ATTN: What is your definition of success? This question is critical for you to think about especially if you are a young person starting out in life. If you haven’t thought about it, then you will simply assume the world’s definition. For most, success is having enough money to retire on, good enough health to travel, enough fame to be recognized and a career that is that is respectable. And with that definition, you will climb the corporate ladder all through your life only to find out that the ladder had been leaning on the wrong building! So, how would you define success? What does success look like to you?

But the real question is, how would God see success? Who would be a success in His eyes? Would He measure us by the same standard that the world measures by or would He use completely different metrics? That is what we have been discussing the last few weeks: What will God judge us by in the end? Two Sundays ago, I said God looks at how we have responded to his word. And there are at least four different ways to respond to his word and the only valid way in God’s eyes is the one evidenced by faith. And then last week, we asked the big question: What is our purpose? Why are we here? And we said our purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. So, what is success in God’s eyes? 1) Genuine faith that produces fruit, and 2) God-centeredness rather than self-centeredness.

Today, we will look at another aspect that God will judge our success by. Faithfulness! More specifically, God measures our success by looking at our faithfulness in little things or to little people that are of no earthly benefit to us. This couldn’t be any more clear from the passage we read today.

            Matthew 25:31-34 [31] “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. [32] 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. [33] And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. [34] 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.

            Matthew 25:41: [41] “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.

Observation #1: We will be judged in the end. No surprise there. But observation #2 might be a surprised.

Observation #2: We will be judged by our deeds – what we have done for Jesus. Those who have done good will be rewarded and those who have done evil will be punished.

[34] 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. [35] 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, [36] I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’

What is the reason that these on God’s right are going into heaven? Good deeds that they have done for Jesus. When Jesus was poor, and needy, they helped him, clothed him, fed him, comforted him, and met his needs. It’s these good things that will get people into heaven. But of course, Jesus is not physically with us, so how could we do those things for Jesus?

Observation #3: What we have done for needy believers, Jesus takes it as done to Himself. Jesus has so much compassion and love for the poor and the needy and the helpless that those things we have done for them, Jesus identifies as what we have done for Him.

            [37] Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? [38] And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? [39] And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ [40] 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.’

ILL: It’s like I love and identify with my kids so much that if you have done something nice to my kids, you have done for me. You wanna get on my good side? Love my kids!

Well, then, if those people who have done good things to Jesus through serving the needy and helpless get to go to heaven, you can guess who would go to hell. Those who haven’t been very nice to Jesus.

            [41] “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. [42] For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, [43] 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.’[44] 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?’ [45] 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.’ [46] And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

            This is really straight forward, isn’t? Those who have done good deeds to Jesus by doing for those who couldn’t do it for themselves will go to heaven. And those who have not done good deeds to Jesus by not doing those things for the needy will go to hell.

“But Pastor, I thought we weren’t saved by good works, but by our faith! How many times have you told us that we cannot go to heaven by being good and doing good. But now you are telling us that we will be judged by our good works and our destination of heaven and hell will be determined by our good works? I’m confused!” Don’t be. Let me clarify. We will be judged our good works because our good works is the evidence of our salvation and not because it is the means of our salvation. We do not do good works in order to be accepted by God, but we do good works as a result of having been accepted by God and we are thankful for it.

Observation #4: Immediately after Jesus said this, He would be crucified. If simply our being loving toward the poor would save us, then Jesus did not need to go to the cross. Therefore, we are saved NOT by following Jesus’ good example, but by receiving the good work He has done for us, which in turn will change our hearts, and that changed hearts will result in good works.

That’s why I say that good works is not the source of salvation but the evidence of it. Good works show that our faith is genuine just like good fruit shows that the soil is good. We talked about this two weeks ago, but since this is so central to Christian faith, it deserves another example.

ILL: Let’s say you didn’t know who my children were and you saw me talking to a couple of kids after a church service.  “Alight kids, we are going home. Get in the car.” And you saw them going in. Now, would you think, “Oh, those kids must be trying to obey Pastor hong and be good so that they can become his kids – like they are orphans waiting to be adopted by me?” No! But rather you should think, “Oh, they must be Pastor hong’s kids because they are obeying him and going into his car.” Their obeying me is the evidence that they are my kids and not their trying to earn their way to being my kids.

So is our good works as Christians. Our good works, our obeying God is an evidence that we are God’s children. We have been broken by His love demonstrated through His Son Jesus on the cross, and we gladly accepted His adopting us as His sons and daughters. And therefore, out of gratitude and love, we respond to Him in obedience because we see now that whatever He tells us to do He tells us for our good. “If He did not spare His own Son for us, how much more will He give us all things?”  So, grace is the invitation. Faith is the response. And good works is the evidence that we have accepted the invitation.

But what are good works? What is the evidence that our faith is genuine?

Observation #5: Good works are the things we have done for the people who would be of no benefit to us purely because we ourselves have been shown love by Christ when we were in need.

Jesus said, [35] 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, [36] I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”

            So, good works to Jesus, at least a sample of them are: Giving food to the hungry. Giving water to the thirsty. Welcoming a stranger. Clothing the naked. Visiting the sick. And visiting the prisoner.

How are these good works the evidence of our belief in God? Because there would be no reason to do these things unless our hearts have been touched by God. Before, we only asked, “What’s in it for me? How does it benefit me” What do I get out of it?” And we did things only for ourselves and those who would benefit us. But being a Christian is realizing that Christ has sacrificed Himself for us even though there was nothing in it for Himself, loved us, and adopted us as sons. Broken by this, enraptured by this, we wholeheartedly accept His good works for us and now we strive to be like Him in every way. The good works that we do would show that that had taken place in our hearts!

Why else would we serve these people that are of no benefit to us?

ILL: I have a pastor friend who works with the native Americasn – people of the first nation. He gives and gives. It’s such a draining ministry because you give and give and all they do is really take, and take you for granted. There is no glory in this. There is no money in it. There is no recognition in this because there is nothing to show for it even after many years. There is no earthly reward in this. Why does he do it? For Christ’s sake. No other reason.

There are many good things we can do that are not motivated by Christ’s great sacrifice for us but for our own gain posed as done for the Lord. For example, some people will donate a big chunk of money to the church to have a hallway named after them. You have to wonder whether they did it for the Lord or they did it for themselves. I’ve known some seminarians studying to be a pastor because they couldn’t make a living any other way. They know that if they have a degree from seminary, they will be hired by a church and will have steady income. I’ve also known pastors and missionaries who will favor the rich because they are the ones whose tithes support their church and their mission organization. I’ve known young people that will work at a church far from their home for a year just so that they can get their experience. And they get to put that on their resume so that they can get a better job elsewhere…

God defines success by our faithfulness in little – The things we have done for the little people who have no way of paying us back.

APPLICATION:

If you are serving the little people, teaching the children week in and week out, please keep demonstrating your faith in God that way. If you are setting up and breaking down and no one knows you are doing it but God, your reward will be great. I’m happy for you. I’m humbled by you and encouraged by you. Keep demonstrating your love for God in that way. If you toil to pick up the youth every Friday, clean up after them, lead worship for the small number, I see your faith. But more importantly God sees it. Please be encouraged that He will reward you.

However, if you are only associating with those who are beneficial to you, only those who make you feel good about yourself, comfortable, or business contact, and at the end of the day, if your bottom line is “what’s in it for me?” and that demonstrated by the fact that you are not generous toward anyone who are of no use for you, then you have to follow the evidence and conclude that you were never saved. If the evidence is not there, then the thing to do would be not to produce the evidence. But to make sure that you are attached to the vine. Jesus said, “I am the vine and you are the branches.” Rather than looking to yourself and your self effort, look to Christ. Lean on Him, depend on Him, trust Him, love Him, treasure Him above all things. Instead of working on the evidence of salvation, which you can’t, you work on the means of salvation – Have you truly received Christ as your greatest treasure? Have you truly given up your will to Him and letting God rule in your life? He knows more than you. His way is better than yours. He knows how to make you happy better than you! Commit your way to Him!

Warning:

When we live like this – being faithful in little – there will be times we will feel like we are wasting our time. The world makes feel like that because they have a completely different value system.  People around us will ask us, “Why are you doing that? How does that help YOU? What’s in it for you? You went to college for that? What about living your dream?” You know Jesus was question by his own brothers – they said, “Show yourself to the world.” You got talents. You have power. Why don’t you show it to the world and spread your wings and fly?” Why are you wasting your time in this tiny town called Galilee?

Here’s the greatest comfort and motivation for living this way, being faithful in little. The greatest person who’s ever lived didn’t come as a Roman Emperor to surround himself with the greatest philosophers and the wealthy but came to a couple of poor teenagers in Mary and Joseph and hung out in galilee – a small town – all his life and got a handful of nobodies to follow Him. He only had 3 years of ministry – the most precious 3 years in the universe’s existence – and where does He devote those precious few years? He devoted the entire time serving the poor and training the uneducated, and immature teens and young adults – the “little” people. He didn’t meet up with the world’s dignitaries. He didn’t travel the world. He didn’t come up with a great business idea. He didn’t even write a book! But He did spend hours each day healing the sick, teaching the simple minded, encouraging the dejected, and touching the lepers.

That’s who our God is. He is faithful in little – that’s why you and I can be saved. We are little. He is big. But He was faithful in little. And that’s His standard of measurement. That’s how He sees success. Focus on the little things and little people. Look to Him. Once your heart is filled, be faithful in little.