Who Sits in Jesus' Chair?

Matthew 25:31-46 When Christians celebrate the “The Last Supper”, we are aware that It was not really “the last supper.” It was the last supper with Jesus, but it was not the last supper for the disciplesHere’s a question to ponder. When they met together again, who sat in Jesus' chair? Who took the place of honor? There must have been some lively discussions about it. It Is no small question. If anyone sat in that chair, they would be taking the place of honor, Before Jesus’ death, the disciples argued over who would sit at His right or at His left, but no one thought to take his place at the banquet. Nobody. Some think that Peter took the place of honor next to Jesus. The Catholic church has for years believed that it was Peter. Through him the bishops of Rometraced their leadership in the church. Protestants argue that the place of honor falls to Paul—not Peter. Neither Peter or John or James, would ever consider themselves e deserving of that place of honor. Nevertheless, Protestants give the place of honor to preachers, teachers, and elders, while Catholics give it to priests, monks, and nuns. Other people have also tried to sit in Jesus’ chair. Kings and popes thougthth they should have authority. Wars have been fought, murders committed for the chair. How much strife there has been, because the chair! But God will not share His honor with anyone--anyone but the ones He chooses! The chair of Jesus' is not vacant. God has given that honor in the church to specific people. No one has the right to claim the honor that Jesus gavet to someone else. He gave that place away the week before the Last Supper—in Matthew 25:31-46. In one of his last speeches, he said there would come a time when God would divide the earth between those who follow Him and those who do not—the “hseep” and the “goats.”. This division will be made according to who we honor in His absence. If honor Christ, we should honor those who represent Him. God judges us not on the Ten Commandments, or whether or not we go to church, but on how we honor those. This will determine the righteous and the unrighteous. This division will be the basis for future reward or punishment. Our eternity depends upon it. Do I have your attention yet? Who are these people? These are the ones in 34-40—the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the prisoner, the naked, and the strangers. God’s criteria for judgment will be how we treat the poor, sick, imprisoned, and stranger. This passage is the Great Priority. We start to love our neighbor by loving those with the greatest need—the most neglected, the most avoided, and the neediest. The culture of Jesus’ day believed the opposite. Kings and priests were honored. Beggares were avoided. You might throw a beggar a coin, but you would never invite him to your home. If you ignore the king, you could lose your head. If you helped a beggar, he might mug you. Our culture agrees with their culture. Reach the leaders and you get the followers. Pay attention to the powerful, and they’ll build your church. Ignore them, and you lose their influence. But if we ignore the poor, we lose our souls. Cater to the wealthy, win the world, but lose our place in the kingdom. These are not our priorities—but they are Jesus’. He expects us to put first those whom He put first—the poor, the sick, the prisoner, and the stranger. 1. The poor. The purpose of the church is to meet spiritual hunger. But the physical hunger is our responsibility as well. The church has an obligation to Christg to fill their bellies and reach their hearts. Poverty breeds all kinds of problems. The problems of poverty are made worse when we realize that everyone avoids the poor except other poor. The only way to lift people out of poverty is to touch them. The biggest problem with charity and welfare is not that the poor get too dependent on it, but we do. We think that someone else will solve the problems of the poor so that we don’t have to think about them. Are they worthy? Probably not. But neither are we. The only reason we have eternal life is charity—undeserved and unearned blessings. The next time we criticize someone else for wanting charity, we had ourselves—where would we be without it? 2. The sick. Being sick is an undignified experience. You’re forced to wear revealing. You are poked, prodded and sampled almost to death. Sometimes, being in the hospital will make you feel worse than the disease. The visitation of the sick used to be discouraged. Every visitor brings a risk of infection. The risks of infection are offset by the encouragement that visitors brings. Jesus said that visiting the sick was important. Medical science is only not beginning to catch up with Him. This is even more true of shut-ins Many live alone, or almost alone. There are times when a misses the mere feel of a human touch. We who share in God’s work and honor Christ through honoring those He loves ought to let ourselves be used to help those in need. When are visits most important? W the lfewest people go. Most people rush to help A church that makes a priority of visiting the sick and the shut-in will eventually bless the whole congregation. We will all be sick sometimes. We will all grow old. When we honor the sick and shut-in, we set up honor for ourselves. That honor will come back to us. 3. The prisoner. No kind of ministry means more to the Lord than prison ministry. Yet many churches neglect prisons, because they get nothing out of it. It does not build churches. Yet nowhere are people more open to receiving the Gospel than in prison. There are many kinds of prisons, and not all o them physical. Mental illness is a kind of prison. Those who are locked up in anxiety and depression are in a prison of sorts. 4. The stranger. Who is the stranger, if not those who are apart from the Lord? How can a church who is seeking to fulfill the Great Commission not be sensitive to the spiritual strangers? We should do everything in our power to make them welcome among us. Many churches suffer from what I used to call the “Aunt Effie” syndrome. Did you have an “Aunt Effie” in your family? She was that maiden aunt who was always getting offended. Whenever “Aunt Effie” came to visit, we all had to be on our best behavior. No one wanted her to get mad, because she stayed mad forever. When my cousins visited, who I love to play with, no one ever made any preparations. No one worried that if you played (for example) old time music on the radio, that the kids would get offended. But everyone knew that if you played loud rock music, “Aunt Effie” would be offended. She was family, so we had to be nice. In churches, we often give an unusual amount of concern to the most offendable. We bend over backwards to make sure that the people who have always come, and always will come are not offended. But Jesus suggests that the ones we should be worried about offending are the strangers. We should make sure that we make the newcomer feel at home. New families should be our focus, when it comes to ministry in the church. Do newcomers feel at home? Do they have a place to stay? Are they making friends? Do they understand our music and our customs? These are the questions we need to ask, not just whether or not the people we have, and will always have, are comfortable. A good host bends over backwards for his guests. A good church makes the newcomer feel at home. Our country is a great country. The reason it is a great country is not because of how we treat our leaders. In fact, one could argue that our country’s skepticism about its leaders is one of our best traits. No, the thing that has made this country great is how we have treated the weak. One of the great symbols of our country is the Statue of Liberty. There is a poem written by Emma Lazarus inscribed on its base. The last words of the poem go like this. “Give me your tired, your poor Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore Send these, the homeless, tempest-lost to me I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Our country grew on an invitation. It was an invitation to the world, not for the strongest, but for the weakest. We said we would take the weakest and make them strong. No time in our nations history has giving to bhe poor been more needed. With growing uniemployment and expanding poverty, the church has more need than ever t meet the need. No country in the country has agreater need for it Forbes Magazine said that Lancaster County, SC is the most susceptile county in the whole country to recession. No community in the country feels it worse. Ours is the poorest community in the county—with a per captia income of barely over $10,000, and an unemploynment rate near %20. Our little community is not in recession—it is in depression. So what are we to do about it> We must respond however we can. We must use all at our disposal to ease the burden of poverty. Jesus Christ makes that same invitation to us. He promises to take the weakest of humanity and make them His. He took us in, not because we were good people, but because He was a good savior. He saved us, because He loved the weak, the sick, the prisoner, and the stranger. If you think you deserve to be in church, you don’t. If you think you don’t deserve it, you do. When we get to heaven, who will be there? No one will be allowed in the Kingdom but these people, those who realize that as poor as a beggar is, we are not better in our hearts. As blind as the blind man, so we were; as imprisoned as the prisoner, so was our souls our sin and our folly, and as lost as the stranger, so we were without Christ. Who sits in Jesus" chair? the poor and the hungry and the prisoner, and the stranger. Wherever they are, Jesus will be