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What Will You Do From Now Until Judgment Day?

            You can count on it every year.  When the leaves are almost done falling off the trees, and it’s cold enough for a warm jacket, and football season is half over, it’s time to talk about the Last Judgment.  This was actually Martin Luther’s idea, and it was a pretty good idea for people who lived in northern Germany.  This doesn’t work real well for Lutherans in Florida or Texas.  But it certainly works in Wisconsin.  It gets dark early.  The cold makes your teeth chatter.  The wind gets you to pull up your collar and walk a little bent over.   It’s a dreary time of the year, and it’s perfect for a dreary subject like the Last Judgment. 

            There are a lot of sermons in the Bible about the Last Judgment, and most of them are pretty dreary; actually some of them are pretty scary.  There’s plenty of talk about fire and brimstone and death and damnation.  Then there’s the accountability issue: We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, the Bible says, and that doesn’t sound like a walk in the park.  And, of course, there’s the final division, the sheep on the right and the goats on the left, the believers on their way to heaven and the unbelievers on their way to hell.  All this may not make our teeth chatter--we figure we’re on the sheep side--but you can almost feel a chill in the church when the preacher starts to lay it on about Judgment Day.  Good thing that fall and the Last Judgment come only once a year.

            The sermon today isn’t about the Last Judgment.  Jesus talked about the Last Judgment in today’s Gospel, but that’s not the main issue here.  The real issue today is what happens between now and the Last Judgment.  Christians come to the end of the church calendar and start hearing these End Time sermons and get themselves all consternated and concerned about Judgment Day.  But we might be better off thinking about this day and yesterday and tomorrow.  Once Judgment Day comes what’s done is done.  But if there are attitudes that need to be checked or actions that need to be changed, the time to do it is now.  We don’t know when Jesus is coming back to judge the world, but he’s not here yet.  We have time.  So I’m going to ask you to listen to Jesus speak in the Gospel this morning and think about this question What Will You Do From Now Until Judgment Day?

Will What You Do Reflect God’s Will For You? 

            It’s the week before Palm Sunday.  Jesus is walking the last few miles of his last sad trip to Jerusalem.  He has a lot of company.  It’s Passover time, and people are swarming all over each other trying to get to Jerusalem.  Passover was for patriots; at Passover Jews remembered how God delivered them from Pharaoh and the Egyptians.  Jesus could see what was happening.  Too many people had it in their heads that he was nothing more than a new Moses who would free Israel from another foreign power.   Even Jesus’ followers were mixed up about this.  It was time for a story that would help the people understand that the kingdom of God wasn’t going to appear at once.

            Here’s how the story starts: A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return.  Well. guess who the king is?  Of course; it’s Jesus.  The distant country is heaven where Jesus went on the day of his ascension to sit at the right hand of God.  And he went there knowing he was coming back--on Judgment Day.

            But look what he did before he left: He called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas.  Put this money to work,” he said, “until I come back.”  A mina was a coin that was worth about three months’ worth of an average man’s wage.   So if you make $3,500 a month, having a mina is like having a $10,000 bill.  Let’s say the king gave each of his servants $100,000 and told them to invest it. 

            So what’s the mina?  There all sorts of clues in the gospel that identify the mina, but we’ll save that for Bible Class someday.  Long story short, what Jesus handed out to his followers before he ascended into heaven was the task of sharing his good news with people.  You remember what Jesus said: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  And he said this, too: Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ^and teaching them everything I have commanded you.  Jesus has given us a treasure--the gospel--and calls us to use the treasure to the best of our ability.

            I know, you’ve heard this all before plenty of times.  But I want you to notice how serious Jesus is about the way we use this treasure.  Back to the story: He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it.  Will Jesus actually expect a report from us?  Will he ask us how we used the gospel while we waited for Judgment Day?  What could he ask us?  Could he ask: When your children were little, did you read them Bible stories and pray with them when they went to bed?  Did you reflect my love for you in the way you treated your classmates and colleagues?  When you saw the relationship was getting serious, did you talk about making me a priority in your marriage?  Did you say I had forgiven every sin when someone you knew confessed to feeling guilt or doubt?  Did you honestly consider during tour teenage years about becoming a pastor or teacher?  Did you take the money I gave you and set aside a generous portion of it so that pastors and missionaries could preach the gospel in places you couldn’t go?  I suppose Jesus could ask those questions and a few more.

            It’s obvious in the story that Jesus doesn’t expect perfection from his people when it comes to gospel witnessing.  Did you notice that one servant doubled his investment--he gained ten more minas--and another servant only gained half of that?  Jesus rewarded both of them.  But it’s just as obvious that Jesus considers our faithful efforts to be important.  The servant who gained ten minas received more responsibility than the servant who gained five.  Jesus wants us to take our gospel work seriously because he wants us to get things done.   Jesus doesn’t look at our efforts to strengthen the found and find the lost and say, “Whatever.”  There is an urgency in what he says to us, there are high expectations when he calls us, there is a longing in his heart that the people who know his love--that’s us--share his passion for telling the good news to the world.  

            So, What Will You Do From Now Until Judgment Day?  Will what you do reflect the Savior’s will for your life?  Who knows how much time is going to pass before Jesus comes again, either at the end of time or at the end of life?  No one knows the time or the hour, Jesus said, except my Father in heaven.  Who can predict when a tire from a truck will slam into our windshield on I-43?   So now is the time to assess and analyze.  While I wait for Jesus to come, is my passion for sharing the gospel what my Savior wants it to be?

Will What You Do Reveal Your Faith In Him?

            Oh, I almost forgot about the third servant.  This is the guy who was in deep trouble.  Here is your mina, he told the king, not mine.  I never wanted it in the first place, and so I put your lousy $10,000 bill in my dirty handkerchief and stuffed in my back pocket.  You’re not a gracious king to me; you’re a hard man who makes demands I can’t live up to.  And the king came down on him with guns blazing.  I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.”  “Sir,” they said, “he already has ten!”  He replied, “I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away.”  Is that how Jesus really feels about people who don’t use the gospel the way he wants us to?  If we’ve been lazy or apathetic in our efforts to use the gospel will Jesus come down on us like that?

            Jesus sees inside a person’s heart in a way we can’t see.  The king knew all along that there were some servants in his kingdom who never wanted him as their king; they even sent a delegation to protest his rule over them.  And Jesus knows there are some people who belong to Christian churches who don’t really want him as their Savior.  They don’t see that their sins are all that bad, thank you, and they’re not convinced they need anyone to save them from anything.  It’s bad enough that they never share Jesus with their neighbors or never say prayers with their children or never put more than a nickel in their envelopes.  But what infuriates Jesus is not what they do or don’t do.  What ignites his anger is what lies beneath the surface inside their hearts: they refuse to believe in him as their Savior.  They will not fear Satan’s hell; they will not trust the Savior’s love.  They will not face up to their guilt; they will not look for Jesus’ forgiveness.  And the way they live on the outside is only evidence of what’s on the inside.  Here you see the Savior’s ultimate anger over unbelief: Those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.  Which is another way of saying: Send them to hell.

            Do any of you honestly think that Jesus really and truly needs us to share the gospel with the world?  If he was wise enough to create the world without us, isn’t he wise enough to save the world without us?  Well, of course.  But with the same wisdom that created the world Jesus his chosen his followers--you and me--to be his witnesses in the world.  When we carry out his work, when we take care of his business, when we put ourselves into what he has given us to do, we’re demonstrating what’s inside our hearts.  People who love Jesus work for Jesus.  People who thank God for the sweet gospel share the gospel with others.  People who have come to know Jesus as their friend tell their friends about Jesus.  The long and short of it is that people who spend the time between now and Judgment Day using the gospel are people whose faith in Jesus has lead them to say: We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard. 

             When Judgment Day comes, the work we do as the servants of Christ won’t earn us heaven.  Even the best things we do for Jesus are always compromised by our sins.  We’ll have heaven for sure, but not because of the work we do for Jesus.  We’ll have heaven because of the love Jesus has for us, because of the life he lived in our place, because of the death he died in our stead, because of the victory he gained when he rose from the grave, because of the faith he’s placed in our hearts with Word and water and bread and wine.  The old hymn says it all: Nothing in my hands I bring; simply to thy cross I cling. 

            So, What Will You Do From Now Until Judgment Day?  Will what you do reveal that you cling by faith to Jesus?  Yes, please God, yes!  If Christ is the sun, then you be the moon.  If Christ is the center, then you be his circle.  If Christ is your all, then you be all things to all people so that by all possible means some might be saved.   Until Christ returns, my dear friends, stand firm, let nothing move you.  Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.    Amen.

Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (http://www.gracedowntown.org/) on November 11, 2007   

 

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Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church | 1209 North Broadway Milwaukee, WI 53202 | (414) 271-3006

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