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Key Scripture: “When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels
with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged
before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep
and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.” Matthew 25, The Message
Power Point:
A few
weeks ago our pastor Tom made a comment at the end of the service about coming
forward for prayer if you felt “stuck” in your Christian life. Three weeks later people were still
coming forward because they were “stuck”. It was actually easy to see why. The
resurrection power of God had had no influence on their daily walking around
life. They were still living that life under the old power and the old patterns which pretty much included not asking God for advice or thinking He might have
a better idea. Let me rephrase that. They were asking God for help but then
they weren’t listening to His answers, and then they were wondering why nothing
changed.
I was
reading in Matthew 25 the other day about Jesus separating the
sheep from the goats. It’s an interesting passage. A sheep hears the Shepherd’s
voice and does what he says. He just trusts that the Shepherd has a plan. The goat- (in Hebrew there’s an interesting analogy here)-is one that is
quick to war, to use his horns. He doesn’t usually listen to anyone. He butts
anything and anyone that gets in his way. Aren’t we like that as Christians
sometimes?
When God
says, “Love one another.” Don’t we say, “BUT I don’t like them." "BUT they’re not lovable." BUT, BUT, BUT! You fill in the blanks. If this describes your relationship with the Father,
(“but, but, but”) then you might want to read the next two verses. In verse 33
he puts the sheep on His right hand. (the place of His power), and he puts the
goats on the left. The ones who are on the right are
blessed, and invited to inherit the kingdom which has been prepared for them,
because they took His advice.
The
poor goats, on the other hand (who
are actually ON the other hand) are told that they are cursed and offered
eternity in hell. He seems to be really serious about this. Do you think
there’s a lesson here? Do you remember the children of Israel and all their
grumbling and complaining about what God required of them? They were being "old
goats" weren’t they? Every time poor Moses opened his mouth to tell them what
God had told him, he could pretty well anticipate a big “but”!
Beloved,
God doesn’t ever mind when we ask Him questions. He loves to tell us His answers. However He does mind when we continue to “butt” our heads against His
wisdom and plans and place ourselves in active rebellion against Him. The children of Israel "butted" every day for forty years in the
wilderness and never even got to go in to the Promised Land.
We do
NOT want to live our lives that way do we? The
answer is “NO!” We don’t want to tell God to “butt out” of our lives. We need
Him. We desperately need Him and His wisdom.
Power Point:
 |
| Jesus and the Lamb Katherine Brown |
If we
said “but” to "the other
guy” (Satan) as often as we say it
to God we’d be a lot better off wouldn’t we? Well- wouldn't we?
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