Matthew 25 verse 31 through 46, these are God's words. 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. He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. And the king will say to those on his right hand, come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundations 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, 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. Then he will say, Also say to those on the left hand, Depart 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, inasmuch 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 everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. Amen. So far, the reading of God's inspired and inerrant word. Jesus here is finishing the teaching of making application of the fact that of the day or the hour of the end of the age and the coming of the Son of Man, nobody knows, and that we therefore are to watch, for we know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming. And the last part of watching, or being ready, living as those who are ready for the return, is to know what He will do when He returns. And so he says, 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. And so He's going to sit, and He's going to separate, and He's going to judge. So how do you get ready for that? Well, one of the answers that is kind of a snarky theological answer that's actually true, but it's not something that we can do, is you get ready for it by being elected by God from before the world began. You get ready for it by being predestined. So he says, He will set the sheep on his right hand and 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. So who it is that will be on the right is established from the foundation of the world. And what they will receive on that day is established from the foundation of the world. And so the way to live as those who are ready for the return is, first and foremost, to be predestined, to be elected. For us, this means entrusting ourselves entirely to God's care. And it means that as we live as those who are ready for His return, we do so in dependence upon Him and response to Him. Because the thing that ultimately makes the difference is not how we live, but Him and His election and His preparing from before the world began for us to inherit the kingdom with which the Father has been pleased to bless us. So we are to do things, and we're going to hear about that in a moment, But we don't do them in order to earn or gain or achieve the kingdom. We do them in response to the king, who he is, what he loves, what he is doing. Similarly, when he speaks to those who are on his left, he says, Depart from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Verse 41. So yes, they fail to do these things for him and unto him by failing to do them, especially unto those who are his, but they do so because they are cursed. They are passed over. They are appointed for destruction. They are volitional, they make their choices, their real choices, they are wicked, but ultimately it is because they are reprobate. There is a double predestination and God is righteous and just in doing so. So election is one answer and it's a little bit snarky because it's not something that we do. But those who are elected have these three attributes, which we then seek by His grace to do them. Since it's by His election, and since all goodness and all power are in Him to begin with, we have these three reasons for depending upon Him as we try to do these things. And they are adoration, affection, and action. The first is adoration. It is all done as worship unto Him. He receives what is done, particularly to Christians, as being done unto Him. And therefore, they are not just actions made in affection for particular people. they are actions made in affection to the Glorious One. And the proper form of affection, of love, unto the Glorious One is to worship or to adore. And so the first mark of someone who is for whom the kingdom has been prepared for them to inherit from the foundation of the world, the first mark of them is adoration of Jesus Christ. And so that's an important question for you. Do you adore the Lord Jesus? Do you worship him? And all of the love that you have for those who are Christians, is it especially because they are his? in all of the actions that you do, is that especially because they are His and because He receives it as done unto Him. This is not a social justice passage where it says the way that you get ready for Jesus's return is by making sure you do as much charitable work as possible. As if charitable work is an end in itself. No, the point of these particular charitable works is that they worship the Lord Jesus. These charitable works are done especially to those who are his brethren, those who are joined to him, those whom he loves, those who are loved in him from before the foundation of the world. And so they are not just actions that are done out of affection, they are part of adoration unto the Lord Jesus. And so we can't skip the first one, the first part. We can't skip adoration. We can't go straight to feeling really warm and fuzzy towards those who are called Christians, or doing many things for those who are called Christians, because the most fundamental and essential symptom of being someone who has been elected or predestined to inherit the kingdom is adoration of Jesus. Worship, humbled before him, amazed at who he is, delighted with him, desiring him above all else, finding in him all of your purpose and all of your pleasure. Adoration first. Second, affection. If we adore him, we will love him and all those who are united to him. So he'll say, for I was hungry, you gave me food. I was thirsty, you gave me drink. I was a stranger, you took me in. I was naked, you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison, you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him saying, Lord. Now, this isn't just Lord Master. This isn't even just Lord King. This is Lord Yahweh. How is it that you were hungry, thirsty, outcast, naked, ill or imprisoned? He will never again just like all who are glorified with him will never again be hungry or thirsty or outcast or naked or ill or imprisoned and so how can it be whether we're talking about his divine personhood or if we're talking about his exalted humanity, how can it be that any of these things were even true let alone a that we ministered to him in any of these needs? And the answer is that he has so united himself to those whom he is saving that they inherit with him, but he suffers with them. This is what we see in Romans 8, verse 16-18. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Okay, so he's so united us to him that we, himself, that we inherit with him. If indeed we suffer together with him, and that's suffer together is one verb, the prefix on the verb means together with suffering, that we may also be together glorified. That also is just one verb in the original. So he has so identified, united himself to us, that we inherit with him, but he suffers with us. Our suffering is one of these together with actions that we do with the Lord Jesus Christ. And so since he suffers with his people in their suffering, even by his mystical union, even in the estate of his exaltation, whatever is done to them is done to him, which means they are so united to him. that adoration of Jesus must necessarily be joined with affection to those who are his. Adoration of Christ must necessarily be joined to affection toward Christians. If you do not adore Jesus, then whatever affection you have for others who are called Christian is not truly Christian affection. Because true Christian affection is rooted in adoration of the Christ to whom they are united. But if you don't have affection towards Christians, it is also true then that you don't adore Jesus. Because Jesus has so united himself to those who are his that failing to do something unto them is failing to do it unto him. And of course, Paul knew this in a very personal way because he was persecuting the church. And when he was on the road to Damascus, Christ appeared in a vision of light, knocked him to the ground. He says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? He says, who are you, Lord? And at that point, Paul learned that Jesus is Yahweh. He knew he was talking to Yahweh. He says, who are you? And not only did he learn then about the incarnation, he learned about Christ's union with his people. As he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. And so adoration of Jesus must be joined to affection towards those who are his. Adoration of Christ must always be joined to affection towards Christians. But affection towards Christians isn't just a warm feeling somewhere in wherever it is you feel from. Affection is expressed in actions. We are not to get ready for Christ's return and to live as those who are ready for Christ's return, as those who sit in one place contemplating how much we adore Jesus and contemplating how warm and kindly we feel towards those who are his. Those who are his have real earthly needs. like food and hunger and clothing and illness, like having no home and needing a place to stay or being imprisoned and needing to be remembered or advocated for. And so living as those who are ready for the return looks like doing something about their hunger, their thirst, their needing a place to stay, their nakedness, their illness, their imprisonment. If we take no action, then there was no affection. That doesn't mean that love is only an action. That means that love includes both. There are those who take lots of actions, but they do it out of pride or a desire to justify themselves or feel good about themselves. or maybe out of a twisted idea that that keeps them right with God and therefore they will achieve in an ongoing way their rightness with God. There are many reasons for doing actions, but these are actions that are done out of affection for those who are united to Christ. And that's why those actions can be a litmus test. Not because those actions make the difference between the sheep and the goats, but because the difference between the sheep and the goats makes their actions. And so that's one of the ways that we can diagnose whether we need to be brought to a repentance that begins with renewed adoration of the Lord Jesus and affection for Christians, which produces those actions. And that's how you live as someone who is ready for his return. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this portion of your word. We thank you for your son and his clear teaching about his return and what makes the difference in us. We thank you for your electing love and for your free decree and predestining out of your good pleasure. And we ask that by your spirit, you would produce in us that adoration of Christ and affection towards Christians that produces Christian action. for we ask it in Christ's name, amen.