the words of Jesus in red, and I've often believed, or I always believe, that if Jesus said it, that settles it.

There's no question.

Because we either believe all of it or none of it.

We can't pick and choose the good things that we like and ignore the bad things that we don't.

Because the truth is, is we all have to make a decision.

And the reason I know that is because if you go to verse 46, and it says, and these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

You see, so for all of us, as we think about it, that last verse makes it really clear.

You're either all in or you're all out.

There's no in between.

And you have to ask yourself this morning, are you a sheep or are you a goat?

Are you following the ways and the wisdom and the words of Christ, or are you following the ways of the world?

Are you a servant of God?

Are you humbling yourself like Jesus and simply saying, God, use me however you want?

I want to serve you.

Whatever that is this morning, I simply pray as we come back to where we started, that you simply connect with God.

Accept salvation through Christ Jesus our Lord, and then begin to connect with other believers.

Grow in your knowledge and wisdom personally, and then do so with other believers.

And let that compassion, let that love that flows through you through Jesus, move you to serve God and others.

Let me pray for us.

Father God, we are just so humbled.

That Father that you loved us enough to send your Son to die for us.

And Father, there are those here this morning that have never turned their life over to you.

Father God, I pray that this is the day, now is the time, and this is the hour that they do that.

Father, help us to be servants of you.

Help us to remember that how we serve you has eternal consequence.

Father, thank you for Jesus.

Father, we love you.

We thank you.

And it's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.