The old saying is, “What you don’t know, won’t hurt you”. The idea is that ignorance can shield us from responsibility and accountability, that we can’t be judged for what we don’t know. Sadly, this is the coward’s way of thinking because it turns our attention from others to ourselves, it changes our line of sight from outward to inward, it reduces the world to our interests and causes us to see others as either the reason for or solution to our problems rather than seeing ourselves as partners with God in the needs of others. In Matthew 25 Jesus told three parables about awareness. The first two, the parable of the ten virgins and the parable of the talents were directed toward Israel and their lack of awareness of the coming of the Messiah. These parables have applications that we can and often make for ourselves, about the return of Christ, but their initial application was to those Jesus was actively speaking to desiring to open their hearts and their minds, to make them aware that the Messiah they were waiting for was standing in their midst. The third parable, what is often referred to as the parable of the sheep and the goats, was a parable of dual awareness. The Messiah who came to save us will return to judge us and His judgement will be based upon our transformation, did we surrender our lives to Him so that He could remake us into His image? Did we serve Him by becoming like Him? We talk a lot about Jesus’ love, Jesus’ humility, His patience and forgiveness, today we will talk about the fact that these characteristics of Jesus flow from His awareness. Jesus didn’t just know the hearts of men by His divinity He was also aware of the hearts, hurts and hopes of men in their humanity. He looked at the rich young ruler and loved him, He felt virtue leave his body when the woman with the issue of blood touched the hem of his garment, He had compassion on the hungry crowd that had followed Him without eating for three days, He knew the rejection of the woman at the well when He asked her for water. Jesus shows His love by being aware of our condition and our circumstances, we show Jesus’ love to the church we are a part of and the world we live in the same way, by first being aware. My prayer today is that we will allow the parable of the sheep and the goats to challenge our awareness, that we will see those around us with the same concern and conviction with which Jesus has seen us and that we will represent and replicate the heart and character of our King by loving Him through loving others, obeying Him by serving others and glorifying Him so that He can redeem others, by being aware of the vast needs that surround us and the great provision that has already been entrusted to us.
At the end of the sermon we watched the following video about World Vision’s Matthew 25 Challenge
Matthew 25 Challenge Intro Video