March 4, 2024 • 23 mins
Episode 371:
In this episode of The Bible Guys, we focused on the passage from Matthew 25:31-46. As we delved into the scripture, we explored the importance of living a life of compassion and kindness. We discussed how the passage emphasizes the significance of caring for others, highlighting the actions of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick and imprisoned. We delved into the metaphorical meaning behind the separation of the sheep and the goats, emphasizing the importance of genuine heart change and compassion in one's actions.
In this episode of The Bible Guys, we focused on the passage from Matthew 25:31-46. As we delved into the scripture, we explored the importance of living a life of compassion and kindness. We discussed how the passage emphasizes the significance of caring for others, highlighting the actions of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick and imprisoned. We delved into the metaphorical meaning behind the separation of the sheep and the goats, emphasizing the importance of genuine heart change and compassion in one's actions.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
You're listening to The Bible Guys,a podcast where a couple of friends talk
about the Bible in fun, inpractical ways. Good morning, Hey,
good morning. Hey. My nameis Chris, this is Jeff. We're
the Bible Guys, and we justthink that you are our privileged guests.
You're the honored guest today. That'sright, that's right. Well, you
(00:23):
make it worthwhile, that's right.That's why we get up and come into
the studio. Yes to this studio. That's right. Well, hey,
today we're going to kick off oneof my favorite segments, yes, which
is Dad Joe Competition. Okay,so how about if I I'll just go
since you start, I've just gotit. Okay, dead joke competitions.
Here, here goes. And theseare these are important. We take them
(00:43):
seriously. So I've never I've notread these, so I'm reading them as
i'm reading them. Okay, okay, what do you call it? Excuse
me? What do you call it? When Batman skips Church? I don't
know, Christian Bale? No,oh no, terrible, now not laughing.
I'm gonna refuse the smile on thatone. That's sort of clever,
(01:06):
though, it's clever clever. Whatdo you call a lonely cheese alone alone?
Yep? Oh, that's funny.Okay, okay, when your wife
Christian Bale, Yeah you ready,when your wife comes home in a white
suit, covered in beastings and smellinglike honey, you know she's a keeper.
(01:30):
Oh no, oh no, havewe done this one before. Once
upon a time there was a kingwho was only twelve inches tall. I
don't think it was a terrible king, but made a great ruler. Oh
geez, I've not done that's thebest one. That's the best one.
That's really recently. Somebody gave mea dead joke thing and I think that
(01:53):
was in that one. So that'sfunny. Yeah, okay, ready.
I saw a man standing on oneleg at an a TM. Confused,
I asked him what he was doing. He said, just checking my balance.
Oh no, it's noble. Nolaughing at that one either. You're
over today. Let me just say, okay, why did Adele cross the
(02:14):
road? I don't know to sayhello from the other side. Oh my
word, wow, I thought you'dappreciate that one. Yes, I mean
yeah, yeah, Adele a concert? Did you I did? I believe
you? I believe you Okay,what the what are the last what are
the last two concerts? You wentto? Adele and uh Lady Gaga?
(02:40):
Oh no, oh no, Ishouldn't have asked that question. Hey,
I got news for you. I'vebeen to a lot of concerts. I
know you have. Lady Gaga wasone of the best concerts I've ever seen
in my life. Okay, she'sa performer, buddy, Okay, all
right, here we go. Numberfour. I smeared some ketchup all over
my face. No, sorry,I smeared some ketchup all over my eyes
(03:01):
once. It was a bad ideain hindsight. Oh geez. Okay,
that's your best one so far.Why do bananas need to use sunscreen?
Why? Because they peel? Oh? That was pretty bad, weren't weren't?
It was pretty bad. Okay,that's my worst one. Okay,
(03:23):
that's my worst one. What wouldthe terminator be called in his retirement?
I don't know, the ex terminatorex terminator? Okay, I like that
one. That's clever. That's aclever one. See turn on words.
It's funny. What do you callthe knight who loves to scare people?
(03:44):
I don't know. Surprise, Oh, my word surprise. That's rough.
Rough, Yeah, when you haveto, when you don't laugh, but
you're going it's funny, though it'snot that funny, Okay, all right.
I usually don't laugh out loud atmost of these. Yeah, I
just I just enjoy them. Yeah, I like the twelve inch talk king.
(04:05):
He was a terrible king, madea great ruler. It's funny.
Yeah. You can picture people pickinghim up and using it as a ruler.
That's that's funny, chasing him around. But that was a quick segment,
okay, yeah, yeah, yeaheah. And so today we're going to
start a brand new passage and Matthew, well, in terms of you know,
(04:27):
it's not parallel, we're not acontinuation. We ended that last week
and it's Matthew twenty five one throughforty six. Wow, that's a lot
of verses. It's uh, Ihave here twenty five, thirty one through
forty six. Oh, you're right, I didn't see the three. Yeah.
Yeah, it's thirty one through fortysix. Yes, so that's not
nearly as. No, not evenJeff. We don't have to listen to
(04:48):
Jeff Reid forty six versas. Bythe way, that is thirty less versus
than what I thought. Yes,it's a good thing. I'm here,
folks. Yes, yeah. Otherwiseit's early. This is this is nine
am. That's right. We justwalked in drinking my coffee. It's it's
it's rare that Chris is wanting toread more Bible verses. Right, so
we'll tell everybody why because you hatethe Bible. That is not why.
(05:12):
No, no, that's no implication. That's what people thought when you said
it. It's because you have todecide what the tackle in a twenty minute
podcast. That's right, it is. It's so hard. So I'm just
joking. Chris loves the Bible.That's why you do this show, right,
That's exactly right. Okay, SoMatthew thirty one through forty six one
(05:32):
of my favorite passages on what kindof life should I be living? Right?
This is one of my favorite passages. So here's what it says.
But when the Son of Man comesin his glory and all the angels with
him, then he will sit uponhis glorious throne. All the nations will
be gathered in his presence, andhe will separate the people as a shepherd
(05:53):
separates the sheep from the goats.He'll place the sheep at his right hand
and the goats at his left.Then the King will say to those on
his right, come you, whoare blessed by my father inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the creation ofthe world. For I was hungry and
you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink.
I was a stranger and you invitedme into your home. I was naked,
(06:13):
you gave me clothing. I wassick and you cared for me.
I was in prison and you visitedme. Then these righteous ones will reply,
Lord, when do we ever seeyou hungry and feed you are thirsty
and give you something a drink,or a stranger and show you hospitality,
or naked and give you clothing.When do we ever see you sick or
in prison and visit you? TheKing will say, I tell you the
truth. When you did it toone of the least of these my brothers
(06:33):
and sisters, you were doing itto me. Then the King turned to
those on the left and say,away with you, you cursed ones,
into the eternal fire prepared for thedevil and his demons. For I was
hungry, you didn't feed me.I was thirsty and you didn't give me
a drink. I was a strangerand you didn't give it, invite me
into your home. I was nakedand you didn't give me clothing. I
(06:54):
was sick and in prison, youdidn't visit me. Then they'll reply,
Lord, when do we ever seeyou hungry or thirsty, a stranger,
or naked or sick or in prison? I help you, and he'll answer,
I tell you the truth when yourefuse to help the least of these
my brothers and sisters, you wererefusing to help me, And they'll go
away into eternal punishment, but therighteous will go into eternal life. Wow,
(07:15):
this is one of those passages thatcan really get you thinking that he's
stressing that good works gets you toheaven. I mean that that is obviously
the first There's no way that anybodycan read that and not think that immediately.
Sure, in my opinion, Right, do you want to tackle that?
Yes? Go ahead? Well,I mean, first of all,
(07:39):
it's a parallel, it's it's ametaphor, right, So he's talking about
lifestyles and oftentimes what he would would, what Jesus would do, and he's
done it. Actually whereas he classifiesgentiles. And what he does is he's
not classifying like individuals. He's notsaying Peter or Bobby or you know,
(07:59):
lair, He's not saying those things. He says, well, you know,
if you live like and he'll he'lluse a class of people. You
know, if you live like those, anybody who lives like that surely will
not inherit the Kingdom of God.And on the surface, you'll say,
well, wait a minute, thatmeans that if I do those things,
I'll not inherit the Kingdom of God. But that's not what he's saying.
He's saying that people who live theirentire lives because he's classifying an entire people
(08:22):
group, and he's saying people livetheir entire lives and and uh, don't
have a heart change or refuses todo the refuse to do these things,
or live like pagans, and theygo and they live their lives and they
die, which is what the gentiles, by the way, we're known for.
Right that he's he's saying that thatway will not get you to heaven.
He's saying that that lifestyle in generalwill not get you to heaven,
(08:43):
and that that is that is whatI learned. And so again he's he's
he's not talking about individuals, he'snot talking about specific deeds getting you into
heaven. He's saying that, youknow. The metaphor is, uh,
you know a class of people,and the class of people who live their
entire lives and in this case dieeventually come in front of the Lord.
(09:05):
And and what he's really saying ishe's saying, there's no heart change,
there's no repentance, there's no kindness. You lived your whole life obviously without
me, and therefore we're going tosay, depart from me, for I
never knew you. And then,of course, you know, those who
did have compassion, they have compassionfor one reason, because Christians do.
Christians are the ones who have theheart changes. And that's not every time,
(09:28):
that's not true every time, butfor the most part, the class
of Christians, right, are theones who have taken care of the world.
So James, the author of theBook of James, was Jesus brother,
and James whole book kind of isbuilt around this this idea. Right,
(09:50):
So James says, some people say, we'll talk about their faith without
works, but I'm going to provemy faith by my works, right,
right, Jesus said the great thetwo greatest commandments love God, and the
same is like or the second islike it, love your neighbor as yourself.
Right. So, Jesus is saying, you can't separate love for others
(10:11):
from your faith in God and yourlove for God. Right, James is
saying, Dude, you talk aboutit all day long, but it doesn't
prove anything. You prove your faithin God by the deeds that you do.
And it would be the same thinghere because you're a Christian, you
would a real Christian, you'd reallydo these things. Pretenders don't, right,
right. Pretenders live self centered lives. Pretenders really don't love God with
(10:33):
all of their heart and all oftheir soul and all of their mind and
all of their strength. Pretenders don'tlove their neighbor as themselves. Pretenders tend
to like like the words Jesus said, boy, those make me feel warm
and fuzzy. I love that.Wouldn't that just be wonderful if people actually
did some of those things. That'swhat pretenders do, as opposed to Jesus
going, actually, when it's alldone, you're actually going to be judged
(10:56):
by that. That's it. Youwant what you can be judged by it.
So, but that's not the gospel, right, servant feeding hungry people,
that's not the salvation based gospel.Jesus already said the kingdom of Heaven
is nearly repent of your sins andturned to God. That's what Jesus said.
The gospel was right. So thegood news salvation is you repent of
(11:16):
your sins, you turn to God. Right, because God's kingdom is here.
But then his kingdom is a partof the gospel, and his kingdom
is that now his priests, that'syou and me, his holy nation.
They go and because they've been changedby Jesus, they visit the sick,
they care for the hungry, theyclothe the naked, right, And so
(11:37):
it's not for it's because of andone of the proofs. Do you remember
when Jesus said, by their fruityou will know them. Yeah, right,
this is what he's saying here.So if you want to just separate
the pretenders from the real followers ofJesus, just look at how they live.
Lots of people go to church,lots of people say Jesus words,
but they don't actually live a lifethat is love God and loving others,
(12:01):
and so this is one of thosethings. So we know, based on
everything else Jesus said about how togo to heaven, that you're not getting
to heaven because you went to theprison and visited somebody, right, right,
And just like James says, faithdoesn't require works to get to heaven,
but what he is saying is true. Faith will always have always produce
works. It was always produce works. It always produced fruit. Right.
(12:22):
Well, so when Jesus said youknow by their fruits, you'll know them.
Orange trees produce oranges, right period, right, and inter fact,
I remember that one time we werereading a while back and Jesus comes up
to figree there's no fruit. Hegets mad and he curses. It is
never going to bear fruit again.Jesus expects fruit, not that he's hoping
for fruit. He expects it.And then and then whatever the tree is
(12:43):
is going to produce that kind offruit. So if everything that my body
produces, everything that my life produces, is always bad, and I'm never
living for others, I'm never servingothers, well then guess what, Maybe
I'm not producing the kind of fruitthat real repent produces right, So movie
movie quote, you will always geta peach. You may wish for an
(13:07):
orange, but you will always geta peach. It sounds like Kung Fu
Panda. It is ka. Imean it's not exact quote, but it
was really close to the Holy Cow, I can't believe you got it.
Well. So so that sounds tome like like a master teaching a student.
Yah yeah yeah yeah. And thenI know that probably you've watched more
cartoons than actual kung fume. Nothat's not why. That is not why
(13:31):
you guessed because you know. No, No, that's that's not true.
I didn't know it. Yeah,it was so funny. You've you've never
seen it. I've seen Kung FuPanda. I just didn't know that.
Okay, okay, that that wasthe phrase, and I remember uh uh
me Shu says, yes, butyou can control where it goes and he
grabs that seed throws in the ground. Okay. Yeah, it's really funny,
(13:54):
good good movie. That's hysterical.So hey, I'm just proud of
you that you got one. Itwas a total guest to really proud of
you. So hey, so let'stalk about the idea that a lot of
churches seem to some well, letme say it differently. In my experience,
(14:15):
I think that there are not enoughchurches that focus on caring for orphans
and widows, visiting people in prisons, helping the poor, feeding the poor.
Right, So, there was therewas a book that I read called
have you ever Heard of the Holein Our Gospel? Yes? So I
forget who the author sterns okay,and I read that he was the former
(14:39):
CEO or president of World Vision.I think, yeah, yeah, okay,
yep, that sounds right. Andbasically what he's saying is the hole
in our gospel is is that,you know, Jesus over and over talks
about, you know, doing thesethings, taking care of the least of
these, and and sometimes in ourgospel we don't. The church does not
(15:00):
the responsibility of doing so. Right, So, and it really is truly
convicting because you know, you thinkabout it, let's unpack that a little
bit. Why why doesn't the churchdo that? I have strong opinions about
this, so don't take too muchtime. I think it's because I think
it's because we've gravitated toward letting ourgovernment do it. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I think that's a bigpart of it. Yeah, so,
(15:22):
and I think that I think thatmaybe uh, you know, the church
would say, hey, that's youknow, maybe it's also that whole Charlie
Brown starfish illustration, remember, whichis, you know, he throws the
starfish back and there's thousands on theshore and Lina says, you can't save
them all, and he says,yeah, but I can save this one,
(15:43):
right, right, And so maybeit seems overwhelming. Yeah, we
feel like the little bit we dodoesn't matter, right, right, Yeah,
that's right. Yeah, I thinkthat Here's here's my strong opinion about
this. I think if you pulledall five thousand people that were part of
Hair to church this weekend, fourninety nine of them would say the church
should feed naked people. The churchshould feed hungry people, I mean clothed
(16:08):
naked people should feed hungry people.The church should visit people in prison and
should take care of the sick.They should, right, And what they
mean is the teacher on stage shouldand the teacher should hire some staff to
do that. And it's because thedevil sold us ability goods. And as
the church, we tend to believethat clergy does ministry and that the laity
(16:32):
benefits from the ministry of the clergy, and as opposed to talk about a
Western mindset. Yeah, as opposedto a gifts based faith and a gifts
based church. The Bible says,you know, the Bible mentions, the
New Testament mentions depends on which listsyou put together, twenty something spiritual gifts.
(16:52):
So there's a spiritual gift of leadership, there's a spiritual gift of apostleship,
there's a spiritual gift of leadership,I mean of teaching all these things.
There's also a spiritual gift of mercy, and there's a spiritual gift of
helps And now what we know,based on a lot of research and based
on basically how the Bible talks,there seems to be a narrow number of
(17:15):
gifted Bible teachers. Right, there'sa narrow number a smaller number of gifted
spiritually gifted leaders. That's why youcan have a church of five thousand and
have a couple of leaders, right, That's why, because God does it.
So then the flip side of thatis, we know the huge majority
(17:37):
of Christians do have a heart forsomebody should care for them. Somebody should
do that thing. You know,why because you're probably gifted to be the
one to do it. But whatyou want is you want the organization of
the church to do it. That'sbecause you've been convinced that's what happens,
as opposed to understanding you are thechurch and you are here for the world.
If you're following Jesus, you arethe church. You don't go to
church, right, you are thechurch. And so then if there's how
(18:02):
many how many leaders do you needin an organization just a couple? How
many people to do the work ofthat organization do you need? All the
rest? All the rest? Right, So it's not about so people talk
about going to a church service andreally they're going to the church to serve
us there you go right right,And instead what he's saying is no,
(18:23):
no, no, no, youare here. You are the church and
you are here for the world.So if the church people would say it
would not wait for somebody to goto the jail and visit and instead just
go nobody's doing, I'll go toit, because that's what Christians do.
Instead of the seat of the peopleof the church waiting, you know what
you should You should open up abigger food pantry instead of that, how
about just feed hungry people because everyone of these things can be done regardless
(18:48):
of budget. You don't have tobe rich to go visit people in the
prison. You don't have to bewealthy to go visit the sick. You
don't have to be super rich tobe able to provide a jacket that somebody
doesn't have a jacket, right,you go to a good will and do
that. So, so he doesnot say the elites or the super organizations
or those that have more. Insteadhe says everybody should be doing these kinds
(19:11):
of things. And so when thechurch really gets a vision that they're not
waiting around for an organized ministry tobegin, but instead just start doing it,
then though the world will change,right, And that's that's that's it.
So that's my my little soapbox.And I love it too, because
that's actually a hard thing to learn. When I went to church for quite
(19:32):
a while, you know, Imean, I mean I really started seriously
going to church when I was likesixteen or fifteen something like that, and
then I would say I was inmy twenties, maybe even mid twenties before
I understand the priesthood of every believer. You know, the idea that like
every every person is a pastor anda minister, right and and so you
(19:52):
know, the idea that like ministryshould be up to the people was not
something that was necessarily talked about,especially and the denomination that I was a
part of. Uh. We wejust always sort of viewed the pastor,
and it was it was actually thedownfall of that mentality is we viewed the
pastor as the person who should doeverything. He should go to the hospital,
right, he should he should leadthe church. You know, so
(20:15):
we expect to be a leader,a good business mind person, a good
speaker, a good counselor. Right. I have all the time in the
world to mary Berry and visit people, you know, all these different things,
and it's like that's impossible, whichis why the Bible says no.
You know, even in even inthe leadership structure, when he says and
Ephesians to some of you get intosomebody gave the gift of apostleship to some
(20:37):
profits, to some evangelists, tosome pastors, some teachers. Uh,
you know, even in that leadershipmindset. Uh, you know, most
pastors only operate in the top tworight, right, right, I mean
like maybe three maybe, right,but you need another staff member to come
up on your last two so youcan take that test. It's called the
(20:59):
apest, yeah test, right becausethey used to ask for the word shepherd
as opposed to pastor. And uhso the eper or the apest shows that
I am a teacher first, thenI'm an evangelist, and then I'm an
apostle, right, and then iam a pastor. Uh no, no,
no, then I'm prophet, thenI'm pastor. So pastor, which
(21:22):
is the gift who cares is actuallymy fifth out of five? It's mine
too, Yeah, but you knowyour order. Yeah, it's apostolic first,
evangelist, yeah, evangelist second,teacher third, and then prophet and
then pastor. Okay, oh no, no, profit, profit is fourth,
is third? Oh, prophets first, teacher, teacher fourth, Okay.
(21:45):
So yeah, so so that isuh so, that's great. So
you and I compliment each other.Yeah, at the same time we're sort
of in the same vein though,right, because our bottom two are going
to be Yeah, but that's whyGod has so many Christians in the church,
that's right, right, is wemake up where others have deficits and
then they make up where we havedeficits, not staff, just the church
(22:07):
in general, all the people ingeneral. So anyways, hey, look
for somebody to feed this week.You're looking for a ministry, Go start
visiting. Find out how to startvisiting in the in the jail. If
you live in our county, MacombCounty, Michigan. One of the guys
that at Heritage Churches is one ofthe key leaders at the county jail.
You know, you want to startvisiting and serving. He can help that.
Bill is my friend. Let usknow. You can visit in the
(22:30):
hospital, you can clothe people,right, That's that's important. So yeah,
so that's great. And so obviouslyJesus is commanding us talking about you
know, think about it. Ifyou think that maybe the task is too
great, and you think that maybeit's too overwhelming, and you think that
nobody's seeing you and you're not makinga difference, Jesus himself is saying,
I see you every time. Well, he says, when you do it,
(22:52):
that was me, that was itfor me. You did it for
me, you did it to me, right, And so literally what he's
saying is he's saying that's his heart. He's not saying that that's him in
the flesh. He's saying that's wherehis heart is right. So that's great.
That is a great topic and wewill see you next time on the
Bible. Guys,
You're listening to The Bible Guys,a podcast where a couple of friends talk
about the Bible in fun, inpractical ways. Good morning, Hey,
good morning. Hey. My nameis Chris, this is Jeff. We're
the Bible Guys, and we justthink that you are our privileged guests.
You're the honored guest today. That'sright, that's right. Well, you
(00:23):
make it worthwhile, that's right.That's why we get up and come into
the studio. Yes to this studio. That's right. Well, hey,
today we're going to kick off oneof my favorite segments, yes, which
is Dad Joe Competition. Okay,so how about if I I'll just go
since you start, I've just gotit. Okay, dead joke competitions.
Here, here goes. And theseare these are important. We take them
(00:43):
seriously. So I've never I've notread these, so I'm reading them as
i'm reading them. Okay, okay, what do you call it? Excuse
me? What do you call it? When Batman skips Church? I don't
know, Christian Bale? No,oh no, terrible, now not laughing.
I'm gonna refuse the smile on thatone. That's sort of clever,
(01:06):
though, it's clever clever. Whatdo you call a lonely cheese alone alone?
Yep? Oh, that's funny.Okay, okay, when your wife
Christian Bale, Yeah you ready,when your wife comes home in a white
suit, covered in beastings and smellinglike honey, you know she's a keeper.
(01:30):
Oh no, oh no, havewe done this one before. Once
upon a time there was a kingwho was only twelve inches tall. I
don't think it was a terrible king, but made a great ruler. Oh
geez, I've not done that's thebest one. That's the best one.
That's really recently. Somebody gave mea dead joke thing and I think that
(01:53):
was in that one. So that'sfunny. Yeah, okay, ready.
I saw a man standing on oneleg at an a TM. Confused,
I asked him what he was doing. He said, just checking my balance.
Oh no, it's noble. Nolaughing at that one either. You're
over today. Let me just say, okay, why did Adele cross the
(02:14):
road? I don't know to sayhello from the other side. Oh my
word, wow, I thought you'dappreciate that one. Yes, I mean
yeah, yeah, Adele a concert? Did you I did? I believe
you? I believe you Okay,what the what are the last what are
the last two concerts? You wentto? Adele and uh Lady Gaga?
(02:40):
Oh no, oh no, Ishouldn't have asked that question. Hey,
I got news for you. I'vebeen to a lot of concerts. I
know you have. Lady Gaga wasone of the best concerts I've ever seen
in my life. Okay, she'sa performer, buddy, Okay, all
right, here we go. Numberfour. I smeared some ketchup all over
my face. No, sorry,I smeared some ketchup all over my eyes
(03:01):
once. It was a bad ideain hindsight. Oh geez. Okay,
that's your best one so far.Why do bananas need to use sunscreen?
Why? Because they peel? Oh? That was pretty bad, weren't weren't?
It was pretty bad. Okay,that's my worst one. Okay,
(03:23):
that's my worst one. What wouldthe terminator be called in his retirement?
I don't know, the ex terminatorex terminator? Okay, I like that
one. That's clever. That's aclever one. See turn on words.
It's funny. What do you callthe knight who loves to scare people?
(03:44):
I don't know. Surprise, Oh, my word surprise. That's rough.
Rough, Yeah, when you haveto, when you don't laugh, but
you're going it's funny, though it'snot that funny, Okay, all right.
I usually don't laugh out loud atmost of these. Yeah, I
just I just enjoy them. Yeah, I like the twelve inch talk king.
(04:05):
He was a terrible king, madea great ruler. It's funny.
Yeah. You can picture people pickinghim up and using it as a ruler.
That's that's funny, chasing him around. But that was a quick segment,
okay, yeah, yeah, yeaheah. And so today we're going to
start a brand new passage and Matthew, well, in terms of you know,
(04:27):
it's not parallel, we're not acontinuation. We ended that last week
and it's Matthew twenty five one throughforty six. Wow, that's a lot
of verses. It's uh, Ihave here twenty five, thirty one through
forty six. Oh, you're right, I didn't see the three. Yeah.
Yeah, it's thirty one through fortysix. Yes, so that's not
nearly as. No, not evenJeff. We don't have to listen to
(04:48):
Jeff Reid forty six versas. Bythe way, that is thirty less versus
than what I thought. Yes,it's a good thing. I'm here,
folks. Yes, yeah. Otherwiseit's early. This is this is nine
am. That's right. We justwalked in drinking my coffee. It's it's
it's rare that Chris is wanting toread more Bible verses. Right, so
we'll tell everybody why because you hatethe Bible. That is not why.
(05:12):
No, no, that's no implication. That's what people thought when you said
it. It's because you have todecide what the tackle in a twenty minute
podcast. That's right, it is. It's so hard. So I'm just
joking. Chris loves the Bible.That's why you do this show, right,
That's exactly right. Okay, SoMatthew thirty one through forty six one
(05:32):
of my favorite passages on what kindof life should I be living? Right?
This is one of my favorite passages. So here's what it says.
But when the Son of Man comesin his glory and all the angels with
him, then he will sit uponhis glorious throne. All the nations will
be gathered in his presence, andhe will separate the people as a shepherd
(05:53):
separates the sheep from the goats.He'll place the sheep at his right hand
and the goats at his left.Then the King will say to those on
his right, come you, whoare blessed by my father inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the creation ofthe world. For I was hungry and
you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink.
I was a stranger and you invitedme into your home. I was naked,
(06:13):
you gave me clothing. I wassick and you cared for me.
I was in prison and you visitedme. Then these righteous ones will reply,
Lord, when do we ever seeyou hungry and feed you are thirsty
and give you something a drink,or a stranger and show you hospitality,
or naked and give you clothing.When do we ever see you sick or
in prison and visit you? TheKing will say, I tell you the
truth. When you did it toone of the least of these my brothers
(06:33):
and sisters, you were doing itto me. Then the King turned to
those on the left and say,away with you, you cursed ones,
into the eternal fire prepared for thedevil and his demons. For I was
hungry, you didn't feed me.I was thirsty and you didn't give me
a drink. I was a strangerand you didn't give it, invite me
into your home. I was nakedand you didn't give me clothing. I
(06:54):
was sick and in prison, youdidn't visit me. Then they'll reply,
Lord, when do we ever seeyou hungry or thirsty, a stranger,
or naked or sick or in prison? I help you, and he'll answer,
I tell you the truth when yourefuse to help the least of these
my brothers and sisters, you wererefusing to help me, And they'll go
away into eternal punishment, but therighteous will go into eternal life. Wow,
(07:15):
this is one of those passages thatcan really get you thinking that he's
stressing that good works gets you toheaven. I mean that that is obviously
the first There's no way that anybodycan read that and not think that immediately.
Sure, in my opinion, Right, do you want to tackle that?
Yes? Go ahead? Well,I mean, first of all,
(07:39):
it's a parallel, it's it's ametaphor, right, So he's talking about
lifestyles and oftentimes what he would would, what Jesus would do, and he's
done it. Actually whereas he classifiesgentiles. And what he does is he's
not classifying like individuals. He's notsaying Peter or Bobby or you know,
(07:59):
lair, He's not saying those things. He says, well, you know,
if you live like and he'll he'lluse a class of people. You
know, if you live like those, anybody who lives like that surely will
not inherit the Kingdom of God.And on the surface, you'll say,
well, wait a minute, thatmeans that if I do those things,
I'll not inherit the Kingdom of God. But that's not what he's saying.
He's saying that people who live theirentire lives because he's classifying an entire people
(08:22):
group, and he's saying people livetheir entire lives and and uh, don't
have a heart change or refuses todo the refuse to do these things,
or live like pagans, and theygo and they live their lives and they
die, which is what the gentiles, by the way, we're known for.
Right that he's he's saying that thatway will not get you to heaven.
He's saying that that lifestyle in generalwill not get you to heaven,
(08:43):
and that that is that is whatI learned. And so again he's he's
he's not talking about individuals, he'snot talking about specific deeds getting you into
heaven. He's saying that, youknow. The metaphor is, uh,
you know a class of people,and the class of people who live their
entire lives and in this case dieeventually come in front of the Lord.
(09:05):
And and what he's really saying ishe's saying, there's no heart change,
there's no repentance, there's no kindness. You lived your whole life obviously without
me, and therefore we're going tosay, depart from me, for I
never knew you. And then,of course, you know, those who
did have compassion, they have compassionfor one reason, because Christians do.
Christians are the ones who have theheart changes. And that's not every time,
(09:28):
that's not true every time, butfor the most part, the class
of Christians, right, are theones who have taken care of the world.
So James, the author of theBook of James, was Jesus brother,
and James whole book kind of isbuilt around this this idea. Right,
(09:50):
So James says, some people say, we'll talk about their faith without
works, but I'm going to provemy faith by my works, right,
right, Jesus said the great thetwo greatest commandments love God, and the
same is like or the second islike it, love your neighbor as yourself.
Right. So, Jesus is saying, you can't separate love for others
(10:11):
from your faith in God and yourlove for God. Right, James is
saying, Dude, you talk aboutit all day long, but it doesn't
prove anything. You prove your faithin God by the deeds that you do.
And it would be the same thinghere because you're a Christian, you
would a real Christian, you'd reallydo these things. Pretenders don't, right,
right. Pretenders live self centered lives. Pretenders really don't love God with
(10:33):
all of their heart and all oftheir soul and all of their mind and
all of their strength. Pretenders don'tlove their neighbor as themselves. Pretenders tend
to like like the words Jesus said, boy, those make me feel warm
and fuzzy. I love that.Wouldn't that just be wonderful if people actually
did some of those things. That'swhat pretenders do, as opposed to Jesus
going, actually, when it's alldone, you're actually going to be judged
(10:56):
by that. That's it. Youwant what you can be judged by it.
So, but that's not the gospel, right, servant feeding hungry people,
that's not the salvation based gospel.Jesus already said the kingdom of Heaven
is nearly repent of your sins andturned to God. That's what Jesus said.
The gospel was right. So thegood news salvation is you repent of
(11:16):
your sins, you turn to God. Right, because God's kingdom is here.
But then his kingdom is a partof the gospel, and his kingdom
is that now his priests, that'syou and me, his holy nation.
They go and because they've been changedby Jesus, they visit the sick,
they care for the hungry, theyclothe the naked, right, And so
(11:37):
it's not for it's because of andone of the proofs. Do you remember
when Jesus said, by their fruityou will know them. Yeah, right,
this is what he's saying here.So if you want to just separate
the pretenders from the real followers ofJesus, just look at how they live.
Lots of people go to church,lots of people say Jesus words,
but they don't actually live a lifethat is love God and loving others,
(12:01):
and so this is one of thosethings. So we know, based on
everything else Jesus said about how togo to heaven, that you're not getting
to heaven because you went to theprison and visited somebody, right, right,
And just like James says, faithdoesn't require works to get to heaven,
but what he is saying is true. Faith will always have always produce
works. It was always produce works. It always produced fruit. Right.
(12:22):
Well, so when Jesus said youknow by their fruits, you'll know them.
Orange trees produce oranges, right period, right, and inter fact,
I remember that one time we werereading a while back and Jesus comes up
to figree there's no fruit. Hegets mad and he curses. It is
never going to bear fruit again.Jesus expects fruit, not that he's hoping
for fruit. He expects it.And then and then whatever the tree is
(12:43):
is going to produce that kind offruit. So if everything that my body
produces, everything that my life produces, is always bad, and I'm never
living for others, I'm never servingothers, well then guess what, Maybe
I'm not producing the kind of fruitthat real repent produces right, So movie
movie quote, you will always geta peach. You may wish for an
(13:07):
orange, but you will always geta peach. It sounds like Kung Fu
Panda. It is ka. Imean it's not exact quote, but it
was really close to the Holy Cow, I can't believe you got it.
Well. So so that sounds tome like like a master teaching a student.
Yah yeah yeah yeah. And thenI know that probably you've watched more
cartoons than actual kung fume. Nothat's not why. That is not why
(13:31):
you guessed because you know. No, No, that's that's not true.
I didn't know it. Yeah,it was so funny. You've you've never
seen it. I've seen Kung FuPanda. I just didn't know that.
Okay, okay, that that wasthe phrase, and I remember uh uh
me Shu says, yes, butyou can control where it goes and he
grabs that seed throws in the ground. Okay. Yeah, it's really funny,
(13:54):
good good movie. That's hysterical.So hey, I'm just proud of
you that you got one. Itwas a total guest to really proud of
you. So hey, so let'stalk about the idea that a lot of
churches seem to some well, letme say it differently. In my experience,
(14:15):
I think that there are not enoughchurches that focus on caring for orphans
and widows, visiting people in prisons, helping the poor, feeding the poor.
Right, So, there was therewas a book that I read called
have you ever Heard of the Holein Our Gospel? Yes? So I
forget who the author sterns okay,and I read that he was the former
(14:39):
CEO or president of World Vision.I think, yeah, yeah, okay,
yep, that sounds right. Andbasically what he's saying is the hole
in our gospel is is that,you know, Jesus over and over talks
about, you know, doing thesethings, taking care of the least of
these, and and sometimes in ourgospel we don't. The church does not
(15:00):
the responsibility of doing so. Right, So, and it really is truly
convicting because you know, you thinkabout it, let's unpack that a little
bit. Why why doesn't the churchdo that? I have strong opinions about
this, so don't take too muchtime. I think it's because I think
it's because we've gravitated toward letting ourgovernment do it. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I think that's a bigpart of it. Yeah, so,
(15:22):
and I think that I think thatmaybe uh, you know, the church
would say, hey, that's youknow, maybe it's also that whole Charlie
Brown starfish illustration, remember, whichis, you know, he throws the
starfish back and there's thousands on theshore and Lina says, you can't save
them all, and he says,yeah, but I can save this one,
(15:43):
right, right, And so maybeit seems overwhelming. Yeah, we
feel like the little bit we dodoesn't matter, right, right, Yeah,
that's right. Yeah, I thinkthat Here's here's my strong opinion about
this. I think if you pulledall five thousand people that were part of
Hair to church this weekend, fourninety nine of them would say the church
should feed naked people. The churchshould feed hungry people, I mean clothed
(16:08):
naked people should feed hungry people.The church should visit people in prison and
should take care of the sick.They should, right, And what they
mean is the teacher on stage shouldand the teacher should hire some staff to
do that. And it's because thedevil sold us ability goods. And as
the church, we tend to believethat clergy does ministry and that the laity
(16:32):
benefits from the ministry of the clergy, and as opposed to talk about a
Western mindset. Yeah, as opposedto a gifts based faith and a gifts
based church. The Bible says,you know, the Bible mentions, the
New Testament mentions depends on which listsyou put together, twenty something spiritual gifts.
(16:52):
So there's a spiritual gift of leadership, there's a spiritual gift of apostleship,
there's a spiritual gift of leadership,I mean of teaching all these things.
There's also a spiritual gift of mercy, and there's a spiritual gift of
helps And now what we know,based on a lot of research and based
on basically how the Bible talks,there seems to be a narrow number of
(17:15):
gifted Bible teachers. Right, there'sa narrow number a smaller number of gifted
spiritually gifted leaders. That's why youcan have a church of five thousand and
have a couple of leaders, right, That's why, because God does it.
So then the flip side of thatis, we know the huge majority
(17:37):
of Christians do have a heart forsomebody should care for them. Somebody should
do that thing. You know,why because you're probably gifted to be the
one to do it. But whatyou want is you want the organization of
the church to do it. That'sbecause you've been convinced that's what happens,
as opposed to understanding you are thechurch and you are here for the world.
If you're following Jesus, you arethe church. You don't go to
church, right, you are thechurch. And so then if there's how
(18:02):
many how many leaders do you needin an organization just a couple? How
many people to do the work ofthat organization do you need? All the
rest? All the rest? Right, So it's not about so people talk
about going to a church service andreally they're going to the church to serve
us there you go right right,And instead what he's saying is no,
(18:23):
no, no, no, youare here. You are the church and
you are here for the world.So if the church people would say it
would not wait for somebody to goto the jail and visit and instead just
go nobody's doing, I'll go toit, because that's what Christians do.
Instead of the seat of the peopleof the church waiting, you know what
you should You should open up abigger food pantry instead of that, how
about just feed hungry people because everyone of these things can be done regardless
(18:48):
of budget. You don't have tobe rich to go visit people in the
prison. You don't have to bewealthy to go visit the sick. You
don't have to be super rich tobe able to provide a jacket that somebody
doesn't have a jacket, right,you go to a good will and do
that. So, so he doesnot say the elites or the super organizations
or those that have more. Insteadhe says everybody should be doing these kinds
(19:11):
of things. And so when thechurch really gets a vision that they're not
waiting around for an organized ministry tobegin, but instead just start doing it,
then though the world will change,right, And that's that's that's it.
So that's my my little soapbox.And I love it too, because
that's actually a hard thing to learn. When I went to church for quite
(19:32):
a while, you know, Imean, I mean I really started seriously
going to church when I was likesixteen or fifteen something like that, and
then I would say I was inmy twenties, maybe even mid twenties before
I understand the priesthood of every believer. You know, the idea that like
every every person is a pastor anda minister, right and and so you
(19:52):
know, the idea that like ministryshould be up to the people was not
something that was necessarily talked about,especially and the denomination that I was a
part of. Uh. We wejust always sort of viewed the pastor,
and it was it was actually thedownfall of that mentality is we viewed the
pastor as the person who should doeverything. He should go to the hospital,
right, he should he should leadthe church. You know, so
(20:15):
we expect to be a leader,a good business mind person, a good
speaker, a good counselor. Right. I have all the time in the
world to mary Berry and visit people, you know, all these different things,
and it's like that's impossible, whichis why the Bible says no.
You know, even in even inthe leadership structure, when he says and
Ephesians to some of you get intosomebody gave the gift of apostleship to some
(20:37):
profits, to some evangelists, tosome pastors, some teachers. Uh,
you know, even in that leadershipmindset. Uh, you know, most
pastors only operate in the top tworight, right, right, I mean
like maybe three maybe, right,but you need another staff member to come
up on your last two so youcan take that test. It's called the
(20:59):
apest, yeah test, right becausethey used to ask for the word shepherd
as opposed to pastor. And uhso the eper or the apest shows that
I am a teacher first, thenI'm an evangelist, and then I'm an
apostle, right, and then iam a pastor. Uh no, no,
no, then I'm prophet, thenI'm pastor. So pastor, which
(21:22):
is the gift who cares is actuallymy fifth out of five? It's mine
too, Yeah, but you knowyour order. Yeah, it's apostolic first,
evangelist, yeah, evangelist second,teacher third, and then prophet and
then pastor. Okay, oh no, no, profit, profit is fourth,
is third? Oh, prophets first, teacher, teacher fourth, Okay.
(21:45):
So yeah, so so that isuh so, that's great. So
you and I compliment each other.Yeah, at the same time we're sort
of in the same vein though,right, because our bottom two are going
to be Yeah, but that's whyGod has so many Christians in the church,
that's right, right, is wemake up where others have deficits and
then they make up where we havedeficits, not staff, just the church
(22:07):
in general, all the people ingeneral. So anyways, hey, look
for somebody to feed this week.You're looking for a ministry, Go start
visiting. Find out how to startvisiting in the in the jail. If
you live in our county, MacombCounty, Michigan. One of the guys
that at Heritage Churches is one ofthe key leaders at the county jail.
You know, you want to startvisiting and serving. He can help that.
Bill is my friend. Let usknow. You can visit in the
(22:30):
hospital, you can clothe people,right, That's that's important. So yeah,
so that's great. And so obviouslyJesus is commanding us talking about you
know, think about it. Ifyou think that maybe the task is too
great, and you think that maybeit's too overwhelming, and you think that
nobody's seeing you and you're not makinga difference, Jesus himself is saying,
I see you every time. Well, he says, when you do it,
(22:52):
that was me, that was itfor me. You did it for
me, you did it to me, right, And so literally what he's
saying is he's saying that's his heart. He's not saying that that's him in
the flesh. He's saying that's wherehis heart is right. So that's great.
That is a great topic and wewill see you next time on the
Bible. Guys,
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