First Baptist Church Wiggins, FBC Wiggins

It’s interesting that how a person handles their wealth has implications not just on this life, but on the life to come.

Jesus shows that there are only two ultimate destinations.
- How you respond to Jesus determines where your ultimate destination will be and how you handle your money, or more specifically how you use your money to aid the poor, is evidence of how you respond to Jesus.

I. Those destined to inherit the kingdom have helped the poor and thus helped Jesus. 34-40

Point of clarification:
- Jesus himself DOES NOT need anyone’s help with anything. The reality is quite the opposite.

Jesus’ ministry and mission was and has always been, not to those who are rich… not to those who are already “free…” not to those who are happy and content in themselves and in what they are.

His mission has always been to:
those who are poor…
those who are captive…
those who are afflicted…
those who are poor in spirit…
those who are mourning…
those who are hungering and thirsting
- NOT for more stuff, but for righteousness.

Jesus is determined to exalt the poor for the glory of God

The poor, captive, afflicted, and destitute of the world will become the kings and queens of the world.
- This is how much Jesus thinks of the poor.
- This is how close He is to them.

The drug addicted, flea bitten, smelly homeless person or prisoner is the very kind of person that Jesus came for.
- He loves them. He is with them.
- He wants to heal them, and set them free.
- He wants to transform their heart and their entire being.
- He wants to Make them His own and grant them entry into His kingdom of priests so that they might be exalted but more importantly so that the NAME OF THE LORD would be lifted up.

It is in the salvation of the ones who are the least that God is glorified the most.

The text is pretty straight forward here.
- Those who help the poor demonstrate their love for Jesus.

Just as Jesus identifies with the poor, Christians should identify with the poor.
- When a true Christian sees a poor person, afflicted person, imprisoned person… they see themselves. But not only that, as Jesus demonstrates here… they see their savior- poor, afflicted, bloody and beaten by the world dying on a cross.

What this is not:
It's not about going and doing stuff for the poor as if it were for Jesus. The people who will find themselves on the right side of the reward will not even know what they were doing. They will have to ask “when did we help you Lord?”
- There must be a heart change

II. Those destined for eternal fire have not helped the poor and thus have not helped Jesus. 41-46

The joys of Heaven
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The hell of Hell.
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The most concerning thing about this passage is not the horrific description of hell but that Jesus tells us that those who are going there will not even suspect it.

Just as the righteous were so transformed that they did not see all their deeds done for the poor as being done for Jesus, the wicked are so depraved that they don’t even know that in snubbing the poor they were snubbing Jesus... who is their Lord and final judge.

If the judgment came today, would you stand among those who have been so transformed by the love of Christ, that they identify with Him and with the poor whom he loves… Or would you stand among those who are so lost that they don’t even see the harm they are doing?

This is of eternal significance.

To know if you have been transformed, look to the fruit of transformation.
- it should be reflected in your bank account.
- It should be reflected in your weekly calendar.
- It should be reflected in a number of people whose lives have been impacted by your generosity.

Whatever you have done for the least of all… you have also done it for the greatest of all.

On the last day, the only just and righteous judge will decide your eternal destiny based on the accounting of your fruit.