Doing What Comes Naturally

Dr James Miller
Jun 1
16 min read

Updated: Jun 2

You can’t do everything and can’t help everybody but you can do something as God enables you to and you can do it for His glory and be pleasing to God because you’ve trusted in Jesus.

Matthew 25:31-40 – 31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ’Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

I wonder how many things are there that you can do without thinking; it just comes naturally. Of course, a lot of things we have to be trained in, you have to get used to.

I wonder how many of you remember cars before they had seat belts. It took a while to get used to that, didn’t it? Young people, it comes naturally because you get in the car and you buckle the seat belt, right? But at first, the seat belt is going to wrinkle your clothes, right? Ladies always said, “It’s going to wrinkle my clothes. I don’t want to use it. I’d rather go through the windshield, wrinkle my face a little bit.”

I heard it all, I heard it all but eventually we realized it was here to stay and so we get in the car, without thinking, you buckle the belt.

I’m used to when the telephone rang you went to the wall and you picked it up, right? I saw a little kid in the store the other day— it was a really tiny child and she was in the shopping cart and had her mommy’s phone. The kid couldn’t even talk but had the phone on her ear. They grow up with that. It took some time to get used to that until it came naturally.

But there’s a lot of things like that you have to acclimate yourself to and so many things that with time, just becomes something we do without thinking. It becomes natural.

Well, for the child of God, one of the things that we need to be trained to do naturally is to care for others. Why do I say that because we say, “Oh, everybody cares for other people.” Basically, we are selfish, aren’t we? When sin entered our race and the image of God in us was marred by sin, that turned us into selfish people and I think it really takes some training to care for other people, to be thoughtful of other people because we normally think of number one, don’t we? Our knee-jerk reaction is to think of ourselves.

The word of God teaches us that we need to be trained in righteousness and part of that is to be trained into caring for other people. I’d like to focus on that today and the thing is to be courteous and polite. We learn that eventually and we can learn to care for other people as well.

I chose the passage for today from Matthew 25 particularly because of one word that is included in it. It is repeated four times and that word is, “stranger.” I’ve been assembling a little set of messages on caring. I’m the care pastor so that’s a given to focus on caring and to focus on what it says in scripture.

In the scriptures, it uses the word stranger, xenos in the Greek. You may have heard of xenophobia. It comes from that word, xenos, meaning fear of strangers or foreigners. But really, we’re all foreigners in one sense; we’re foreigners to this world as Christians.

We’re foreigners to the world around us but even as people who live in this country, we’re all immigrants, aren’t we? I mean, my earliest ancestors that I know of came here in 1685 but they were still immigrants. They came from somewhere else and they came here. That’s true of everybody; our forefathers came from somewhere else and we wind up here so at some place in time either we or our forebearers were immigrants. We were foreigners, we were strangers and we all know when you’re a stranger in a new place, it’s a great blessing to have the help of somebody who has a feel for what life is like in in this new place. Or when you come, many times you don’t have the connections or the resources. You don’t have the knowledge of a way of life and it really helps to have somebody come alongside of you and to show some care for you.

And so we read the scriptures and it talks about the separating of the sheep from the goats and caring for the stranger figures kind of prominently in the passage that we’ve looked at. So if we as part of the sheep, meaning believers in Jesus Christ, those who are members of his body, if we are to be trained in caring, what do the scriptures further have to say about this idea of caring for strangers?

Caring for the Stranger is Supposed to Be Part of Our Identity

In the first place, caring for strangers is supposed to be part of our identity. That’s the first thing that we want to see about that. And it’s interesting in Matthew 25 even when Jesus said that to the sheep. You did these things and they say when did we do these things? That’s kind of an encouraging thing. They didn’t even realize when they were doing these things for Jesus because it was coming naturally for them to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and receive the stranger, the foreigner. When they were there, Jesus said, in verse 40, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” So there’s that sense in which it was coming naturally to them.

And in verse 34, it says then king will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” These people were foreknown to be the righteous sheep of God even before they were doing these actions, even before they were doing the caring, God foreknew that these people would be part of his flock and part of his fold and that’s what the righteous people do.

In John 13:35, Jesus said that people would know that we are his disciples by our love. That’s part of our identity; our identity as followers of Jesus is to be people who are loving and show love and particularly, as people within the same body of believers, show care and concern and minister to one another. That makes an impact on those outside but it also makes an impact when that same body of believers, that same flock of people, care for people who are strangers to them as well. That’s part of our identity to be known in that way for our love and for the welcoming of strangers.

Another part of our identity is seen in 1 Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:8. Here, we have the characteristics of an elder, which is to be hospitable. The word, hospitality, in Greek, is an interesting word because again it uses that word xenos, the stranger. But the first part of the word is philoxania. When I say philoxania, what does that make you think of? Maybe Philadelphia which is the city of brotherly love? That part of the word, phila, as in Philadelphia, city of brotherly love. They’re not too brotherly if you’re worshiping for the wrong sports team. You know they get downright ugly and surly over it.

Brotherly love for strangers is what hospitality means. The stranger comes along and you show love to that person and that in these two verses in the pastoral epistles of 1 Timothy and Titus that love of strangers was to characterize, was to be part of the identity of the elder, the Christian leader, and of course, the Christian leader is to model that for the people. So if the people of the flock are to follow the example of their leaders, then this love of strangers is to be something that should be characteristic of them, too. As the leader is, so is the member of the body, and if the leader is a lover of strangers, then the people of the body need to share in that, too. So it’s our identity— it’s who we are. Loving strangers is something that we should be known for.

Caring for the Stranger is Supposed to Be Part of Our Activity

The second thing we take note of is that caring for strangers is supposed to be part of our activity. Like I said, it’s what we do. Again, we look to scripture where the word “lover of strangers” comes into play.

We read in Romans 12:2, a verse that we know very well, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” The transformation of our minds— that’s where certain things come naturally to you— and what comes naturally to you?

Well, he elaborates in the passage and so dropping down in Romans 12:12-13, we read, “12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.” Hospitality— love of strangers. That’s part of our transformed mind.

We need the transformation of mind because the mind is part of the fallen nature. It’s selfish; it seeks itself, it does its own thing, we look out for number one. That’s what needs to be transformed. If our minds are not transformed, then we just go about living our own selfish lives, don’t we? But we are challenged here to be people of transformed mind and that includes loving the stranger.

Another verse, a really interesting verse when you think about it, is Hebrews 13:1-2. It reads, “1 Let brotherly love continue. 2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” That’s kind of a mindblower, isn’t it? You look at that person and you think it’s just another person but maybe it’s an angelic messenger. God created angels and they’re to be ministering spirits to us and sometimes in the world. They come to bring you a message and you think the message comes in the form of whatever. You don’t think it’s an angel, right? You don’t see any wings, you don’t see any halo, and not playing a harp but that is still an angelic messenger from the Lord. And that messenger is sometimes there to teach you the lesson to have a transformed mind and help who you think is a stranger, a foreigner.

Show hospitality to strangers. That’s an activity that we should be involved in and maybe you are helping somebody that you think that they don’t look like an angel, they look a little disheveled, they maybe don’t smell so good, they don’t maybe look unkempt, they’re rather tattered, but you help them and God is teaching you a lesson even though it’s not a human recipient of the of the assistance. Teaching you to have it come naturally to love the stranger.

So in order to care, you have to care. That’s double talk, right? In order to care, you have to care. The first use of the word, care, which means activity, the care in this instance is the doing of something. In order to do something, you have to first care which is a mindset— an attitude of the heart. If you don’t have the attitude of the heart first, you’re not going to do anything. If the attitude of the heart and the mind is not to care for people, then you will not have the activity of caring for people and that comes from the transformed mind so without the state of mind, we don’t wind up doing what is part of our identity or our activity.

Of course, the important part of this is that we become part of the family of God, the flock of God, the people of God, and we do that when we put our faith and our trust in the Lord Jesus. We do that when we understand that we are sinners, that selfishness that we have is really another word for sin because so many of our selfish activities are really sin in some way, shape, or form. And even though we think we’re really nice people, we’re still all sinners.

You talk to people and you ask if they’re going to heaven— “Well, sure, I’m going to heaven” or “I think I’m going to heaven” because “I’m a good person because I never killed anybody.” I have gotten that answer limitless times— “I’ve never killed anybody.” Well, were you ever angry? Everybody gets angry. What happens if that anger is left to grow and fester and get more and more and more and more. It ends in murder, doesn’t it? So the way to never murder anybody is not to get angry.

You say “Well, that’s impossible.” That means we need something to transform us. What we need to transform us is by joining ourselves to the person of Jesus Christ in faith but it’s not just good enough to say you’re sorry. I know some of you have had traffic tickets and you went before the judge and you said to the judge. “I’m really, really, really, really sorry.” And what does the judge say? “Pay the fine.” Has anybody ever found a judge who said “I really appreciate your sorrowfulness over what you did? You can leave the court.” Nah, anybody ever, ever have a judge like that? If you do, I’d be shocked.

Let’s flip it around. How many of you ever went before the judge and he said, “Pay the fine?” Oh yeah, more experience that. God loves us and He wants to know that we’re sorry for our sins. He wants us to recognize that even though we’re living a pretty good life on the average, He still wants us to admit that we have fallen short, that we have sinned against him. And saying sorry needs something in addition. And what is in addition is the payment of the price of the sin and only Jesus can do that for you. Being a good person, doing all the activities that are mentioned in this passage, doing all that stuff is not adequate to pay for our sins.

Only when Jesus went to the cross (we’ll be meditating on that in just a few moments as we have the table of the Lord before us), how He offered up His body, His body that was broken, His blood was shed to pay for our sins. So you put the two of them together: our sorrow over sin and our faith in the fact that Jesus alone takes away our sin because He paid the price for it. At that point, we become part of the flock of God and at that point, we should desire to have our minds transformed so we even love the foreigner, love the stranger.

Caring for the Stranger is Supposed to Be Part of Our Accountability

The third point is that caring for the stranger is supposed to be part of our accountability. We didn’t read the end of Matthew 25, but it is kind of a flip-flop. The beginning of Matthew 25 talks about the sheep but the last part talks about the goats and the activity of the sheep has been to do these things unto Jesus and the goats didn’t do it to Jesus. They didn’t do the things that He outlined as part of the flock, part of the sheep. In Matthew 25:41, Jesus said to those on his left, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

That’s accountability, isn’t it? Accountability for either becoming part of the flock or not. It’s not so much accountability for the things you did in life but the fact that you didn’t receive the payment for the cost of your sin by faith in Jesus. That’s accountability. Now, when the believer stands before Jesus, we know that Jesus is going to look at us and He’s not going to see the sin, is he? Why will God not see the sin when we stand before him? It’s because Jesus took it away as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us, that God will look at us and not see the sin because it’s been removed not by our goodness but by Jesus and His cross.

He still will have an accounting for us— how did we live with what we had— the foundation of faith in Jesus, for the rest of our lives, we’re building on that. What we build doesn’t buy us eternal life but still He’s going to be looking for this activity that we just talked about and on the basis of our activity, He’s going to have an evaluation of our service for Him. He’s going to have an evaluation as to whether we did the things that He wanted us to be doing. There will be accountability for that. If we do well, there’s a crown for us, but there’s accountability. How are we building on the foundation that He gave to us?

Applications

What do we do with it? Well, I can think of a couple. Just because I thought of a couple doesn’t mean that you can’t think of your own. As a matter of fact, I can suggest applications but I hope you’re thinking of application that you can tailor-make to you in your circumstance and in your situation in life.

Number one: Jesus said when the woman came and anointed him with the perfume before his burial, the apostles got very indignant and Jesus said “The poor you always have with you.” The apostles were saying “We could have sold this perfume and you could have fed a lot of people with it could have clothed a lot of people with it.” Jesus said “Well, there will always be the poor with you,” which means up until the return of the Lord, there’s always going to be poor people which means we will never meet all of the needs that are there in the world.

If the poor will always be with us, that means when Jesus returns, there’s going to be poor people and if there are poor people, it means that that we didn’t meet their needs. We can’t do it all. We have to be realistic about it. That’s the first thing we see— that we can’t meet it all but we can meet some of the needs of people, particularly the people that God places before you. There may be people 50 miles or 100 miles from here and you’ll never meet them, you’ll never see them, you’ll never know that they’re in need, but there’s that person that is in your life when we reach out to. The poor will always be with us; we can’t meet all the needs but we can meet some of the needs.

In Matthew 26:2, it’s interesting that that’s where the story of the anointing of Jesus with the perfume follows right after that passage where He talks about this. We see that Jesus was anointed and Mark adds another thought to it in Mark 14:7. Jesus says to the disciples that the woman did what she could which was to given a very expensive gift to Jesus. That’s what she could do but I think the principle holds that we do what we can. We can’t do everything, we can’t meet all of the needs, we can’t do everything but we can do something. We can do what we have opportunity to do. We do what we can.

I’ve got a couple of easy ones for you—

Number one is to give to our Deacons Fund. The Deacons do all the work: they figure out where the needs are, they figure out what they’ve got to work with, how to distribute in a balanced way, in a fair way, in an equitable way. They’re wise in what they do but you can do the easy thing as you have opportunity from the resources you have what God lays on your heart to do.

Number two is an easy thing to do when you go to the grocery store. You buy a few extra non-perishable items that you can give to our food pantry. People come to the door, from outside the church. They say they’re hungry, and we have food and offer it to them. Just occasionally bring some non-perishable things for the food pantry.

Number three— the Good Samaritan. We know that story. The Good Samaritan comes upon this guy who was robbed and beaten up. He dresses his wounds and he takes him to the inn and he pays for his accommodation there until he returns. Now you say, “Well, the good Samaritan, he must have had some resources, some money.” Well sure he did and so he did what he could with the resources he had. It doesn’t say he went and replaced all the money that was robbed, it doesn’t say that he bought him a house, it doesn’t say that he brought him a donkey so he could get away from the robbers when they came the next time.

He used his resources to do what he could but the one thing the good Samaritan did that goes beyond the resources that he spent on the man was that he gave him the other thing that’s our most valuable resource. And that is time.

He went out of his way for the wounded man and loving a stranger, well, really loving anybody is going to take some of your time and sometimes we’re reticent to give up the time, aren’t we? Because we got things to do— things that will last for eternity— well, maybe not. You see, when you use that resource of time, you were doing the Lord’s will. You’re going out of your way. If you don’t go out of your way to help people, to love a stranger, well, then maybe it’s not coming naturally to you. Maybe we need to be trained in this righteousness.

So does caring for people come naturally for you? If you conclude, “no,” well, maybe there’s the necessity of some training because that’s what Jesus wants of us. He made it very clear in Matthew 25. He wants us to be doing things to care for other people because we’re doing it for Him. We’re doing it unto Him so my prayer and my request for you is to think through these things and know that you can’t do everything and can’t help everybody but you can do something as God enables you to and you can do it for His glory not to pay for your sins, not to pay your ticket into heaven, but to be pleasing to God because you’ve trusted in Jesus. You’re His child and your mind has been transformed by the relationship of believing in Him.

Study Questions

What is the difference between hospitality and entertaining?
Why is hospitality a required characteristic of church leadership? How is this manifested?
Is Matthew 25:31-46 teaching works salvation? If not, how do we know?
What is the significance of Galatians 6:10?