Has Jesus Ever Surprised You?


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Edited April 18, 2008

Has Jesus Ever Surprised You? Rich Nathan April 12-13, 2008 Social Justice: Let Justice Roll Down Series Matthew 25:31-46 Have you ever been surprised by Jesus? Perhaps he answered a prayer of yours in a surprisingly generous way, or you are experiencing from him surprising grace, or maybe you met Jesus in a surprising place. I don’t think that anyone can be in relationship with Jesus and not be constantly surprised by him. If there is one thing that Jesus is not in the Bible, he is not predictable. Jesus never says the expected thing. He never does what people expect him to do. Jesus is silent when we expect him to speak. He speaks when we expect him to be silent. Jesus shows up when we expect him to be absent. And sometimes he is absent when we expect to feel his presence. But Jesus always surprises us. Several years ago, Marlene and I went to pray for a woman who was dying of liver cancer. We expected that we were going to offer compassion. We expected we were going to comfort her. We expected that we would have an opportunity to pray for her. What we didn’t expect was when she took our hands and asked if she could pray for us. She said, “Yes, we’ll get to praying for me in just a moment, but let me begin by praying for you…” What we didn’t expect was that we would be the recipients of compassion and kindness. We didn’t expect that we would be at the receiving end of encouragement. Marlene and I walked out of this dying woman’s home saying, “We just encountered Jesus.” Have you ever met Jesus in a surprising place? When my daughter was a teenager, she had a baby before she was married. And while she was pregnant, I thought to myself, “Well, I want to be a standup guy and be there for her. I’m going to do my duty as a Christian father. This happened; we didn’t want it to happen, but with Jesus’ help we’ll endure.” A baby was the last thing in the world that Marlene and I wanted to have in our home when we were in our late 40’s. What I didn’t expect, what caught me totally off guard, what was such an extraordinary surprise was that this baby, Naomi, immediately became the love of my life. Whenever I think of Ephesians 3:20-21, I think of my granddaughter, Naomi. Ephesians 3:20-21 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

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She is one of the greatest proofs in my life right now that I’m in touch with a God who does immeasurably more than all I could ask, or think, or imagine. You just can’t hang around with Jesus without being constantly surprised. Now, this next week the Vineyard is privileged to be hosting what we’re calling a Justice Revival on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights. Justice Revival We’re partnering together with Bishop Timothy Clarke and First Church of God, in hosting this event. And we’re working together with some 30 churches and denominations. A number of people have said, “Rich, why aren’t we doing this on our own? Why are we partnering with other organizations and other groups, other churches?” Let me give you a taste of what I’m more thoroughly going to expand on next week. Do you know, for much of our history our goal was to build a great church. We wanted to build a church that saw people regularly coming to Christ, a church that fed hungry people, and sent out missionaries, that reconciled marriages and built children up. We wanted to build a church that was rooted in the Bible and was relevant to our city. And I think that God has grown Vineyard Columbus to be a pretty good church. Do you agree? But about five years ago the Lord began expanding my heart and the hearts of the leaders to say, “God wants us to have a larger target than simply building a great church. The Lord wants to live in a great city. We don’t want the church to simply be an oasis in a great desert. We would like to live in a city where people are not shredded as they go to work in their companies because the moral environment of their companies is so dehumanizing.” When people walk out the doors of this church, we don’t want to send them back to places in our city that are plagued by gangs. We don’t want to send our kids back to schools where they have to be afraid of being attacked, or where very little learning actually takes place. We want to send people of this church out into a city in which everyone has access to medical care, where there is an availability of jobs, where the races are getting along and immigrants are welcomed. And so, friends, when we expanded our target from building a great church to building a great city, we realized that no church could build a great city on its own – not the Vineyard, even though we’re the largest church in Central Ohio. We can’t possibly build a great city on our own. We need to work together with other churches, other institutions like business, government, and the educational sector. We have to form partnerships and learn to play well with everyone else. And partnering together with other people is always a tricky business because we don’t always agree with everyone we’re partnering with about every single thing. And in the process of partnership, we need to be careful that we don’t lose our own souls, what makes us distinctive, the precious things that God has put into our lives. It certainly is a

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challenge to partner with other agencies, some of whom don’t share our perspectives on many issues. But with all the downsides and all the risks, the potential benefits are enormous. As a direct result of partnering together with Sojourners and dozens of other churches and denominations in our city, this week at the Vineyard we are hosting a luncheon. The Governor will be there. The Mayor of our city will be there. The superintendent of our schools will be there. The heads of many non-profits in our city will be there. City Council members will be there. The CEO’s of some of our largest banks will be there. Now, these folks are influencers of the environment in which millions of people live, these influencers would not be coming to our City Leaders Luncheon if this was a party simply thrown by our church. They are coming because a broad coalition of groups got together and said, “We need to focus attention on children in our city and we need to focus attention specifically on the poverty that affects tens of thousands of kids in our city.” Because I think we’re following after Jesus, I believe we have the Spirit of God in this, I think we’re going to encounter Jesus this week in a surprising way. So my message today is titled, “Has Jesus Ever Surprised You?” Let’s pray. Matthew 25:31-34 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. The scene is the judgment seat of Christ and it says in verse 32: Matthew 25:32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. That’s the identity of all the nations that are going to be gathered before Christ. Some Bible commentaries say that all the nations are non-Jews, or non-Christians. I agree with the vast majority of commentaries that say “all the nations” is simply a way of saying “all humanity.” In another place in the Bible it says, Every tongue, and tribe and nation… All of humanity, everyone who has ever lived, will stand in judgment before Jesus Christ. We read this, of course, and many passages in the scriptures like 2 Corinthians 5:10:

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2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive what is due them for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. …which is just one example. The text tells us that the final judgment, Jesus the Judge will separate people one from another. The sheep he’ll put on his right hand; the goats he’ll put at his left hand. This comes right out of ancient Palestine where the Palestinian shepherds would keep their flocks of goats and sheep together during the day, but at night the shepherd would separate the flocks. The goats are less hearty and have less fur needed to be put into an enclosed shelter because otherwise they would freeze. The sheep would be left out at night. And the thing about sheep and goats is that often you can’t tell them apart when they are crowded together. In Palestine at this time the sheep and goats would typically have the same color. And when they were grazing, it was hard to tell them apart except for the fact that a sheep’s tail goes down and a goat’s tail goes up. What lesson do we draw from this? We’re surprised by who the Judge is We find in this text that Jesus Christ is the only one who can separate people and determine who is right with God and who is not right with God. We human beings are simply incapable of making final ultimate judgments about the state of someone’s soul. We can’t look at our family members; we can’t look at people at our work; or people in a crowd at Sunday morning church; or at men standing on a street corner or in a prison yard and be sure of who is ultimately going to arrive in heaven and who is ultimately going to go to hell. Today’s supposed believer may be tomorrow’s total apostate, who completely rejects Jesus. And today’s outspoken atheist may be tomorrow’s devoted follower of Christ. So, friends, it is good for you and me to be incredibly modest about our ability to judge another person’s spiritual state and their spiritual trajectory. It is good to regularly remind ourselves that only Jesus knows the future; only he can determine where someone is headed. It is good to continually remember that our knowledge of another person is very limited. We may see the outward results of hurts and slights and abuses that are being expressed through people’s anger and their defensiveness. Or we may see the results of tons of affirmation and love coming out in kindness. But what we cannot see, what we have no ability to see is where a person will ultimately end up with God. Sadly, so many of us Christians are so immoderate in our language; we’re so convinced that our position is exactly right and someone else’s position is totally wrong. This text says, “Surprise! You’re not the judge. Often people will not be appearing before you! And people are not going to be appearing before me.” People are going to be

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appearing before the only one who really knows the state of someone’s heart and that is Jesus Christ. Let’s read on, verses 34-36: Matthew 25:34-36 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ What is the surprising basis upon which Jesus separates the nations? Surprised by the basis of Jesus’ judgment We’re told here that the reason people get to inherit the kingdom is because they did six things: Matthew 25:35-36 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ Now, notice Jesus doesn’t offer eternal relationship with himself based on the things we think he would – church membership, for example. He doesn’t say, “You joined the Vineyard Church of Columbus? Well done! Welcome into my eternal kingdom.” “You were a member in good standing at First Baptist, or Tenth Presbyterian, or you were baptized as an infant in the Roman Catholic church or in the Methodist Church, or the Lutheran Church – welcome to the Kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” So many folks, if you ask them why they think everything is OK between them and God, they fall back on church attendance, or church activity. “Well, I guess things are good between me and God is because I go to church; because I take communion; because I’m involved in the church’s small groups; because I go to Sunday Mass as often as I can; I tithe.” That’s all good. Keep going to church; keep tithing; keep taking communion; go to a small group. But none of these things are the basis on which Jesus separates the sheep and the goats. He says it is because you fed the hungry and gave water to the thirsty, and welcome the stranger, and clothes the naked, and took care of the sick, and visited the prisoner. Some of you should be saying, “Wait a minute, Rich. I don’t get this. I don’t understand what Jesus is saying. How does this square with the biblical teaching of salvation by grace through faith alone? I mean Ephesians 2:8-9 says this:

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Ephesians 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. But what we’re reading here in Matthew 25:35-36 sounds like salvation by works – we receive heaven because of what we do. Isn’t what Jesus is saying here a direct contradiction of the idea of justification by faith alone; that you and I are right with God only through our faith in Christ and his sacrificial death on the cross and not by our own works, or our own deserving?” How do we reconcile what Jesus is saying here with what we read elsewhere in the Bible? What we have here, I think, is exactly the same teaching we find many places in the Bible, but I’ll mention just one – the book of James. James says in James 2:14-17: James 2:14-17 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if people claim to have faith but have no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. Doesn’t that sound, by the way, like an echo of what Jesus is teaching? The way we square Matthew 25 and James 2 with the teaching we find everywhere else in scripture about salvation being totally by grace alone is simply to say that our activity towards the poor and the needy does not earn our salvation. Our activity towards the poor and the needy is the evidence of our salvation. See, Jesus taught us in Matthew 7 that you can’t get good fruit from a bad tree. What we see on the outside of a person, in other words, feeding hungry people, caring for sick people, visiting folks in prison, is simply the outer evidence that that person has been given a new heart on the inside through God’s Spirit. Your heart has changed; you’ve moved from a life that is centered on your own needs and wants; how much you want to consume to a life that is centered on meeting the needs of others. In other words, we are saved by faith alone. But how do you know that your faith is genuine? How do you know that you aren’t just fooling yourself that you’ve placed your faith in the real Christ and that he’s given you a new heart by the Holy Spirit in the born-again experience? How do you know that you are keeping it real and that you are a true possessor of salvation and not just a false professor? Jesus says here because we find ourselves helping the poor and caring about the needy. See, when you find yourself moving from a self-centered to an other-centered life, doing the things that God loves – feeding hungry children here in Central Ohio, mentoring a child who may not have a dad or a mom, when you see yourself working on

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behalf of AIDS orphans in Africa, then Jesus says essentially that what’s coming out of you is what I put in you – my heart for the least. What I love about these evidences of salvation is how totally unexpected they are; how totally surprising this particular list is. Because the list of activities here is so mundane, so commonplace. Surprised by how mundane the activities are I mean, friends, we are awed by special talents – the amazing capacity to play an instrument, or sing, or preach, or play professional sports. We’re dazzled by spiritual gifting – someone’s ability to prophesy, or heal, or communicate revelation, or lead. But what is surprising about the list here in verses 35-36 is how mundane the activities are. Again, we need to consider what Jesus didn’t say. He didn’t say the basis on which I’m going to judge the reality of your faith is did you raise the dead even once? Did you? Have you ever gone to a funeral home and taken the hand of a person in the casket and raised them up? Jesus did that. He actually raised someone from the dead who was already buried. Have you raised the dead even once? Some of you would say, “Well, I got my teenage son up this morning and got them to come to church, does that count?” Not really. Jesus doesn’t ask did you prophesy in church? Did God ever use you to heal a terrible disease? Did you ever work a veritable miracle? Instead of the things that we pay so much attention to, Jesus’ lists activities that are accessible to virtually everyone in the world. You don’t need special training to feed someone who is hungry. You don’t need seminary degree on your wall, or a year of systematic theology to feed a hungry person. All you need to do is give your lunch away. That’s pretty simple. You’ve got a lunch? You see someone who is hungry, and you give them your lunch. No training class in the church is required. You don’t need to be a millionaire, or get a government grant, to go into McDonald’s and purchase a couple of burgers for a man who is standing on the street corner who is hungry. You don’t need dazzling spiritual gifts to sit with someone in a hospital room who is sick. Just about anyone of any age can visit with an elderly sick relative in a nursing home. You can be a 3-year old and visit your greatgrandmother. You don’t need a high IQ to visit a prisoner. See, unless you are totally impoverished and totally immobile, you could probably do the things on this list. And even if you find yourself totally immobile, you could pray for those who are suffering in this world. Anyone can do these things. And what I said is what’s surprising to me about the basis upon which Jesus’ judges the world is how mundane the acts are. Indeed, they are done by mothers around the world all the time – feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sitting with the sick. That sounds like most mothers’ job description. Jesus said what moms do all the time and what some dads do; just do these things outside your family. Extend mundane family acts outside the family to other people.

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You know, over the last 20 years there has been this great politicization of the family. It has become commonplace for some groups to label themselves as pro-family and to label other groups as anti-family. So groups will say, “This activity is pro-family; this activity is anti-family.” But here is a thought that God’s Spirit surprised me with as I was reading this text. I felt the Lord say, “What if your being pro-family including not only being pro-your family, but included other people’s families in your sphere of concern?” What if the mundane things I do for my family, and the mundane things I want for my family – things like shelter, and food, and access to health care when they are sick, and clean drinking water – what if the mundane simple things I want for my family and you want for your family, we began to work for those things for other families? What if our pro-family agenda as a church was not just restricted to our own families, but we were pro-the families living now in the Darfur in Africa, or who are being slaughtered and having their houses burned down by government supported troops in the Sudan. What if we were pro-families in Tanzania where we’ve sent a mission team, who are getting sick because they regularly drink unsanitary drinking water? And we were prothe-families in Appalachia or in different parts of our city, who are unable to afford to see a doctor when they are ill? Mundane things extended out beyond us to other families. What if we labored as a church and prayed and worked to see these simple mundane things we want spread across the globe? That’s what the Justice Revival is all about. Notice that the people that Jesus speaks so kindly to are surprised his commendations. Verses 37-39: Matthew 25:37-39 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ These people are Surprised by Jesus’ reward and affirmation In other words, they are surprised by grace. These folks who are commended don’t think they are doing anything special, certainly nothing to merit Jesus’ attention. And what I see here friends, is the surprisingly eternal value of what we do. You know, there are many situations in which you will find yourself in life that seem to be absolutely imbued with a sense of meaninglessness. Some of you young moms might say, “All I do all day long is move from changing another poopy diaper to cleaning up another mess, to fixing another pbj sandwich for lunch – that’s my life day after day. It is not glamorous. What’s the point?”

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The point is the amazing awesomely surprising point is that Jesus notices what you do, moms. That’s the point. That Jesus, the Lord over everything, the Creator of the galaxies, Jesus the eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity notices your totally mundane deeds, and my totally mundane deeds – that’s mind-blowing. I think of an 85-year old father of two of my dearest friends. This elderly man’s wife has Alzheimer’s. She’s been declining for years. This man sits at dinner and his wife asks him the same question ten times in a row. And with the grace and patience he’s learned over a lifetime, he answers his wife’s question ten times in a row. Pointless activity to answer the same question ten times in a row? Jesus says, “I notice you, son.” This man’s wife takes out her dentures and for no particular reason, she hides them – in the refrigerator; she puts her dentures in her underwear drawer; she puts them under the bed. And this 85-year old man spends the day searching for his wife’s dentures – not once, but repeatedly. Does something as little as searching for the dentures of a woman with Alzheimer’s matter? Jesus says, “Yes; surprisingly yes – it matters.” Jesus says, “It matters to me.” Does it matter, friend, if you make a choice that the new car you are buying is only going to cost you $30,000 instead of $55,000 and that you are going to take the $25,000 that you could have spent on a really great car and you are going to buy a thousand malaria nets to protect kids in Africa from getting malaria. Or you are going to buy 25,000 dosages of measles vaccine to inoculate 25,000 kids in another country. Or you are going to join our Kingdom Builders Group that I lead here at the Vineyard and help us provide clean drinking water for thousands of people in Tanzania through our partnership with Thirst Relief. Do those things matter – whether we choose to get an upgraded car, or instead we make a private secret choice to get a more moderate vehicle and take the remaining money and give it away? Do those private, secret choices that we make matter? Jesus says, “They matter to me.” Here is the amazing thing: Jesus says, “You’re doing it for me.” Verse 40: Matthew 25:40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Surprised by Jesus’ identification of with all the least in this world You know, there has been an enormous amount of discussion about who are the least of these brothers and sisters of mine? Matthew 25:40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ A few commentators very idiosyncratically, I think, say that the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, Jesus is referring to Jewish people, or to Christian missionaries. I

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just don’t find that in the text at all. More convincing is the possibility that Jesus is referring to Christians in general. But most convincing of all, I think, is that Jesus is talking about everyone in need whether Christian or not. The least of these brothers and sisters of mine, I believe, along with commentators throughout the history of the church, the least of these brothers and sisters includes everyone in need. You say, “Why do you think that is the correct way to interpret this text?” I think to restrict the meaning in any way is contrary to the flow of the text. It is hard to believe that all the nations including non-Christians will be spending their time visiting Christians in prison, or looking after Christians who are sick or feeding Christians who are hungry. A restricted meaning is contrary to the flow of the text. It is also contrary to the practice of the church throughout history. The Roman Emperor Julian back in the 4th century complained about Christians to a pagan priest saying, “I think that when the poor happen to be neglected and overlooked by the priests, then the impious Galileans observed this and devoted themselves to benevolence…[he went on to say]…The impious Galileans support not only their poor, but ours as well. Everyone can see that our people lack aid from us.” What we find in the history of the church is unrestricted mercy, mercy that flows beyond the Christian family. And this understanding of unrestricted mercy going beyond the church is certainly a huge part of contemporary Roman Catholic social teaching. Some of the best thinking about our Christian responsibility toward people in this world is coming out of the Roman Catholic church. Roman Catholics have a doctrine that they call solidarity and some of you heard of the Solidarity Movement in Poland a couple of decades ago that resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the communism. It came straight out of the Roman Catholic church. And essentially, what solidarity means is that we are our brothers’ keepers. That everyone else on earth is our neighbor; everyone else on earth is somebody for whom Jesus died; they are made in the image of God; loved with the same love of God as God loves Christians. We are one human family here on planet earth. We are all really responsible for all. And this broad understanding of the scope of our care is consistent with Jesus’ teaching in texts like the Good Samaritan that I referred to last week. Whenever I read a commentary that speaks to restrict the statement, “the least of these brethren” to Christian missionaries, or just to Christians, it reminds me of the debate that the lawyer had with Jesus in the story of the Good Samaritan. In that story, the lawyer asked, “Who is my neighbor?” The answer that Jesus offered is that you are neighbor to anyone who needs your help. Your neighbor is not just your family; not just your tribe; not just your religion. It is anyone, even someone outside your tribe, who needs your help. Let me be clear. By calling someone outside the faith brother, we are not saying that person is eternally saved. We are using brother and sister here the way Jesus used it in Matthew 7 – a fellow human being, someone who shares our common humanity, someone who is made in the image of God, someone who is our neighbor. So we can

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certainly start our practice of charity with those who are Christian brothers and sisters. For example, Nicholas Kristof has written New York Times editorials about our Christian brothers and sisters who are fleeing intense persecution in North Korea going across the border to China. And China, in total violation of the 1951 Refugees Convention, sends these fleeing Christians back to North Korea where they face torture and imprisonment, and sometimes execution. Chinese Christians are risking their own safety by providing safe haven for these fleeing North Korean Christians. Here is something that you and I could do. There is an organization called International Christian Concern (ICC). You can go on the website of ICC at persecution.org. persecution.org ICC puts out an annual report that they call The Hall of Shame of the world’s ten worst persecutors of Christians. It begins with North Korea and includes Saudi Arabia, China, Pakistan, Egypt, India, Laos, and Indonesia. Just by going on that website you can inform yourself about what Christian brothers and sisters are experiencing around the world. And then they have practical steps for you to take of writing letters and advocating for our Christian family. You say that you are a mom and home; you’ve got two little kids; you are super busy, your job is ridiculously demanding – what can you do? Here’s place to start in visiting prisoners. I don’t know if you realized it, but Vineyard has a pretty extensive prison ministry. You know, as a country we struggle so much regarding crime and repeat offenders. The recidivism rate, the rate at which a prisoner will end up back in prison, is just ridiculously high. You say, “Why is it so high?” Maybe you read in the paper that the state government because of budgetary needs recently cut $71 million dollars out of the re-entry program for prisoners leaving prison. So there is a huge hiring freeze going on regarding those folks who help prisoners reenter society, programs have been cut. Deb Scott heads up our program for women, who are in prison at the Ohio Reformatory for Women. I asked Deb, “What does a woman receive when she gets out of prison? What’s it like once you’ve done your time and paid your debt to society? What happens when a woman leaves prison?” She said, “Well, in prison you can make up to $20 a month. Typically, a woman leaves prison with less than $100 and they get a trip to the bus station. They can leave with two pairs of their own personal clothes, if they have their own clothes. Many of the women do not have their own clothes when they leave prison.” So they get less than $100, a trip to the bus station, and old state prison uniforms to wear. Deb tells me that 45% of the women that have done their time and are leaving, go out into a world where they have absolutely no support and no one to pick them up.

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Now this is no slam against the Department of Rehabilitation, in which we have lots of people who really care and who are working hard to create a difference in women’s lives. The resources are just not there. So a woman gets out of prison and because she has done time, she often finds it nearly impossible to get a job. She may go back into a living situation that is incredibly abusive. You probably don’t know this, but right now we work in several correctional facilities as a church because we take Matthew 25 as our marching orders. For women we do Beth Moore Bible Studies; we mentor women while they are in prison and mentor them after they are released. We do worship. One of the cool programs that we do is called Aunt Mary’s Reading Program. We have women in prison read children’s books, we record them reading and then we package up the recording and give it to their kids so that there is at least some connection between moms and their children. Some men in our church work in the Marion Juvenile Correctional Facility doing tutoring for kids to get their High School GED and pass proficiency tests. We do Bible studies at the Marion Juvenile Correctional Facility. FOTV also has people going into the Scioto Juvenile Facility for girls. If any of you are saying, “I would be willing to help out,” our great needs are mentoring and jobs. If you are a person who says, “I’m in a situation where we can employ someone in my company; we could hire a woman coming out of prison; we could hire a guy,” so that it is not just a revolving door back into prison repeatedly, here are two contacts for you: [email protected] [email protected] Church, we take Matthew 25 seriously. We think it is supposed to be practiced. We have over 100 volunteer programs in the community center right now. Last month 5100 people were served in our community center. Our Zone program, which is our after school program, has over 100 kids participating. We have over 150 immigrants in our English-As-A-Second-Language program every week. Isn’t that great? Let me read to you a testimony: My name is Ana Cruz, I am from El Salvador and I have 2 kids. I came here 3 years ago by traveling across the border in a boat. We decided to come to the U.S. because the situation in El Salvador was very difficult because the violence and the gangs, and my husband was already here in the U.S. working and sending money home. We decided to come here to get a better education for the children. No matter the risk that crossing the border to come here without documents represented, we decided to come here to be together as a family and try to bring the kids to a better opportunity. After traveling for 21 days, we finally arrived in Ohio. When we arrived in Columbus, it was difficult here because everything was different. The weather was different, the food was different, the language was

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different. I didn’t speak any English so I couldn’t do simple things like order what I wanted to eat at a restaurant. I didn’t know how to drive, so I couldn’t even go to the store by myself to get groceries. It was so isolating when I first came here, I felt trapped inside my house. I had to go to the emergency room at the hospital and couldn’t tell the doctor what was wrong and so they got a Spanish interpreter to come interpret for me. Her name was Maria and she invited me to come to the Vineyard for church and for the ESL program to learn English. I have been coming to the classes and learning English and the classes have helped me so much. I can talk with the clerk in the store now and order what I want off of a menu! I got a job at a restaurant and have been able to communicate with people there. I have learned how to drive a car now as well so me and my kids are no longer stuck at home. I have been granted political asylum from the U.S. government because of all of the violence in El Salvador. I have joined the church and am a part of a Spanish speaking small group and my kids are involved in the kids programs here. I have a community of people around me which is what I missed so much about El Salvador. We may be poor in El Salvador, but you always have people around you to talk to and to be together with. Listen, we can’t all do everything. We can’t. Everyone of us can do one thing. We could go down on a Saturday morning once a month to FOTV to pass out groceries and give them to a hungry person. We could begin a friendship with an immigrant in our community center. We could mentor a child in our community center or through our single parents ministry. We could advocate for Christian brothers and sisters who are imprisoned around the world. We could offer someone a job. No one person can do everything. But each of us could do one thing. Following the service today there is going to be a Fair out in the lobby where you can walk through and say, “Lord, is there one thing that you would have me do? Just one thing?” And other major reason why you ought to do one thing is not simply because the poor need you, but you need the poor. We need to do one thing for our own souls. We often say, “I feel so far from God. I just don’t feel very connected.” Jesus says, “You want to find me? You’re going to find me among the least in this world. If you want to experience me, here is where you will experience me – on a line in a soup kitchen, in a food pantry, in a prison Bible study, mentoring an immigrant in English, visiting a nursing home, or working in our legal clinic.” There is a promise of blessing for your soul and my soul when we connect with the least of these. We read in Proverbs 22:9 these words: Proverbs 22:9 The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor.

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Finally, we read these chilling words in verses 41-16: Matthew 25:41-46 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ 44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ 45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ 46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Surprised by Jesus’ stern warning about neglecting the poor Now, I don’t relish teaching about hell. It is not a topic that I like to discuss a great deal. But Jesus talks about hell a great deal. He surprises us with a stern warning here in scripture about our neglect for the poor. Listen, I haven’t the time to go through a thorough discussion about how a loving God could send people to hell. Frankly, I don’t think a loving God does send people to hell. I think people go to hell on their own accord. You must never think that there are people who will be standing in front of Jesus on the last day begging Jesus for mercy and Jesus says to them, “Depart from me.” Hell is not a place God sends people. Hell is something we freely choose for ourselves. CS Lewis in one of his writings says that the door to hell is locked on the inside. In other words, people in hell could get out, but they don’t want to. But I think something of the awful warning regarding hell is found in two little verbs here in Matthew 25:34: Matthew 25:34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. And in verse 41: Matthew 25:41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. You see, friends, our lives are always in motion. We are continually moving towards Jesus or we are moving away from Jesus. And Jesus is telling us in a surprisingly awful way what the eternal consequences are for the utterly self-absorbed life. He is saying this: “Hell is your freely chosen identity as an utterly self-absorbed person as shown by

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your neglect of the poor. Hell is your freely chosen identity apart from God, stretched out to infinity.” You are on a trajectory away from God in your self-absorption. You are on a trajectory away from God if you won’t share God’s heart. You are on a trajectory away from God through your sins of omission. If you stay on that road, friends, long enough and everything we do, you see, has eternal consequences, then where we end up is hell. Don’t ever think that the picture of the last day is poor souls falling through space being plunged headlong into hell while they cry out to God for mercy and God saying, “Too late! Too late; no mercy for you!” No, hell is rather our headlong dive that we begin now, a freely chosen path where step by step we just collapse in ourselves, wall ourselves off from God by walling ourselves off from the poor, until finally we are so locked into a prison of our own selfcenteredness and isolation. All of our humility is gone. The only thing that remains is proud raging against God. And that goes on forever. Hell is not just the result of the horrible things we do. He is the result of a thousand, a million little choices of selfcenteredness and the neglect of others until we totally collapse in on ourselves forever. Jesus is the God of surprises. He surprisingly in an awesomely wonderful way and awesomely terrible way takes notice of our lives especially our lives towards the least of these. Let’s pray.

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Has Jesus Ever Surprised You? Rich Nathan April 13-14, 2008 Social Justice: Let Justice Roll Down Series Matthew 25:31-46 I. Surprised by who the Judge is (Matthew 25:31, 32)

II. Surprised by the basis of Jesus’ judgment (Matthew 25:34-36)

III. Surprised by how mundane the activities are (Matthew 25:34-36)

IV. Surprised by Jesus’ reward and affirmation (Matthew 25:37-39)

V. Surprised by Jesus’ identification with all of the least in this world (Matthew 25:40) VI. Surprised by Jesus’ stern warning about neglecting the poor (Matthew 25:4146)

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