Matthew 25:37
Matthew 25:3737Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink?
is treated by JW publications as confirmation that genuine sheep are not self-conscious about their merit — they ask "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you?" because their service to Jehovah's anointed has been so natural a part of their loyalty that they did not keep score. The verse is read as a humility pattern, not as a clue that works are evidential rather than constitutive of standing.
The sheep's surprise is the strongest single piece of internal evidence that the works of Matthew 25 are evidential, not constitutive. If their inheritance depended on their works, the sheep would expect to be rewarded for them. They would remember the soup-kitchen shifts, the prison visits, the cups of cold water. Instead they are stunned: "Lord, when did we see you?" Their works flowed unconsciously from a transformed nature — which is the opposite of a scorekeeping religion. The sheep do not earn their way into the Kingdom; they are declared blessed and given the Kingdom in v. 34, and then asked to recognise the works that displayed that already-given identity. Pair with (saved by grace through faith, created for good works) and (the fruit of the Spirit "against such things there is no law"). The works are real, the works matter, and the works are fruit — not root.