Our Individual Accountability

[Dunkle] Good afternoon, brethren. Thank you, Mrs. Roudenbush. That was beautiful. I always enjoy having live, special music to honor God and, of course, inspire all of us.

I think I should thank Mr. Musgrove. He gave me a promotion. Not exactly, but sometimes people ask me about ABC, and I tell people I learned after a couple years in that I'm not the director, I'm the coordinator, which is a lot more interesting because instead of directing, do this or do that, I try to coordinate and keep all the moving parts together. There are a lot of parts, and fortunately it goes pretty well, and we're excited about a new class coming in soon. So it'll be starting up again, which will be nice because this room for the last couple months has been kind of dark, and it gets a little depressing just seeing rows of chairs.

So when the students come in, we set up for the classroom, and there's excitement and life and noise, and I love it when they start learning music. We start hearing music wafting down the halls as they're learning songs and such, and none of this is in my notes. I didn't come to talk about ABC, but it is exciting that we have that.

I should say also, I'm glad to see all of you here. I think our attendance was down a little bit last Sabbath, but I know there are many watching online. Well, I hope some are watching online, so welcome to you if you're joining us through the webcast.

It's been a busy summer with summer camps. I know I think Woodland just ended Friday, and Northwest is wrapping up today, and they'll be heading home, and tomorrow afternoon Camp Buckeye starts. So Connor and I will be heading up there, which is why my wife's not here. She's enjoying time with her parents while the men go to camp. And I think, what, Buckeye, Seven Mountains, Gilmont, three pre-teen camps going on all at once, and camp concludes for the summer.

And those of us that are exhausted, I say that because it's only been a couple weeks since we wrapped up the Boundary Waters adventure. Mr. Musgrove was with us there. The mosquitoes didn't quite carry us off, but they made their best effort. But I always like to say we brought them all out alive. It was a good success, and now I'm handing off the torch. Scott McKeon and Troy Phelps will be gearing up for the Challenger Sierra next summer. So any young adults that are interested, I strongly encourage participating in that.

Okay, enough commercials. I'm promoting camp, promoting ABC, Challenger. Maybe I should promote a sermon.

Okay, I want to begin with a scripture. Connor said he was surprised that I was going to begin with a scripture and not some historical story, but I do love teaching history. It's in Joshua near the end of the book, Joshua chapter 24 verse 15. It's a scripture that many of us find to be very motivating, one of those inspiring ones that inspired one of the hymns in our hymnal.

So Joshua had led Israel through conquering the Promised Land, dividing up the land, and spreading out and settling. And he's near the end of his life, and part of this chapter has him giving a final talk. But I want to focus in on this one scripture.

He tells the people there, "And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord"—that's the Hebrew term for God that we often say some people pronounce as Yahweh. It's the Eternal, the self-existing One—"if it seems evil to serve Him, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River"—and that's looking all the way back to before Abraham's calling on the other side of the Euphrates River and the false gods. "You could serve them, the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15).

As for me and my house, we're serving the Eternal. Kind of stirs you up a little, doesn't it? It does mean when I think of it that way, it's if I put it in a vernacular, it might be Joshua telling them, you do what you want. I'm doing what's right. I'm serving God.

When I hear that, it makes me want to determine that I will serve God and not get caught up no matter what anyone else might do. And it seems that Joshua's words had a strong effect on the people. They answered him in verse 16 and said, "Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods" (Joshua 24:16). I said, Joshua, you could tell us we can do those other things. No, we don't want to do that.

And in this particular case, the Israelites followed through. I say this particular case because you know their history. If you've gone through the Old Testament, you know time and again they fell short. So I'm a fan of giving them credit when they do do the right thing.

Let's go closer to the end of the chapter in verse 31. "Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had known all the works of the Lord which He had done for Israel" (Joshua 24:31).

This was good. Like I said, one of those cases where you say, they nailed it. They got it right. And we hold this up as an example of what can happen when you have good leadership. You know, Joshua learned from Moses. He saw all those great works. He led the right way. He set an example. He taught people properly.

And maybe we don't always say it, but I'd say in some ways this is also a good example of what happens when there's positive peer pressure. I referenced summer camps, and that's one of the greatest things we like about our camp program, is we bring our young people together and we encourage each other in doing things God's way. So when there's that positive peer pressure, you know, it's so much easier to do what's right.

You know, when the people around you are doing what's good and right, that makes it easier.

When leadership is leading the right way, that's the way we want it. And we want good leadership. We want positive peer pressure, but many times in life we don't have both. Matter of fact, too often we seem to find ourselves with neither if we look at the world around us.

You know, we live in a world that reflects less what we see at the end of the book of Joshua and more what you see at the end of the book of Judges. I'm not going to turn there, but, well yeah, I will turn there. It's just a couple pages.

"In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25).

As I said, we could say that reflects the world around us, especially in this modern era. But I would propose that in times like that, there's no king, everyone doing what's right in their own eyes. The attitude that Joshua expressed is all the more needed. That's when perhaps you would say to the world, whatever any of you or whatever all of you might do, I need to obey and to trust the one true God.

By the way, now that I'm saying this out loud, it sounds like I'm chastising or chewing you out. I don't mean that at all. I mean this to be inspiring, that we're focusing on what we need to do. And one of the ways that I want to consider this is that I think it makes a strong case for what I like to call personal accountability. Personal accountability. Joshua made it clear that those, you know, the people in Israel, they might serve this god or that god, but I'm going to serve the God. I'm responsible for me. You know, I'm not responsible for what happens in all the rest of the world.

Now, that doesn't mean I don't have any other responsibilities. Of course, if you're part of a family, you're responsible for your family.

We often consider what Cain said after he killed Abel… 

He said, am I my brother's keeper? And we say, well, yes! So we have other responsibilities, but it's still a responsibility for what we should do. So I want to talk a bit about that today, if you'll let me. I'm going to enjoy some refreshing water that we have here in abundance.

The earliest scriptures that I ever committed to memory are ones that my grandmother taught me and my sister. And many of you have heard me talk about this before. My grandmother was the first one called into God's church, and as she was learning, you know, my sister and I spent a lot of weekends there, and she started teaching us. And she taught us many scriptures, and one I remember clearly was Ezekiel 18:4.

So Ezekiel 18:4 is a key scripture for proving that humans do not have an immortal soul. We don't have some spiritual thing that when we die either wafts up to heaven, you know, to pluck a harp on a cloud, or that descends down into a burning hell to be tortured forever. No. "The soul that sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4).

I see people turning. I was to say we don't have to turn there because it's so simple, but it is worth turning. "The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked upon himself" (Ezekiel 18:20).

Okay, the soul that does the sinning is the one that dies. Okay, that's personal accountability. That's great news for the righteous. Not so much for the one who's wicked.

Now, this is an aside from my main point of this message, but I should say that the singular exception, of course, is Jesus Christ, our Creator, our personal Messiah who was able to die to pay for our sins. As our Creator, He took responsibility for the sins of all creation. So He lived a perfect, sinless life. He did pay the penalty for sin for us. So I'm not dabbling in that area, but none of the rest of us could do that for anyone else. I can't pay for anyone else's sin but my own. You know, I'm personally accountable, as all of us are.

If you'll turn back to Deuteronomy, we see that expressed also a little more—in another way. "Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers. A person shall be put to death for his own sin" (Deuteronomy 24:16).

Now that was part of the law for ancient Israel, and it's something we do in our society today. If I go out and knock over a bank—does anybody say it that way now?—the police might catch Connor, but he's innocent. He's not going to suffer because I stole from someone. So that's the way it should be. But it also applies on a spiritual scale, which I think is what Ezekiel was saying. You know, we're each accountable for our own sins.

And in a society that seems to be drifting further and further away from belief in God and obedience to Him, in some ways that's a relief. But it's also good for us to remember it goes the other way as well.

Here's where—sorry for this, but we got to go back to Ezekiel. I should have told you to keep a finger there, but I didn't think of it. This time in Ezekiel chapter 14. Ezekiel 14, the chapter where God is basically warning Israel—well, actually at this point the nation of Judah—you know, enough is enough. You keep sinning and sinning, you won't repent. Punishment is coming, and it's going to come for sure.

So let me read starting in verse 12 of Ezekiel 14. "The word of the Eternal came to me again saying, Son of man, when a land sins against me by persistent unfaithfulness, I will stretch my hand against it. I will cut off its supply of bread, send famine on it, cut off man and beast from it. And even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver only themselves by their righteousness" (Ezekiel 14:12–14).

If you jump ahead to verse 19, we'll see God wants to repeat that. "Or if I send a pestilence into that land and pour out my fury on it in blood, and cut off from it every man and beast, even though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, says the Lord God, they would deliver neither son nor daughter; they would deliver only themselves by their righteousness" (Ezekiel 14:19–20).

"For thus says the Lord God: How much more it shall be when I send my four severe judgments on Jerusalem—the sword and famine and wild beasts and pestilence—to cut off man and beast from it" (Ezekiel 14:21).

This seems to be saying that we're not going to suffer for someone else's sin. You know, the soul that does the sinning is the one that dies, but we also don't get benefit from someone else's righteousness. You know, I have to be righteous for myself.

Now, when I've come across this, I sometimes wondered, why these three guys? Noah, Daniel, Job? Partly, maybe because they were very righteous, but I wonder if, you know, we could look at their story and say, yeah, they each did see others suffer and they couldn't intervene for a lot of times. But then again, each of them had at least one occasion where they were able to intercede and did something to save others.

Noah is the one that we know the most, right? What did Noah do? He built an ark. You know, and he didn't just get in himself—he brought in the animals, Mrs. Noah, his sons, his sons' wives. So Noah was able to save some others on that one occasion.

Daniel, you know, when Nebuchadnezzar had that dream that no one could tell him, he said, well, let's just kill all the Chaldeans, soothsayers, astrologers...

Daniel stepped up, said, wait, wait, you know, give me some time. I'll go talk to God and He'll intervene. And Neb gave him the time. Sorry, Nebuchadnezzar gave him the time. I'd like to think I'm on a first-name basis with him one day. But anyways, Daniel did tell the dream, gave the explanation, and saved the lives of those others.

And likewise, Job, you know, he had some friends who weren't all that good of friends, who kept accusing him of being guilty of sin. That's why he was suffering. No, I didn't sin. I didn't, you know. But when God finally revealed what was going on, God told those three friends, you didn't speak what was right about My servant Job, so you need to go to Job and ask him to pray for you. And Job did, and God spared them.

What I'm saying is, we could find a singular example of these three men being able to intercede for others, but then that was it. God says, when Judah is sinning and sinning and sinning, and He's had enough, even if those three were there, they're not saving others, only themselves. And I think this is making the point of, as I said, individual accountability.

I want to drive that home because it matters to each of us. This seems to be a strong principle with God. Each of us is accountable. No one is saved because he's close to a righteous individual. Rather, each of us needs to be righteous ourselves. And that wasn't true just for when God was punishing Israel or Judah.

We're going to go to Romans 14 in a little bit, but if you want to mark it here now in Romans 14:12, Paul wrote that "each of us will give account of himself to God" (Romans 14:12). So not just ancient Israel—each of us. And that'll be true at the time when Christ returns.

I want to turn to Luke chapter 17, if you will. I said I'll get to Romans later, but Luke 17 beginning in verse 26. Now, this is a passage we quote fairly often, and we draw some lessons from it, but I think we've sometimes missed one of the more important lessons, which is why I want to visit here.

But Jesus is saying, "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will also be in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all" (Luke 17:26–29).

Now, we often look and wonder, it's like, at the time Christ returns, is it going to be as bad as the days of Noah or Sodom and Gomorrah? And yeah, looks like it's getting, maybe we're already past that. But one thing I like to note is both of those great calamities came as a complete surprise. I imagine people were making fun of Noah building an ark, you know, this huge boat in the middle of the desert. And the people of Lot—Lot, people in Sodom—didn't seem to know what was coming and got them just like that.

And just like that, it seems the world's going to be taken by surprise. Hopefully the Church of God won't be, but the world will be taken by surprise when the great catastrophes of the end of the age come at the time of Christ's return.

And Christ then goes on to say something that gives me the idea that no one's going to be saved because of someone else's righteousness. Let's go on in verse 30. After He describes the conditions with Noah and Sodom, He says, "Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. Remember Lot's wife. Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it" (Luke 17:30–33).

And then Jesus says, "I tell you, in that night there will be two men in one bed: the one will be taken and the other will be left. Two women will be grinding together: the one will be taken and the other left. Two men will be in the field: the one will be taken and the other left" (Luke 17:34–36).

And of course the disciples said, where? Where are they going to be taken? And He says something enigmatic: "Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together" (Luke 17:37). Which the Greek really should be saying, where there's a corpse, the vultures will show up. And that's kind of more gruesome. I like the eagles. But He's saying, don't worry about it. God will take care of you, getting you where you need to go.

There's a number of significant lessons from this passage, but the one I want to focus on for my purpose today is that when the crunch comes, two people can be right there together and have different fates. Two men in a bed. They couldn't afford separate beds, but one's taken, the other is not. You know, this is what I would say, individual accountability. The son not put to death for the sins of the father, or vice versa. No one saved through someone else's righteousness.

I put it that way, as I was writing this, I thought, you know what that's going to bring to mind for a lot of people? What came to mind for me is, yeah, I know this guy. I'm going to think, will he repent in time? Or this woman, has she already repented? You know, or we might think of someone we really admire. This great leader in the church, or this person I know is such a great Christian—surely that person has nothing to worry about when this passage comes to pass.

And then I said, Frank, you know, the point here, though, is for me to look in the mirror and say, have I repented? Am I doing what I need to do? Because I might be one of those guys in that bed. I don't know why I keep coming back to that. You know, I mean, I'm going to be accountable for myself. It doesn't matter what the other guy does or doesn't do. Am I striving to draw close to God? Do I have the righteousness of Christ imputed into me?

Here's where I want to go to Romans chapter 14. Romans 14 will start in verse 10. "But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written: 'As I live,' says the Lord, 'Every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God.' So then each of us shall give account of himself to God" (Romans 14:10–12).

That's kind of scary stuff in a way, because it applies to all of us. Does it matter who our family is? Does it matter how our friends are? Does it matter which congregation we attend or who our pastor is? What church we attend?

Actually, as I write those notes, I'll confess I didn't write the sermon this week. Actually, I was on the schedule for May, and the Sabbath right after the Council of Elders was to meet and choose a president. And as I wrote this, I had no idea who was going to be chosen. And one of the points I wanted to make is, it doesn't matter who's chosen. I mean, it matters in a sense. You know, somebody's got to be in a position and lead the church and make decisions. But as far as my accountability to God, I'm accountable to God, regardless of who's upstairs in the corner office.

And if I'm in a congregation out in Poe Dunk, Iowa—is there a Poe Dunk in Iowa? Probably not one that has a congregation—but whoever the pastor is, I hope he's a good man leading and teaching properly, but I've got to do my own thing. I mean, I've got to do the right thing, not my own thing. I need to do God's thing.

So we don't have to worry about who's in what position of the church. Is he good enough? Probably not. None of us are good enough for the things God calls us to do. But we all have to do our thing that God calls us to do.

God is working through all of us in the manner that He chooses, and He gives us certain assignments at certain times and takes them away at other times. You know, it's good to look and want our leaders to be accountable, but it's good for our leaders to look at us and want us to be accountable. And we're all individually accountable to God.

I need to develop and maintain my relationship with God, and no one can do it for me.

Which, in a way, is kind of bad or kind of sad because Sue's really good at this kind of thing. I'd love to just say, hey, I'm with her, God. You know, open the door. We'll both squeeze through.

So with that said, we're each accountable to God. It leads to another question. What does He want? What does God expect of us if we're all accountable? And we could string some questions together.

I appreciate Mr. Cook taking, you know, I'm going to have three scriptures that address this. I've got three scriptures that talk about what God wants. He asks the question and gives the answer.

Probably the most eloquent is the one in Micah chapter 6, verse 8. I imagine a number of you here might have that memorized. "He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8).

Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God. Entire books have been written addressing this verse, which I'm not going to pull any out and read to you today, but there's a lot here we could go into.

What I often do is quickly turn to a parallel scripture where Christ was addressing what He called the weightier matters. It's in Matthew 23, verse 23, and it seems that He's addressing these same three things, although one of them He phrases slightly differently. Excuse me.

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith" (Matthew 23:23).

Justice, mercy, and faith. Where, as of course, Micah said, do justly—that's justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God—I think that is an expression of faith.

So Christ, I think, was reinforcing what Micah told us. If we're accountable, there has to be a standard, and this is the standard.

And we can see, let's go to that third scripture where God asks and answers the question. This one's in Deuteronomy chapter 10, in verse 12.

"And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good?" (Deuteronomy 10:12–13).

I always like to emphasize that. That's something I learned from Frank McCrady. I've heard him probably a thousand times: "for your good." That's what God gives us these laws for. He doesn't give us rules just because He likes to boss us around. He's giving us a lifestyle, a way of living that brings abundance, that brings happiness and peace.

And this is something we're accountable to—that's harder to say than I thought it would be. Accountable for to God, regardless of what anybody else might do. You know, I could say, regardless of what my wife does, regardless of what your husband does, whether or not your kids are doing this or your parents, we all have to—what does it say? Fear the Lord your God, walk in His ways, serve Him with all your heart, all your soul, keep the commandments. Say, yeah, this is the thing that works out.

And of course, it wasn't just ancient Israel. Matter of fact, let's once again turn to Jesus Christ teaching the same lesson.

This one's in Mark chapter 10. I'm going to go to Mark 10 beginning in verse 17.

"Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, 'Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?' So Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and your mother'" (Mark 10:17–19).

Okay, so what should I do to have eternal life? Most of this is living by God's commandments.

Now in your notes, you might want to put this—I'm not going to turn—but in Luke 10 in verse 25 there's a different version of this story. And in that Jesus summarizes the laws where He says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27).

And I want to emphasize that because we see those as the two great commandments that are a summary of the Ten Commandments. Not overruling or replacing them. It just says this: the Ten Commandments lay out how we love God and how we love our neighbor as ourselves.

And I wanted to quote that because this one's in Luke 10, verse 28. Jesus says, "Do this and you will live" (Luke 10:28). We do that, we'll live.

Now, I'm pausing because then I want to say something else. I'm not in any way suggesting that we earn eternal life by obeying God's law. Our church has been accused of that. That's not what we've ever taught and not what we believe. We do obey the law and it's the way of life, but we want to remember, of course, life is a gift from God and eternal life is possible only through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

We're never going to obey God's law enough to do that, so please don't misconstrue anything I said. I wanted to pause and have a strong disclaimer, especially with the camera running. I don't want anyone to say, yeah, that church teaches salvation by obedience. Now, we don't believe that, but we do believe that we have to obey, and that obedience is all the more possible because when we do repent and we're baptized and God's Spirit comes into us, it starts giving us the spiritual power to change our way of thinking and to live by God's law, obeying the letter of the law but much more the Spirit, where we strive to become people who not only don't sin, but people who don't want to sin.

And I want to not want to sin. There are too many times where I want to sin, and I don't want to want to sin, and I want... I sound like Paul in Romans 7, and I know you've all been there.

But what I'm addressing here is what does God want us to do? As each of us is individually accountable for our lives and conduct, what's the standard we're measured by? It's in our Bibles.

And I still have mine turned to Mark 10. I want to read Mark 10 in verse 20.

"And he answered and said to Him, 'Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth.' Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, 'One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.' But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions" (Mark 10:20–22).

We see that. Remember, that’s what He said to Peter and Andrew when He called them to be disciples: “Follow Me.” Imitate Me. Become My disciple. But the fellow He was speaking to was sad at this word and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

He wasn't able to do it. In verse 24, the disciples... oh, actually, I want to read verse 23.

"Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, 'How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!' And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, 'Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God!'" (Mark 10:23–24).

I wanted to read that because it's not that having riches is bad or wrong. We've seen righteous people in the Bible. Abraham, the father of the faithful, had riches. I think he learned not to trust in his riches. Same we could say for Job, that God took it all away and then He gave him back twice as much. He learned not to trust in riches.

So Jesus isn't saying that what we have to do is get rid of all our stuff. But it just hit me because many of you know Sue and I are in the process of having a house built and we're going to sell our house. We're trying to get rid of a lot of stuff. It's amazing how much stuff accumulates. Sometimes I think getting rid of all of it would be great. But as we're doing it, there's a lot I don't want to get rid of. You know, you go through, oh, I can't get rid of this, I can't... you know, things become important and we're attached to them.

But Jesus isn't saying we have to get rid of all our stuff. He told that young man that he lacked one thing because he trusted in his riches. For us, it's liable to be something else. There's liable to be something that's a test for us. But, you know, that's not for us to determine here.

I will say, you know, experience shows that it's relationships with other people—you know, how we do or don't treat each other—that more often interferes with our relationship with God. It's not as often our stuff, maybe because everyone's wealthy in this land. You know, we do have great abundance.

But if we keep in mind that question, what does God require of us? You know, I'm accountable, so what's the standard? There's a parable Jesus gave that I think gives a pretty good indication of how it is that I should love my neighbor as myself. Sorry. I shouldn't try to read and not read at the same time. How is it that I can go beyond not lying, not killing, not committing adultery?

Okay, the parable that I have in mind is in Matthew chapter 25. So you can go ahead and turn there, I'm going to. It's the last part of what we commonly call the Olivet Prophecy. You might think of Matthew 24 as the Olivet Prophecy. Of course, you know, they asked Jesus after He'd mentioned, hey, you see that temple? Not even going to be one stone left on the other. That's amazing. So later they said, how is this going to happen? When's it going to be? What are the signs of Your coming?

And so He lays out a lot of end-time prophecy, giving them some things to look for. He described some conditions that would exist through the centuries. Some events that will happen shortly before He returns.

And He makes it very clear we're not going to know exactly ahead of time when that'll be. Remember that fits in with the thing about Noah and Sodom—you know, a complete surprise. Not, hopefully not too complete for us.

And He directed His disciples, watch, be ready, because you don't know.

And in doing so, He gives some parables in chapter 25 that I think it's wise to attach to that Olivet Prophecy.

And as I was going into this, I thought, you know, it's some months ago now, but Tim Pebworth, our chairman of the council, was visiting, and he gave a sermon where he called one of these the scariest parable in the Bible—the parable of the ten virgins.

You know, and basically five fell asleep—well, they all fell asleep—but five of them didn't renew their oil. And how scary it would be, the prospect of falling asleep and not having a supply of God's Spirit when He returns. Well, we need to watch. We need to be vigilant.

Following that parable comes the parable of the talents. You know, we're given certain things, and the parable of the talents means money, and you go buy, sell, trade. You take what you have and use it. God wants us to be active. Use what resources He gives us, and He gives us knowledge of His word. He gives us His Holy Spirit. He dwells in us. That's a powerful thing.

Then comes the parable of the sheep and the goats. I'm sorry, I've been walking my way through to get to this one that I want to talk about. But it goes a long way, I think, to answer that question: What does God want from us? What does He require?

We'll pick up in verse 31.

"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. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left" (Matthew 25:31–33).

Remember, we read in Romans 14, everyone's got to be accountable to God. So they're all there before Him in this parable.

Set the sheep on His right hand, goats on the left. Okay, now, I don't know a lot about sheep and goats. I've talked to some people who are, and from what I've read and seen, they're actually similar looking. If you shave all the hair, all that wool off the sheep, but people say they're pretty different in temperament.

So I think that's the basis of this. Sheep tend to be more docile and get along. Goats are more unruly, kind of difficult. Anyways, let's assume that's the case. You know, but attitude isn't what matters here as much as action.

"Then the King will 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: 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'" (Matthew 25:34–36).

The righteous will answer and say, "'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?'" (Matthew 25:37–39).

I didn't see Jesus. You know, I've seen guys sitting on street corners with signs, and I'll say, if you're like me, when I see someone like that, I'm suspicious. And maybe wise to be. I've seen the news stories where they follow the guy, and he goes, gets in his car, and drives home to his expensive house, because it pays well to sit on the... I don't know how much of that's true, but...

So anyways, there's... we didn't see You.

And then the key phrase in Jesus Christ in verse 40: "And the King will answer and 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'" (Matthew 25:40).

That’s a powerful statement. Sometimes I like to simplify it with a catchphrase that I can remember. The way I like to say it is, service to God’s people is service to God. Because you’re never going to see God thirsty. He’s never going to be all sweaty and really tired, but you might see another person, and if you got a bottle of Gatorade, that could be pretty handy. Service to God’s people is a service to God.

Now, it’s a human tendency to jump to do something for someone who’s famous or rich or who we want to impress in some other way. Right? I mean, that’s my nature. Oh, I want to help this person. We might tend to pass when it’s one of the least of these, My brethren. It’s a nobody. He should be taking care of himself. Obviously, Jesus is saying we shouldn’t pass. We should be willing to do it for the least of these.

And the remainder of the parable shows that if we go on in verse 41, “Then He will 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’” (Matthew 25:41–45).

If service to God’s people is service to God, lack of service to God’s people is lack of serving God.

And again, this falls into individual accountability. And just because I’m up here looking this way, and you’re all looking this way, I’m including myself in this. Not at all saying, I’ve got this down, so let me tell you about it. What I’m seeing is, Frank, you fall far short in this. And sometimes it’s embarrassing for me to have to read this and realize, I should do better. I know better.

But none of these sheep and none of these goats is being judged by what other sheep or goats did. Each one stands before the judgment seat of Christ. It’s worth noting what the acts of service were. Giving someone some food or a drink. He doesn’t say feeding them for life. It’s here—you can have half of my sandwich today. Or, you know, here’s a bottle of water. Giving someone clothing doesn’t have to be purchasing a wardrobe, but it could be, hey, I’ve got an extra jacket in the back of my closet that I never wear, and I know this person could use one.

They’re relatively small things. And I’ll confess, I don’t have the insight to have noticed this myself. William Barclay’s commentary brings this out pretty well. Saying that they’re not the great things like, you know, the legend of Hercules and his—what’s it—seven chores he’s got to do. God doesn’t call on us for these great feats. Most of us could have a bottle of water, some clothing, a sandwich. Visiting someone who’s sick or confined doesn’t take much of any money, maybe a little effort, not an extraordinary effort.

The point is, Christ is looking—for what He’s looking for in service to His people—are things that anyone could do. Doesn’t take wealth. One need not be especially talented. Just needs to be willing. Willing to do that thing. Willing to do what pretty much anyone could do. But there’s where I say, when I’m in such a situation, I have to realize God didn’t put just anyone there. Frank, He put you there. So Frank, do something about it. Am I willing to do a simple but humble act of service?

If I’m asking what God wants from me, since I’m accountable as an individual, these things, I think, seem to be some of the particulars of those weightier matters. It’s some of the things that fit into do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8). These break down into those kinds of things. Let’s consider a couple of examples. Fairly brief ones. If you’ll turn to 2 Timothy 1:16.

Wow, I went almost right to it. It never happens when I'm in a hurry.

2 Timothy 1:16. Paul calls out someone. Yeah, I didn't go right to it. I turned to 1 Timothy. So let me take that back. Now I'm in 2 Timothy. He says, "The Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain; but when he arrived in Rome, he sought me out very zealously and found me. The Lord grant to him that he may find mercy from the Lord in that Day—and you know very well how many ways he ministered to me at Ephesus" (2 Timothy 1:16–18).

Wow, Onesiphorus did stuff. I kind of wish there was more describing that. It’d be interesting to know. And it's tempting to think, well yeah, because it was Paul. You know, the great Apostle Paul who wrote most of the New Testament, of course Onesiphorus wanted to go and get first in line to serve him. But at the time he did it, Paul wasn't as famous as he is now, right? I don't know how much of the New Testament he'd written, but he's the Paul who had been beaten, stoned, who some of the Christians didn't even want to be around him because of the persecution he'd done. He'd been ridiculed. Paul was a Roman prisoner, not a celebrity.

And Onesiphorus went looking for him. And he didn't worry that he had a chain, and he ministered to his needs. As I said, you know, I'd almost like there to be part of, you know, a chapter in the book of Acts that describes some of this. And then I say, well, maybe it'd be kind of boring. He didn't rip a lion in half like Samson or lead armies to victorious... you know, victorious victories. Yeah, I said that.

Onesiphorus just went and did some service to somebody who couldn't serve himself. Boring stuff never makes the headlines. But Paul called our attention to it and asked God to grant him mercy. Reading of this reminds me of a more personal example. Earlier I talked about my grandma, right? My grandma lived to be 95 years old. Pretty impressive. And most of those years she lived in her own home. Well, I shouldn't say her own home. I was telling a real estate agent the other day she lived in a rented house for 40 years. But they were friends with the family. It was a farmhouse out in the country.

But anyway, she was mostly able to take care of herself, even when she was living there as a widow. Of course Sue and I made a habit of coming over regularly. But even though she was in pretty good health, as many older people have the situation, she had trouble bending over. She had trouble reaching her feet.

What do you got to reach your feet for? Well, a lot of times you don't. But I learned this from my grandma later. The person I'm going to talk about never would have told anybody that she did this. But I learned there was a church member that lived not far away that every so often would come and visit my grandmother and trim her toenails. You know, in a 95-year-old woman's toenails aren't pretty.

But this woman would get down on her hands and knees, trim her nails, she would bring lotion and rub her feet, and Grandma said, oh that just felt so good. Such a wonderful thing she did for me.

Now, the woman that did this was a senior citizen herself who had her own aches and pains. She had lots of excuse to let someone else do it. You know, even if she wanted, she might have hired someone else to do it, or talked some younger person into it. But she didn't. She saw an opportunity to serve, and she did that for one of the least of these, my brethren.

And I'm not saying this to heap praise on her, although I think it's a praiseworthy thing, and I don't want to share her name, she would be embarrassed for me to do it. But I'm sharing it because when I learned of this, I thought, that's an example. That's an example for Frank Dunkle to remember and try to follow.

I wish I could say I'd done a better job of it, but it fits with the message of the sermon. We could probably all think of some examples that fit that way.

What we want to commit to do is, instead of thinking of other people's good examples, each of us—you know, I personally need to strive to be a good example, and then do what that woman did and not tell anyone. Doesn't have to be known, you know, and maybe the person whose feet, whose toenails you trim, if they don't tell anyone, no one knows, but it's doing the right thing. It's a service to God's people.

You know, I've been stringing together a few things that we could call pretty basic ideas in this message, and I hope they come together into a coherent message. You know, we're all individually accountable to God. We have a personal responsibility for ourselves, and in that God tells us some of the things He wants from each of us. Way to your matters. Justice, mercy, faith.

And we could say that mercy and faith often involve service. Service to the least of these, our brethren. And service to God's people could amount to service to God.

And I'd say that could all come together when I want to turn back to that great statement that Joshua said. You know, all these things come into play when he says, choose whom you're going to serve. "But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15).