Be Faithful in Waiting (Matt. 24:36–25:46)

D. A. Carson discusses the Christian approach to waiting for Christ’s return. He explores several parables, focusing on themes like readiness, stewardship, and faithful service, emphasizing that believers should actively engage in responsible and impactful service while awaiting Jesus’ second coming. The sermon underscores the importance of readiness and faithful stewardship in the spiritual life of a Christian.

“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money.

Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’

And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’

He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master answered him: ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed?

Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the 10 talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by 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 welcomed me, 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? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal 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 welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’

Then they also will answer, 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, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will enter into eternal life.”

There are so many kinds of waiting. My son now is a strapping young man in his 20s, a bit of a hunk. He has always been on the big and hungry side, and when he was 3–1/2, at mealtimes he was invariably hungry. You knew you were getting close to the mealtimes because he started following his mommy around, her little shadow. If she were in the kitchen the proximity became especially close, and there was no point telling him, “Dinner’s in 10 minutes, dear.”

Because he not only had no conception of 10 minutes, he had no conception of delayed gratification, and what he wanted was some food, so he followed her around, a little shadow, every meal. Sometimes, of course, I was downstairs in my study. I, too, was waiting for dinner, but my waiting was a bit different.

I was finishing marking another chapter from these perennial dissertations that come across my desk, or trying to finish writing a chapter myself, or whatever, and I was looking at my watch and saying, “Ten minutes, am I going to finish this in time, or not?” Same meal, same 10 minutes, but a very different kind of waiting. There are many other kinds of waiting, of course.

When my wife was at her worst with cancer, bedridden and desperately ill, hard to get out of bed at all, the days passed with markers that she set up in her own mind. That year I made sure that, once again, I went outside and put up the Christmas tree lights. They were on a timer; they came on in the afternoon at 5:14. She waited for 5:14. It was one more marker. Anybody who has been chronically ill for days and days and days, weeks and weeks, months and months, that person invariably knows how you pass the time with markers. It’s another kind of waiting.

Now last week we saw that in the first half of Matthew 24, Matthew gives us Jesus’ words about the coming of the end, the dawning of the kingdom, the return of the Son of Man. Then from about midway through 24 all the way to the end of 25, he talks about the ways in which his followers are supposed to wait for Jesus’ return, so this is really a long sermon. You had part one last week; this is part two.

Last week, chapter 24, verses 36 to 44: wait for the Lord Jesus as those who do not wish to be surprised at his coming. And then chapter 24, verse 43 to 51: wait for the Lord Jesus as stewards who must give an account of their service, faithful or otherwise. Then chapter 25, verses 1 to 13, the parable of the five wise and the five foolish virgins: wait for the Lord Jesus as those who know their master’s coming may be long delayed. That was all last week.

Now we come to the last two parables, the two that were just read for us. First, chapter 25, verses 14 to 30, this parable of the talents, as it’s often called: wait for the Lord Jesus as slaves commissioned to improve their master’s assets. Then finally, the parable of the sheep and the goats: wait for the Lord Jesus as people whose lives are so transformed by the gospel that they unselfconsciously serve brothers and sisters in Christ in self-sacrificing ways.

Now if you didn’t get those last two yet, you will. Just wait a moment. Number four in the series, the first of the two today, chapter 25, verses 14 and following …

1. Wait for the Lord Jesus as slaves commissioned to improve their master’s assets.

In other words, the thought goes beyond simply being ready, the first exhortation, or performing one’s duty, the second exhortation, or even being prepared for a long delay, the third exhortation. Now it is also to be prepared as slaves commissioned to improve the master’s assets. What I want to do first is to run through the paragraph to make sure all of its points are understood, and then we’ll reflect together on what it means in our lives.

Slaves in the ancient world had highly diverse functions. Some, of course, were manual laborers or household slaves, but some had high degrees of education. They could be the tutors of the kids in the house. They could be accountants. They could be running the master’s industry or farm, and the way the master distributed these tasks was a function of his assessment of their ability. So we read here.

“The kingdom will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave …” Now many of our translations say five talents, but the word talent is a bit problematic in our ears, because we hear talent as a set of gifts and skills that is partly genetically based and partly trained and educated and shaped to be something that we can use.

But the word for talent in the original simply is a unit of weight, a unit of weight often used with money. A talent, in the ancient world, if it were a talent of silver, embraced about 6,000 denarii, that is, the equivalent of about 20 years of a day laborer’s wage. What shall we say, $800,000 dollars? Something like that, and if it were a talent of gold, then it was a lot more than that.

So, let’s say the man who received five bags of gold, as some translations say, went at once and put his money to work, and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master’s money. Now, we’ve just been told that these trusts have been given according to the master’s assessment of each slave’s ability.

“After a long time …” There’s this echo of a long time, a long delay again, picking up from the previous parable. “After a long time, the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’ ”

What has he done? We’re told that he immediately went out and worked the money. Right away, he took the challenge. He was entrusted with the five bags and he invested, not in the stock market (they didn’t have the stock market in those days), but in companies. He bought. He sold. He horse-traded. He started a company, got some capital into it, and then got some return from it, and so on. After this long delay, the five bags of gold, a lot of money, a very large sum, have now become 10 bags of gold. When the master returns, he joyfully gives it all back to him.

Similarly with the man with two bags of gold. “You entrusted me with two bags; I have gained two more.” And the master, rather deliciously, answers with exactly the same words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness.” So the reward for these two, in both instances, is increased responsibility, in the first place.

They were given quite a lot of responsibility, bags and bags of gold, but it’s nothing compared to what they will be given. In the consummated kingdom, they will be given very large responsibility. “I have entrusted you with a few things. See, I will make you responsible for many things.” They gain in responsibility.

Not only so, but they now share in their master’s happiness. Here is the consummation of the kingdom, in which there is increased responsibility, but all of the ability and the strength of God himself to enable us to discharge it, and with that, a spectacular pleasure that comes from knowing and seeing this God in all of his unadulterated glory, world without end.

Then the third bloke comes, the man who had received one bag of gold, apparently because the master’s assessment of him was that he couldn’t be entrusted with any more. He, too, came and said, “Master, I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed, so I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.”

The charge, launched by the wicked servant, is that the master is exploitative, grasping, using the labor of others for his own gain, and severe in his judgments. He reaps where he has not sown. Others have done the sowing, and he reaps, and he’s a harsh judge, and perhaps he might even be putting the servant, the slave, in an invidious position. If the slave is successful, the money goes back to the owner, and if the slave is unsuccessful, the master is still holding you responsible. So he’s afraid.

He just digs a hole and puts the bag of gold in the ground. Now the master comes back. The slave digs it out, knocks off the dirt, says, “I was afraid, because of your character, but I’ve kept what’s yours. Here it is. It’s back. It’s in your hand.” And the master replied, “You wicked, lazy servant, so you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed. Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with a banker, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.”

Now initially, when we in the Western world read this, we have, perhaps, a little more sympathy than we should for this third slave. For a start, we’re not too keen on slavery, and on top of all of that, we’re thinking, by tendency, by heritage, in terms of ownership-union relationships. The union has the right to withdraw its labor if it wants to. You can’t blame these workers if they choose not to work.

But what we must understand is this is an account about a slave relationship. Now this is not because Jesus is sanctioning slavery, any more than, two exhortations back, he was sanctioning theft. Did he not say that the Lord Jesus would return like a thief in the night? But that doesn’t meant that Jesus is recommending thieves. So also, here, Jesus is the master and he is not recommending slavery, either.

The point of the exercise, the point of the parable, is to find a social structure in which the language bespeaks what Christ is trying to get across, but there is another element. In the New Testament as a whole, human beings are either slaves to sin, or we’re free from that slavery and become slaves to Christ, but this slavery is a joyful slavery. It’s a slavery that we delight in, because this master is so good and fair and right, but make no mistake, it is a relationship of master and slave.

The third slave’s rebellion here, his sin here, is that he thinks he has the right to simply make his own judgments, but if he is a slave of the master and he has been entrusted to undertake a certain task, that is what he is supposed to do, and not undertaking that task and simply putting the money in the ground is, in fact, flagrant disobedience. After all, the slave belongs to the master, the gold belongs to the master, and the other two are delighted that it is so.

They love to serve this particular master. They act with faithfulness. Immediately they go and do their investments, and they take a certain grateful pride, when they come back, to be able to say to the master, “Here is what’s yours. I’ve invested it. It’s yours. Do you see? I’ve improved your assets. I’m yours. The gold is yours. All of this is yours.”

And the master approves them, but this fellow wants to go his own independent route, as if he’s not a slave at all. Moreover, he hasn’t even deployed a modicum of intelligence. He has hidden it in the ground. If he is that afraid, why doesn’t he at least put the money in the bank and earn some interest? So Jesus judges him, not even on the deeper principle that the slave is supposed to obey the master, but on the fact that this chap is not only slothful, but he’s wicked.

He does not do the obvious thing to guard his master’s assets and improve them, even with the interest from the bank. In other words, he pretends that all of the problem is the master’s harsh attitude. In fact, he’s in a permanent state of rebellion and is going to do as absolutely little as he can.

“Take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has 10 bags. For those who have …” Because they’ve invested and made things grow. “… will be given more, and they will have an abundance. As for those who do not have …” Because they have not been willing slaves. They have not worked at it at all. “… even what they have will be taken from them. And throw that worthless servant outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

In other words, we are to wait for the Lord Jesus as slaves commissioned to improve the master’s assets. Now, we need to think through what this means. Our task while we wait for the Lord Jesus, then, is not simply to be passive in our waiting while we improve our own assets. Oh, I know we have social-familial responsibilities that are laid upon us in the Word of God, but nevertheless, if you focus all of your energy and attention to increasing your own assets, when you finally die, you won’t take any of them with you. And what will you show your master?

While we wait, we are not waiting passively, we are improving the master’s assets, laying up treasures in heaven, to use the language of the Lord Jesus, laying up treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not corrode, where thieves do not dig through and steal. For what is presupposed in the parable is that the difference between the two who improve the master’s assets and the one who does not is a fundamental difference in orientation to the master.

These two slaves delight in their role and assignment as slaves of this master, and although he owns them and has entrusted things to them, they delight to multiply the assets as their master entrusts them with these things, so that they can return to the master what is his, with increase. The other chap is selfish, not recognizing his slave-status at all, rebellious, and doing as little as he can possibly do.

What does it mean in real terms? The last parable we looked at last week, the foolish virgins failed from thinking that their part was too easy. They just wait, and they didn’t calculate the need to wait with endurance, with perseverance, to be ready for a long delay. This chap fails because he thinks his part is too hard. He doesn’t work at it.

What does this look like? Well, four chapters on, for example, Jesus’ disciples are given the Great Commission, so part of the way we improve the master’s assets is by proclaiming the gospel. Elsewhere, for example, we’re told to lay up treasures in heaven. We are told to do the Master’s will. We are told to love one another. We are told to extend the kingdom.

It is very important to see that this parable is not saying that somehow, if you try hard enough, you will get in. These are slaves. Paul puts it differently, but with the same thought. We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God working in us, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. That’s the glory of Christ. He gives us work to do, tells us how to improve his assets, and then when we’ve done it, because he’s given us strength and because we are his, then he says “well done” at the end of it.

We saw that last week. It returns again in this parable. Do you see? But that means that if somebody is waiting so passively for Jesus that he or she sees no obligation to improve the master’s assets, whether through suffering or evangelism or active obedience, bearing witness to Jesus, loving brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, growing in conformity to Christ, and in no sense improving the master’s assets, just waiting, that person is thrown outside where there’s weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

It’s not as if there are three sets here, those who are willing, cheerful, fruitful slaves, and those who are in rebellion, and, somewhere in between, those who are just sort of waiting but not doing anything. The point is if you’re just waiting and not doing anything then you’re not improving the master’s assets. It’s just unthinkable for a real Christian. Wait, then, for the Lord Jesus, as slaves commissioned to improve their master’s assets. Finally, the parable of the sheep and the goats.

2. Wait for the Lord Jesus as peoples whose lives are so transformed by the gospel that they unselfconsciously serve brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.

Now this parable needs unpacking a bit, too. Many, many people in the last century or century-and-a-half or so have understood the parable more or less like this.

“Here, if you help anybody who is naked to be clothed, poor to have some basic food, those in prison to be released or to be sustained in prison, those who are lonely or strangers to be welcomed, if you do this at all to anybody in the world, then, in fact, you are doing it unto the Jesus who is in them or the Jesus whom they represent.

You’re doing it to Jesus in some sense, and because of this, he will reward you for it. Those who don’t do it go to hell. Those who do do it go to heaven. And if this sounds just a bit difficult to understand in conjunction with all the Bible says about grace and the importance of what Christ has done on our behalf on the cross as the basis of our salvation, Well,” such people will say, “I’m sure that the Bible says a lot about those things, but you mustn’t ignore this passage.”

Here the fundamental distinction between those on the left and those on the right, the fundamental distinction between the sheep and the goats, the fundamental distinction between those who go to hell and those who go to the Father’s glorious kingdom is what you’ve done with the disadvantaged.

But in all fairness, I don’t think that’s what this parable is talking about at all. Do not misunderstand me. Not for a moment do I want to depreciate the importance of care for others, of deeds of mercy. Reread, for example at your leisure, the opening chapters of Isaiah, very strong on the importance of God’s covenant community to care for those who are disadvantaged, and strong words of denunciation to those who have all the power and the money and don’t give generously of it.

Reread the prophet Amos, for example, where the same theme recurs, or in Paul’s letter to the Galatian Christians, he says, “Do good to all people, especially those of the household of God,” but to all people. Do you see? Or there is the teaching of the Lord Jesus in the parable of the good Samaritan, where we learn what it means to be a good neighbor. Yes, all of those things are taught by Scripture, but that’s a bit different from what this passage is saying.

Follow it through with me. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory …” In other words, we’re now at the end of the age, the coming of the Son of Man which occupied the attention of the first half of Matthew, chapter 24. “… and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

He will put the sheep on his right, and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father.’ ” Note that the assumption all through here is that Jesus is the king. Jesus is the returning king. After all, he says, “You who are blessed by my Father.” The Father could not say that. This is what Jesus says. It’s the Son of Man who comes in glory.

It’s Jesus, now, who’s judging everyone in all the nations, and he says to those on his right, the sheep, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world, this final resurrection existence, this new heaven and new earth, the home of righteousness, this place where there is no more taint of sin, no more death nor decay, no more whining, no more jealousy, no more envy, no sin.

Instead, everyone in it will find himself or herself loving God with heart and mind and soul and strength, neighbors as themselves, and, for all eternity, their eyes will perceive the king in his glory and enjoy new vistas of his supremacy, of his character, and be enthralled with pleasures forevermore, even while they’re discharging more responsibilities that are heaped upon their shoulders as they are given strength also to discharge them.”

This is the kingdom prepared by God from before the foundation of the earth. It is Jesus’ kingdom. It may have dawned now; it is coming in consummation. “Now those of you on my right, enter this kingdom.” That’s what happens at the end of the age. Then he gives the reason. “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

Now the first striking surprise in the parable. Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?”

In other words, they didn’t do it because they were thinking to themselves, “Well if I just visit somebody in prison and help some little old lady with a food basket, then I’m doing it to Jesus and that will get me into heaven.” They have been entirely unselfconscious in what they’ve done. That’s the first surprise. We’ll reflect on that in a moment.

Then comes the second surprise. “The king will reply.” Isn’t that lovely, the way Jesus refers to himself in the parable this way? “The king will reply, ‘Truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Now the question is, who are the brothers and sisters of Jesus?

You see, the assumption in the traditional interpretation of the last hundred years is that the brothers and sisters of Jesus are, in fact, anyone who is poor, naked, sick, lonely, disadvantaged; but if you work through Matthew’s gospel, you discover that on every occasion when the word brothers is used it is not referring to literal, genetic brothers; it’s always referring to Jesus’ disciples.

For example, the end of Matthew, chapter 12, “While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, ‘Your mother and brothers are standing outside wanting to speak to you.’ He replied to him, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ Pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers? For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’ ”

You find something very similar in chapter 23 of Matthew. Then in chapter 28, in the resurrection appearances, Jesus says, 28:10, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. There they will see me.” Not only so, but this expression the least of is regularly deployed in this book to refer to Jesus’ disciples as well. Thus, for example, at the end of Matthew, chapter 10, “Anyone who welcomes you, welcomes me.”

In other words, if you welcome one of Jesus’ disciples, you actually welcome Jesus, much as in this parable. “And anyone who welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes someone known to be a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward. Whoever welcomes someone known to be righteous will receive a righteous person’s reward, and if even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones …” One of these least, the same expression, “… who is known to be my disciple, I tell you, that person will certainly be rewarded.”

In other words, what Jesus is saying when he utters the words, “Truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me,” he is saying, “Whatever you did for my disciples, for the least of my disciples.… Whatever you did for Christians, you did to me.”

The language really can’t, in Matthew, mean anything else. When you stop and think about it, that makes a lot of sense, too. After all, isn’t this the way Jesus does identify with his followers? Do you recall the conversion of Saul of Tarsus becoming Paul on the Damascus road? He has letters of authority from the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem to go after the Jews in the Jewish community of Damascus, and on the Damascus road, as he’s approaching the city, a brilliant light shines, and he is enabled to see the resurrected, glorified Jesus himself.

And Jesus says to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting my followers?” Is that what he says? He says, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Now it’s impossible to persecute Jesus personally, physically at this stage. He’s gone. In this sense, he suffers no more, but he so identifies himself with his followers (we are, on earth, his body here), that when we persecute Christians, we are persecuting Jesus, and what we do to the least of Jesus’ followers here, we’re doing to Jesus. That’s the nature of Jesus’ identification with his own people.

It makes sense, too, the way this would be read in the first century, when pressures are rising on Christians. Christians are beginning to face some persecution now; when Matthew is being circulated they’re beginning to face some persecution. There have been some deaths. Some have been put in prison, that’s what the prison reference is.

Jesus’ followers have been put in prison. There have been one or two famines in the empire, and sometimes just the persecution itself can make you really, really poor and naked and not have enough food, running for your life, and you’re a stranger. Who will look after these people? Who will care for them? Well the ones who are going to do so are other Christians. They’re going to take them in. They’re going to provide for them. They’re going to visit them in prison. They’re going to give them food. They’re going to welcome them.

Correspondingly, then, to the goats, put on the left side, Jesus says the same thing. “And when they say to him …” Equally surprised. “ ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ ”

Do you really think the pagans of the first century are really going to help the Christians under persecution? So it is today, is it not? You can often spot the real Christians because of the way they’re going to care for and love real Christians. I was explaining this a bit in the first service, and after the service one of the people who attended stopped me at the door and said, “I’m a Jewish believer. Before I became a Christian all of my friends and I always called Christians ‘vegetables’.

Then I was converted suddenly, spectacularly, in Cincinnati. I had to drive immediately to Atlanta, and when I arrived in Atlanta, I heard an African-American street preacher preaching Jesus, and I stood there and listened and sat down with some other African-American Christians. We had wonderful fellowship. I loved those people. One of them turned to me and said, ‘How long have you been a Christian?’ I said, ‘About 12 hours.’ ”

Because you see, things have changed. You might start off thinking that Christians are twits and a bit silly, and certainly odd and not my friends. It’s their problem. Then you become a Christian yourself and you look back over your shoulder for a bit, and you say, “These are now my brothers and sisters in Christ. I have come to love them.” It makes a huge difference.

Why should this be surprising? Doesn’t Jesus say in John, chapter 13, that he gives us a new commandment, that we’re to love one another as Christ has loved us? “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” And in his first letter, 1 John, he says there are three demonstrable, necessary, unavoidable characteristics of being a Christian.

One is you believe certain truths, certain propositional truths. It’s a doctrinal test. Another is you bow in principle to the Lord Jesus. God help us, we fail on many, many occasions. As John himself says, we need an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous One. He’s the propitiation for our sins. Nevertheless, in principle we bow before him, and we want to do his will in his way. There’s a moral change.

Then he says we also love the brothers and sisters in Christ. There’s a social change, an emotional change. We now care for them. Three tests, and it’s not best two out of three, which is why you can be as orthodox as the apostle Paul and face this parable, and you’re in desperate straits, because the point is when you really do become a Christian, your relationships change.

Now do not misunderstand what should be done with this parable. If you feel under threat of hell, the right response here is not to say, “Okay, well I guess I’d better be a little kinder to Christians for a bit, then.” That entirely misses the point, for this gospel sets out where our hope in Christ is. It is bound up with what Jesus has done. In chapter 20, Jesus says that he did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. We are now rushing to the passion. Jesus says that his blood is shed for the remission of sins.

The whole basis of our confidence is in Christ and what he has done on the cross. That’s why every gospel rushes toward the passion narrative and the resurrection! And he is the conquering, risen Lord. What it means to be a Christian is precisely what it means to be forgiven by Christ because of what he has borne on our behalf. That is how we may have confidence before the threat of hell.

But so powerful is this salvation, so powerful is this conversion, that not only are we acquitted before him because of what Christ has done, he empowers us. He gives us his Spirit. In the language of John 3, he gives us new birth. He transforms us, such that we now believe things that we once thought were silly, we now obey him whom we once defied, and we now love brothers and sisters in Christ whom we once thought slightly ridiculous.

It’s all changed, and if it hasn’t changed, you’re among the goats. The change itself doesn’t make you a sheep, but the test of whether you belong to the sheep or the goats is already manifest in the transformation of life. It would be exactly the wrong thing to do, therefore, to read this parable and think you’re simply going to have to try harder to get on with Christians. Well that’s a good thing to think about, no doubt, but that’s not quite the point of the parable.

The point of the parable is that these Christians here, the sheep, do what they do unselfconsciously. That is, they’re surprised by what the Master says on the last day. “When did we do this to you, Jesus?” They do it unselfconsciously, not because they’re trying to earn brownie points to get into heaven. They’re doing it unselfconsciously because they are already sheep. They’re doing what sheep will do.

They congregate with other sheep. They look after their people. Do you see? Which means it is terribly discouraging and dangerous, you don’t know quite what’s going on, you fear the worst, when you see people who claim to be Christians and have a certain kind of orthodoxy but cherish a certain kind of Lone-Ranger independence, because people who have really been transformed by the gospel, who really have had sins forgiven, change their relationships, their priorities, and now they care for the sheep.

Oh, they may have been wounded by some of them. They might be licking their wounds somewhere and feeling sorry for themselves and nursing a certain amount of bitterness, but if they are Christians and know what it means to have been forgiven, and therefore, how important it is to forgive, they care for the sheep.

So we are to wait for the Lord Jesus as people whose lives are so transformed by the gospel that we unselfconsciously serve brothers and sisters in Christ. There will be a lot of surprises on the last day, people that are thought important, people that are thought rightly allied, they will flee from the wrath of the Lamb, and they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

We read at the end of Revelation 6, “Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb.’ For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it.” A century ago, Bertram Shadduck wrote:

I dreamed that the great judgment morning

Had dawned, and the trumpet had blown;

I dreamed that the nations had gathered

To judgment before the white throne;

From the throne came a bright, shining angel,

And he stood on the land and the sea,

And he swore with his hand raised to Heaven,

That time was no longer to be.

And, oh, what a weeping and wailing,

As the lost were told of their fate;

They cried for the rocks and the mountains,

They prayed, but their prayer was too late.

The rich man was there, but his money

Had melted and vanished away;

A pauper he stood in the judgment,

His debts were too heavy to pay;

The great man was there, but his greatness,

When death came, was left far behind!

The angel that opened the records,

Not a trace of his greatness could find.

And, oh, what a weeping and wailing,

As the lost were told of their fate;

They cried for the rocks and the mountains,

They prayed, but their prayer was too late.

The moral man came to the judgment,

But self-righteous rags would not do;

The men who had crucified Jesus

Had passed off as moral men, too;

The soul that had put off salvation,

“Not tonight; I’ll get saved by and by,

No time now to think of religion!”

At last they had found time to die.

And, oh, what a weeping and wailing,

As the lost were told of their fate;

They cried for the rocks and the mountains,

They prayed, but their prayer was too late.

We are talking about the end of the age. Jesus is coming back, and even if he does not come back in our lifetime we will meet him, for we will die, and we will give an account. We are saved by grace alone through faith alone, but grace and faith are never alone. They work out in transformation of characters so that we want to improve the Master’s assets, and all of our relationships change so that we want to serve the people of God.