Episode Transcript
[00:00:15] Well, good morning, church.
[00:00:18] Are you excited about getting into the Word today?
[00:00:21] Come on.
[00:00:23] I'm excited. As I prayed for this morning, I've just really felt the Word just start to dwell in me richly and get excited about what God wants to do amongst us.
[00:00:32] And as I preach this morning, I believe that there's going to be faith rising in the room, maybe faith for things that you've struggled to have faith for for some time now.
[00:00:44] Sometimes it can get weary, can't it? Believing for things, holding that ground of faith when things aren't shifting. And it can be hard.
[00:00:52] But I believe that faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. Amen. So I believe that today is an opportunity for us to gather our faith and for the Holy Spirit to do something fresh in us, to raise our hope, to raise our expectation, to raise our perspective of how good God is and what he's prepared to do in our lives. Amen.
[00:01:14] So I'm going to pray unto that and I encourage you just to join me in opening our hearts to God's word.
[00:01:24] Jesus, you promised that your word would go forth to perform mighty wonders.
[00:01:31] You spoke and the stars came into being.
[00:01:36] When you were hovering over the deep of the earth. You spoke and things came forth.
[00:01:42] You create as you speak.
[00:01:46] And, Lord, you've done that so many times in my life where I've heard you speak. And something is created in me, and in your timing it bursts forth and bears fruit.
[00:01:57] And so, Lord, I just pray that we would have soft hearts, the kind of hearts that you spoke about in that parable of the sower that would be receptive to your word, that what you say and what you create in our lives this morning would bear fruit and fruit that will last in Jesus, mighty name, Amen.
[00:02:19] Amen. Amen.
[00:02:21] There was once a man who was a wealthy man.
[00:02:26] He had made a huge amount of money in business and had stocks and shares and he even had a load of gold bullions stored away for the security of him and his family.
[00:02:39] And this man, old as he was, he was open to the Lord.
[00:02:47] When he got sick and he knew that his time was coming to an end, he actually turned to the Lord and said, God, would you please receive my life? I know I've not always been a good man. I know I've not always done the right things. I've not lived in the right way, and I've been selfish for most of my life. But I think I do understand who you are and what you've done for me. And therefore, Lord, I'm sorry. I repent of my sins. And even at this last stage, would you have mercy on me?
[00:03:09] I trust in your son. Please forgive my sin and welcome me into my heavenly home.
[00:03:16] Have mercy on me. But, Lord, please, could I just bring one bag with me?
[00:03:21] He prayed the same prayer four times, and then he died. And as he stood there in front of the pearly gates of heaven, he realized he had a bag in his hand. God has answered my prayer. Here I am. I've made it to heaven. Stand. Not like this, by the way. This is just ridiculous. But for the sake of the joke, he stood there before St. Peter in front of the Pellegates with his bag in his hand, and he was making his way forward in the queue.
[00:03:47] And St. Peter noticed that there was someone coming up with a bag in his hand and was getting more and more curious the closer he got to the front of the gate. And as this man stood before St. Peter, he said, sorry, I am curious. Why have you got a bag? No one comes in here with a bag. He said, well, I've only just got saved. He said, yeah, I noticed you were a new entry on the list.
[00:04:07] He said, but what's with the bag? He said, well, I prayed about this four times, and I asked God if I could just bring one bag. He said, well, mate, you've got me on the edge of my seat here.
[00:04:19] What's in the bag? And the man opened his bag and showed St. Peter. Peter looked in the bag and said, you bought paving stones.
[00:04:28] The man had bought gold bars into heaven. You. You bought paving stones.
[00:04:36] We can't take it with us.
[00:04:39] And what we value in this world won't be valued in the next one. In the same way, things change as we go from this life into the next.
[00:04:51] So I want to get us thinking about our passage today before we jump into it with a question. How rich are you?
[00:04:59] What are you worth?
[00:05:00] Turn to the person next to you. No, I'm only joking. You don't have to turn to the person next to you and tell them what's in your bank account. But how rich are you?
[00:05:09] I want you to pause and think, how would I describe my wealth, my riches right now? At this point in my life?
[00:05:22] Do you struggle to make ends meet? Are you battling to pay the bills?
[00:05:28] Are you anxious about having enough to provide for you and your children if you have kids?
[00:05:36] Is this a stress in your life? Is this something that is absorbing a lot of your prayer life?
[00:05:44] Maybe you've got enough for the month, but maybe you're sick and you're struggling, or maybe you're isolated and you're struggling.
[00:05:58] Or maybe you're pretty comfortable right now. You've got generally good health.
[00:06:04] You don't worry too much about paying the bills. You've always got enough coming in and you have the freedom to take opportunities in your life.
[00:06:11] Maybe you're feeling actually, yes, I'm relatively wealthy in that respect.
[00:06:18] Well, whichever of those you are and wherever you are on that spectrum, I believe God's Word has something for you today. And I believe God can speak powerfully through the passage we're about to read together.
[00:06:29] So let's open our Bibles at Luke and Chapter 16, part of this amazing journey we're taking through Luke, understanding the heart of the Lord through this wonderful Gospel.
[00:06:43] And we're in Luke 16, and starting from verse 19, I'm going to come back to 14 in a little while.
[00:06:57] There we go. There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed in purple and fine linen, who lived each day in luxury.
[00:07:09] At his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, who was covered with sores. And as Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man's table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores.
[00:07:23] Finally, the poor man died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham.
[00:07:28] And the rich man also died and was buried, and his soul went to the place of the dead.
[00:07:35] And there, in torment, he saw Abraham in the far distance with Lazarus at his side.
[00:07:43] The rich man shouted, father Abraham, have some pity. Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and to cool my tongue. I am in anguish in these flames.
[00:07:57] But Abraham called back and said to him, son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted and Lazarus had nothing.
[00:08:09] So now he is here being comforted and you are in anguish. And besides, there is a great chasm separating us. No one can cross over to you from here, and no one can cross over to us from there.
[00:08:21] Then the rich man said, please, Father Abraham, at least send him to my father's home, for I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them so that they don't end up in this place of torment.
[00:08:33] But Abraham said, moses and the prophets have warned them.
[00:08:37] Your brothers can read what they wrote.
[00:08:41] The rich man replied, no, Father Abraham, but if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.
[00:08:51] But Abraham said, if they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't listen even if someone rises from the dead.
[00:09:06] Part of me feels a bit seen off with this passage. Whoever designed the preaching series, I think they said, oh, yeah, you can have that one.
[00:09:14] Because it's not easy, is it? What does all that mean?
[00:09:17] Sounds ominous. Is anyone feeling a little bit anxious by what we've just read? These are words in red.
[00:09:23] These are Jesus words. This is a promise.
[00:09:26] This is something that Jesus has said. We know that he is the way, the truth and the life.
[00:09:31] How am I supposed to square that away with my idea of the future?
[00:09:35] I want to get into the real heart of what I believe Jesus is sharing this parable for and to understand it in the way that he intends us to. But first I just want to briefly deal with this idea of this being a picture of our eternal state, because some of you will have read this maybe for the first time and think, goodness, is that what it's like?
[00:09:56] Am I going to be there either in heaven, able to see all the people in hell and shout across a chasm and have a conversation, perhaps even with my friends and loved ones who haven't made it in, if I'm on the good side and watching them in torment, is that what my eternal state is going to be like?
[00:10:17] Or you might be thinking, well, I'm not sure which side of the line I fall on anyway. Maybe I'm going to be in the place of the dead where this rich man went, and I'm going to be able to see everyone over there blessed and having a great time, but I can't get there. How horrific is that?
[00:10:35] So if that's how you're reading this passage at a surface reading, maybe we need to do a little bit of work. And the first thing to say to you is, is that this is a parable in both form and purpose. And a parable is something that Jesus would use, and most of his teaching is in parables, but it's something that Jesus would use as a story to illustrate a spiritual truth and to challenge something in human experience or to help us to see from heaven's perspective how life works on the earth.
[00:11:05] So this is a parable in both forms and purpose. And the other thing we need to understand is that this has to be taken in line with the whole of the New Testament teaching about heaven and hell. It can't just be taken in isolation because there is teaching throughout the New Testament about our eternal state whichever side of the line we fall on, right?
[00:11:27] So it's important to understand that and just to give you like a whistle stop tour through some of the ways that people have sought to understand our eternal state.
[00:11:38] Many of you will have come across something called eternal conscious torment. Hands up. Have you heard that theological term?
[00:11:49] Okay, I've got some work to do.
[00:11:51] So eternal conscious torment basically is the idea that we are inherently immortal beings.
[00:12:00] Our spirits are immortal, they cannot be killed.
[00:12:04] And therefore when we die, we pass over to the next world.
[00:12:10] And we are eternally going to exist in a state where if we have rejected Christ and his gospel and decided to go our own way, and we are still dead in our sins, we go to a place or a state where we are separated from God for eternity.
[00:12:28] Could be described as outer darkness, could be described as a fire where we are tormented and tortured for eternity.
[00:12:39] Okay, so it's eternal in duration, but we are experiencing that eternal damnation throughout eternity, conscious and alive. That is eternal conscious torment. And many of you will think, well, I think that's what it is, isn't it?
[00:12:55] And that's fine. But I want you to understand that it's one of a number of options. And the reason why people would take that option that has a lot of traction is because there's quite a lot of scriptures that would suggest that that is the case. This parable being one of them.
[00:13:11] And there is a lot of sayings from Jesus where he talks about, like the Gehenna sayings.
[00:13:18] So Jesus talks about how it is better to enter heaven with one eye, if your eye causes you to sin, than to go to hell with two eyes, where the fire is not quenched and the worm never dies. Well, that sounds a little bit like somewhere where it never stops, Right?
[00:13:37] Same when he talks about at the end of Matthew 25, where he talks about separating the sheep and the goats. And he says to the sheep, come and enter into my Father's goodness. And then to the goats he says, you will go to eternal punishment.
[00:13:50] That sounds pretty like eternal conscious torment to many people.
[00:13:56] What you do need to understand about the Gehenna sayings, which is where Jesus says it's better to enter heaven with two eyes or two, sorry, one eye or one hand, than to enter hell where the worm does not die and the fire isn't quenched. The word held there is the word Gehenna. Gehenna is a well known rubbish dump on the outside of Jerusalem.
[00:14:18] It's a place where they're constantly throwing their rubbish, where the fire never goes out and the worm never dies because they're constantly disposing of their rubbish on the outside of Jerusalem. It's a place where you cast Stuff out that is no longer valuable, no longer fit for purpose, but it is a place where things are destroyed.
[00:14:40] And so the second position, which is called conditional immortality, they would look at those same scriptures and say, yes, we see that there is a separation, that those who have not accepted Jesus and his gospel, that have not yet stepped into eternal life, they do go to a place, they do go to a state, but it is marked by this police Gehenna, which is where things, things go to be destroyed. The fire consumes, the worm consumes, they die, they are destroyed. This is not eternal punishing, this is eternal punishment in eternal consequence, not necessarily in eternal duration. Does that make sense?
[00:15:24] So they would say, people of this position, conditional immortality, that the human soul isn't inherently immortal, that that is an idea that Plato first offered. It's not a Jewish idea and it's not a Christian idea. And actually it didn't even end up in Christian doctrine until the 4th century with Augustine of Hippo. But the early church fathers, nobody wrote in terms of eternal conscious torment. They wrote in terms of conditional immortality. The conditional bit is that God gifts eternal life and immortality upon the receipt of the Gospel and His grace.
[00:16:05] Eternal life is a gift. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever should believe in him will not perish, mort die, but have eternal life.
[00:16:16] So we receive eternal life as a gift upon faith.
[00:16:20] Hence the second death, race to judgment, lake of fire, death curtains, end of, not eternal in duration.
[00:16:33] Are you with me?
[00:16:34] Third position, which would be universalism, which is that everybody gets there in the end.
[00:16:42] So hell is a thing.
[00:16:44] It's a place of consequence. It's a place where how we have lived in this world, we experience the full consequences of our actions, of our mindsets, of our behaviors. Jesus basically leaves us to our decision.
[00:17:01] And we live in a state which is cast out from God's presence to basically learn our lesson and for God's justice to be met and to be fulfilled in our experience.
[00:17:15] So it's more like a purgatory type situation.
[00:17:18] Are you with me?
[00:17:19] Our sin is punished and burnt up in this place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. But eventually we will see the glory of God. We will see the goodness of God. The gospel will become very real to us, even though we've ignored it for the whole of our lives. But all of a sudden, now we understand, and now we understand in full. Eventually we're going to get there. And the people that would sign up to this position say, yeah, that Feels right to me, would usually say, well, if anything else would mean that God is not ultimately glorified and that Satan wins the day because so many of God's people are lost, either eternally, consciously, or just lost to his presence.
[00:18:00] How can it be that an all loving, benevolent God who promises to win the day in the end can lose so many?
[00:18:09] How can that be?
[00:18:12] There's the three positions, okay? And there'll be a spectrum in the room, I imagine, of where we feel we sit amongst that. But let me tell you, brothers and sisters, this is not just an academic exercise.
[00:18:24] This matters. All three positions agree on this one thing, that hell is not a place you want to go.
[00:18:33] Outer darkness is not a place you want to find yourself.
[00:18:36] It's a place of weeping, it's a place of gnashing, of teeth, of ah, I wish I'd known.
[00:18:43] And that's what this parable is supposed to bring out. That kind of like, if only I knew, if only I could see this from heaven's perspective, maybe I would have repented.
[00:18:54] It's a serious thing. Your eternal spiritual security is something that is in your hands.
[00:19:01] And the reason why it's in your hands is because Jesus has moved heaven and earth and gone to hell and back again to make sure that you don't have to go to hell, but instead you have been given the gift handed out to you of eternal life.
[00:19:15] And he wants you to know, really know, that you are saved.
[00:19:22] And let me tell you, you can be a Christian for many years and still have a little bit of you that is quite scared that you're not saved.
[00:19:29] I was listening to a Billy Graham preach yesterday while I was on the scaffolding doing my rendering.
[00:19:36] I will get to the end of it, I will.
[00:19:38] But I've been trying to redeem the time and just listen to some stuff. And I was listening to a Billy Graham preach. I didn't even put it on. It just came on automatically on my phone as the Next thing on YouTube, because I was listening to an audiobook before that.
[00:19:50] And anyway, in this Billy Graham preach, he said in his previous meeting, a bishop had come forward and he went to see this bishop, said, why are you coming forward?
[00:20:03] He said, all these years, I've never been absolutely sure, but I'm saved.
[00:20:10] And it is possible and it is true, there is a spiritual anxiety in some of us. I believe that today God can remove that and reassure you that indeed you are saved by grace and that your spirit is eternally safe in his hands, in Jesus Christ.
[00:20:29] Let's get back to the passage.
[00:20:31] Who is Jesus speaking to?
[00:20:35] Well, in chapters 14 and 15, you sort of see the run up to this incredible story.
[00:20:43] So in 14 it says he starts off at a dinner, then he ends up.
[00:20:58] Where is it?
[00:20:59] Verse 25, a large crowd was following Jesus, and he turned around and said to them, so we've got a large crowd at that point.
[00:21:06] And then he said, tax collectors. In chapter 15, tax collectors and notorious sinners came to listen to Jesus tax.
[00:21:13] This made the Pharisees and the teachers of the religious law complain that he was associating with such people and eating with them. So Jesus told them this story, and then he tells them all the wonderful parables in Luke 15. So here we've got a large crowd, we've got tax collectors, we've got Pharisees that just seem to be hanging around on every page.
[00:21:30] And then on chapter 16 at the beginning, he says, Jesus told this story to his disciples.
[00:21:37] So that the story there of the manager, the shrewd manager, is to his disciples. But. But then get this verse 14 says the Pharisees, who dearly loved their money, heard all this and scoffed at him. So who is he speaking to?
[00:21:53] There's a crowd there. There's tax collectors and sinners there. There's the disciples there. We know that by the time you get to the beginning of verse 16, he's speaking to his disciples.
[00:22:03] But who's overhearing? Who's commenting on what he's saying to his disciples? The Pharisees.
[00:22:09] So the Pharisees are there in the picture. The disciples are there in the picture.
[00:22:14] But he says in verse 15, he said to them, so who is Jesus speaking to? Jesus is speaking directly at this point to the Pharisees.
[00:22:22] The story we've just read, this parable we just read, is squarely to the Pharisees. And we need to understand that in order to begin to understand the story.
[00:22:34] Let's read verses 14 to 18 if we could bring that up.
[00:22:39] The Pharisees who dearly loved their money.
[00:22:42] Hold that in your mind.
[00:22:44] The Pharisees who dearly loved their money, heard all of this and scoffed at him.
[00:22:50] And they said to him, sorry. He said to them, you like to appear righteous in public, but God knows your hearts.
[00:23:01] What this world honors is. Is detestable in the sight of God.
[00:23:08] Until John the Baptist, the law of Moses and the messages of the prophets were your guides.
[00:23:15] But now the good news of the kingdom of God is preached and everyone is eager to get in.
[00:23:20] But that doesn't mean that the law has lost its force.
[00:23:24] It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the smallest point of God's law to be overturned.
[00:23:31] For example, a man who divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery.
[00:23:38] And anyone who marries a woman divorced from her husband also commits adultery.
[00:23:45] He's basically saying by your pious public observance, you're seeking to further your own interests.
[00:23:54] But you ignore the bits that you don't like. You ignore the bits in the scriptures that might challenge you or might hinder your lifestyle.
[00:24:05] And one of these he refers to explicitly as this divorce thing. Why does Jesus suddenly go and start talking about divorce?
[00:24:12] What he's talking about how they observed the scriptures.
[00:24:16] They were taking a loophole that Moses gave about how in certain extreme circumstances you, you may be permitted to divorce someone to avoid the toxic and abusive marriage or an adulterous marriage.
[00:24:34] It wasn't something that Moses wanted to bring, but it was a concession.
[00:24:38] Because we were so wicked.
[00:24:41] They were taking that law and saying, well, it's okay to send your wife away with a divorce paper and marry someone else. Because Moses says it. Why? Because it fitted their idea of what they wanted to do. It fitted their lifestyle.
[00:24:54] So you had these people who were incredibly pious, wearing their long flowing robes with their phylacteries and their tassels and saying big prayers on public corners, shipping their wives off and getting a newer model, having an upgrade.
[00:25:10] They're saying, well, Moses says we can and we are people of the law.
[00:25:16] And Jesus was saying, you neither care of the spirit of the law, neither the one who wrote it.
[00:25:24] You are literally cherry picking verses for your own interests and instead behaving like the rich of this world that want what they've got. They want to have their cake and eat it and everybody else's. That's how you're behaving. And so Jesus says, no, no, this is what it says.
[00:25:41] If you do that, you commit adultery.
[00:25:43] If you're going to be people of the law, be people of the whole law.
[00:25:49] And so Jesus challenges the way they are selectively reading the scriptures and the lifestyle that they have sunk into.
[00:25:56] He says, you are on the inside, no different from the self serving rich of this world.
[00:26:03] And let me tell you, they also preached a weird prosperity gospel.
[00:26:09] They basically equated prosperity with righteousness.
[00:26:12] By going from some of the verses in scripture, they built a case that if you are blessed financially in this world, it is evidence that you are blessed of God, that you are one of God's favorites. You are in right standing With God, the righteousness will inherit all the blessings. The righteous will inherit all the blessings. And if you are struggling in this world, if you are poor, if you are destitute, if you have leprosy or cancer or whatever it might be, that it is evidence of the sin in your life and that you are out of favor with God to the point where. When it was so much part of the cultural psyche and what they taught. When Jesus and his disciples walked past somebody who was blind on the side of the road, his disciples didn't say, should we heal this guy? They said, who sinned him or his parents.
[00:27:05] Why did this happen?
[00:27:06] He's obviously not one of God's favorites.
[00:27:09] And Jesus said, none of that matters, but so that people may know that I am amongst them, let's heal him.
[00:27:18] Because it had been part of the whole culture. So they were swanning around with their bling, as if to say, this is evidence that God thinks I'm the bee's knees.
[00:27:28] I'm clearly living right because God has blessed my bank balance.
[00:27:32] And that's how they preached. It's like an early form of sort of wrong prosperity teaching.
[00:27:39] And it was around in Jesus day. And Jesus said, I find this abhorrent.
[00:27:50] There's that verse where Jesus says, what this world honors is detestable in the sight of God.
[00:28:02] What this world craves after the rich, the prosperous, the excess, the sexy.
[00:28:12] God's saying, I don't care about any of that stuff.
[00:28:17] I'll show you where my focus is. And then he tells them this parable.
[00:28:26] So Jesus holds up the mirror to their hearts through the character of the rich man. In this parable, the rich man, it says he's preoccupied, basically preoccupied by his good things. He says he lived in luxury. And verse 25, Abraham says he had everything he wanted.
[00:28:47] So he's preoccupied with his stuff. He places no value on Lazarus. The poor man at the end of his driveway, I wonder if he even sees him most of the time. He knows he's there because he knows his name.
[00:29:04] He calls out from the place of the dead, send Lazarus. So he knows he's there. He knows about him.
[00:29:10] He doesn't know him. He knows about him.
[00:29:13] And he probably passes by him on a daily basis. He probably is frustrated and would like him removed because, you know, he's an unsightly mess at the end of his gate.
[00:29:24] But he knows about him. But he places no value on Lazarus. And you know, he's still ordering Lazarus around from beyond the grave.
[00:29:31] Did you notice that in the place of the dead. I'm struggling.
[00:29:35] I'm preoccupied with my self interest. I'm still trying to get ahead in life. Send Lazarus over here to cool my tongue. Why? Because my tongue is more important than him.
[00:29:46] My well being is more important than him. He's still in the same mindset. And even when that's not possible. Okay, we'll send him to my father's house.
[00:29:54] He's still locked in this status thing where he feels more important than Lazarus is still trying to call the shots over this poor man's life.
[00:30:03] So he's like, send Lazarus into hell or send Lazarus back to my family that can't stand him.
[00:30:11] Why should Lazarus have to do anything more for this man who hasn't even fed him from the crumbs of his table?
[00:30:19] Extraordinary. So he places no value on him.
[00:30:23] He's a bit of a lost cause. He's so calloused by the mindsets of this world. And this parable says that scripture can't even get through to him anymore.
[00:30:33] Because when he asks Lazarus or Abraham to send Lazarus to go and speak to his household, Abraham says they've got Moses and the prophets.
[00:30:44] And the first thing he says, no, you can't rely on Moses and the prophets because they won't listen to them. My family is so far gone, they're not going to listen to the word send. They might listen to resurrection.
[00:31:02] And Abraham says no, if they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, they're not even going to believe even if someone they know is raised from the dead.
[00:31:16] This was spoken months before a man named Lazarus, who the Pharisees knew was dead and buried for four days, was called out of his grave and presented before them.
[00:31:38] Can you see the beauty and the mastery and the glory of scripture and the way Jesus teaches?
[00:31:45] Even though he'd made it very clear through this parable that they were not going to, their hearts hearts were so hard that they weren't going to respond to him and ever understand heaven's perspective.
[00:31:55] He still went the extra mile to say, just in case, just so you know, I've done everything I possibly can.
[00:32:02] I'm going to do the very thing in this passage and I'm going to send to you a resurrected man as proof that what I am saying is true and to do a final call to you, to life and eternity.
[00:32:19] And when Lazarus was raised from the grave, their response was not, I need to repent.
[00:32:27] Everything this man has been talking about, I now know is true.
[00:32:31] But they plotted to have him executed.
[00:32:35] They looked to get him out of the way.
[00:32:38] And even when he himself was raised from the dead, like he double underlined it, they still would not believe. And they went around persecuting the church.
[00:32:49] Some people are too far gone, they are too blinded by the wealth and the priorities and the mindsets of this world to be able to hear, to see, to understand who Jesus is and what the gospel is all about. Even if every miracle was presented before them, some people just will not change.
[00:33:13] It's a sad reality.
[00:33:16] Let's just focus in on Lazarus for a moment. From the parable. He is a symbol of all the suffering people on earth.
[00:33:24] First thing to note, complete contrast between the rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus has a name.
[00:33:30] Rich man doesn't get a name in this. He's just the rich man.
[00:33:36] Lazarus is known by God.
[00:33:41] He has a name. God knows exactly who he is. He knows where he lives. He knows what he's experiencing. He knows about the sores. He knows about the hunger in his stomach. He knows about people passing him by and forgetting him. He has a name.
[00:33:55] And I want to say to you that if you're suffering right now, if you're in a place of suffering and you feel alone, be encouraged. God knows your name.
[00:34:03] One of the things that the enemy loves to do when we're going through suffering, he loves to kick us while we're down. And he likes to tell us that not only are we suffering, but we are alone.
[00:34:12] And it is never true.
[00:34:14] This is very, I believe this is part of what Jesus wanted to get across in this parable. That heaven knows the names of the suffering of the earth.
[00:34:23] He knows their situation.
[00:34:25] Not only does he know his name, but he also sends a five star escort to bring him from earth to heaven. He sends the angels to carry him to be at Abraham's side.
[00:34:37] So he dispatches some of the most important people of heaven to come and lift him and carry him and restore him. And when Abraham says, you are there in torment, but he is being comforted, that word comforted in English just doesn't cut it.
[00:34:51] That word comforted has more of a full restoration, a shalom that has come over this man that is just.
[00:35:02] The whole of his life has been blessed and restored and redeemed.
[00:35:06] He has been reconciled to God. He's enjoying the full blessing of heaven and then some.
[00:35:13] It's an incredible experience of total all life restoration.
[00:35:19] And I think that is a tremendous encouragement for all of us who are going through it right now.
[00:35:25] Heaven takes responsibility to ensure justice and compensation for his experience and that's good news. Dare we believe that? That's what God is like?
[00:35:38] Even before Jesus was born.
[00:35:41] Mary.
[00:35:48] Mary, whilst Jesus was in the womb, visited Elizabeth. And she was so full of the Holy Spirit about what was going on inside her body that she says in Luke chapter one and verse 51, his mighty arm has done tremendous things. He has scattered the proud and the haughty ones. He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble.
[00:36:18] He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands. This was always going to be something that Jesus would come to make clear. And when Jesus grew up and began to preach, his message was crystal clear to everyone that would hear. He said, blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. He was taking the power out of the hands of the rich and he was putting it back into the poor. From heaven's perspective, it is the poor that will inherit everything.
[00:36:52] Blessed are the poor, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for the injustice of this world to be rebalanced, for they will be filled.
[00:37:08] They're going to receive that which they long for.
[00:37:15] And when Jesus wanted to talk about why he'd come, he quoted the prophet Isaiah. And he said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to open blind eyes, to set captives free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. For who? For the poor.
[00:37:37] Wherever you go, wherever you hang out in the Gospels with Jesus, you cannot get away from his unquestionable bias towards those who are suffering cuts a bit against prosperity Gospel, right?
[00:38:05] The Son of God so identified with the last and the lost and the least.
[00:38:12] That he said, whenever we who are his followers do even the smallest thing for the least of this earth, we do it for him.
[00:38:23] He takes it personally.
[00:38:25] He so much aligns himself with the poor that he personally receives every small thing we do for them.
[00:38:36] In Matthew 25, he said, this was the criteria that Jesus uses to separate the sheep and the goats.
[00:38:44] And people were like, oh, when did we do anything for you?
[00:38:49] And he said to those who had been responsive in this way and the kingdom had begun to spill forth in their lives, and they began to see life from heaven's perspective, and they began to follow this wonderful Messiah who loves the poor.
[00:39:04] He said, whenever you did it for them, you did it for me. Whenever you visited the sick, whenever you visited those who were imprisoned. Whenever you clothed the naked or fed the hungry, you did it for me. I received it personally for me.
[00:39:17] And to the degree that you didn't do that, you didn't do it for me. There is no evidence of this life that I've called you to outworking in your life.
[00:39:28] That is eternal destiny kind of separation.
[00:39:33] And those are strong words. That is a strong message for any of us to hear.
[00:39:38] So let's bring this home.
[00:39:40] If you are listening to this and you're thinking, well, yeah, I would describe myself as rich in global terms. I'm not really struggling for much at the moment. I'm in relatively good health. I have opportunities I can take. I've got a passport that could get me anywhere. I've got cash in the bank. I'm pretty secure.
[00:39:59] Well, this is the word of the Lord, I believe for you.
[00:40:06] Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees.
[00:40:10] That's Jesus words, not mine.
[00:40:13] Jesus said, this whole thinking which is very much aligned with the rich of this world, which is very self serving.
[00:40:24] This thinking of the Pharisees, it comes in imperceptibly like a little bit of yeast, but it works through the whole batch of dough.
[00:40:34] This teaching of this mindset of the Pharisees comes in, but it slowly works through your life until it's taken over the whole.
[00:40:44] Beware of that kind of mindset which says you need all of the things that the rich of this world clamor for because it has the power to take over.
[00:40:55] Guard your hearts.
[00:41:01] Don't be caught up in this world's mindsets.
[00:41:06] There is another way. Coming back to that same amazing sermon on the Mount from Christ, the first few verses are, Blessed are the poor, blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice.
[00:41:23] But then from verse seven, blessed are those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy. If you are someone of influence and means, you have power.
[00:41:36] Be merciful.
[00:41:38] Understand that desperate people do desperate things and sometimes what they need is restoration and forgiveness and rehabilitation, not condemnation.
[00:41:48] Understand that sometimes it's poverty that drives poor behavior and instead be merciful.
[00:41:56] Find a way to get amongst it and to serve and to level the scales in this world.
[00:42:06] Blessed are those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God.
[00:42:11] When we have been willing to let the scriptures like this parable speak to our hearts and burn up every trace of this world's thinking and instead realign our lives with the perspective of heaven. Our hearts are pure and God said, now your eyes are good because my Word has trained your eyes. Now you'll see God.
[00:42:33] You'll see God at work all around you.
[00:42:36] And you'll see God ultimately in eternal glory because your hearts are pure and you've watched over your hearts.
[00:42:42] Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. And blessed are those who work for peace.
[00:42:48] It's really hard to work for peace when you've got, when you're desperate and sick or in prison or. It's not impossible, but it's really hard when you don't know where your next meal is coming from to work for peace.
[00:43:02] But if you have means, you can work for peace for all.
[00:43:05] You can be part of some amazing things going on in this world that is a work of peace, that is raising up the lowly and giving people dignity.
[00:43:17] Blessed are those who work for peace, for they will be called children of God.
[00:43:22] Another thing you can do is ask God to show you the person at your gate.
[00:43:28] Ask God to show you that person that you, maybe you walk past every day and you haven't noticed and share your good things with them.
[00:43:36] Share that blessing that God has placed in your hands one person at a time.
[00:43:43] We don't have to try and fix all the problems of the developing world. We have to see the person in front of us that God has given us for the day and be generous one at a time.
[00:43:54] Find someone to share your good things with because you know when you do, Jesus takes it personally. It's one of the highest forms of worship, is to sacrifice what you have for the love of someone that could never experience what you have.
[00:44:11] Moses, the prophets, the resurrected Lazarus and the resurrected Messiah all agree. This is vital if we are going to follow him in this life and manage our wealth well.
[00:44:24] But if you're here this morning and you identify more with Lazarus in the story and you're struggling right now, this is the best news for you today.
[00:44:35] God knows your name.
[00:44:38] He has an undeniable bias towards you. Do you know that if you're struggling, you are on God's blessed list of everybody in the earth. He wants to bless those who are struggling more than anyone else.
[00:44:54] If you're struggling with trusting God for finance and barely getting by, let me encourage you. God knows your situation and he has a plan to restore you and to bless you and to put you back on an even keel. And I believe we can ask him for that today.
[00:45:09] If you're experiencing significant anxiety and stress over finance, let's pray for you.
[00:45:15] I believe the Lord will bless your socks off when you get to heaven. But I believe he also called us to pray. Let your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:45:26] We're to pray that in.
[00:45:28] In our experience, and Mary and I have had wonderful experiences of getting to that point where we've been living by faith to some degree.
[00:45:37] And we've got to the point where we really need God to give us some breakthrough. And God has always provided our needs throughout the last, what, 24 years of praying together for God to provide.
[00:45:49] And God has blessed us, and we've always had just about enough and been blessed.
[00:45:58] If you're struggling with poor health, God knows your name. This Lazarus in the story was covered in sores, and God knew everything about everything to do with his body, and he had a plan to restore him completely.
[00:46:10] Maybe his first plan was the rich man, and that didn't happen because he was stubborn. And so God restored him completely as soon as he got into his presence. But God loves to restore bodies and minds, and I believe he wants to restore you today. If you're here today and you think, well, this is just. I've been struggling to believe. Well, just let. Let me tell you, God's bias is for you today.
[00:46:36] I believe he wants to restore some bodies and some minds and to take this wonderful good news of the kingdom and to plant it into your life to create a testimony this morning, today, the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
[00:46:56] His words, not mine.
[00:46:58] I believe that God wants to put the last first.
[00:47:01] In this next few minutes as we come to a time of prayer, as we give you the opportunity to respond if you identify with Lazarus in any way and just say, yeah, I need help right now. I need God to do something in my life right now. I want to encourage you to not leave this building until you've received prayer for whatever that is.
[00:47:30] Just going to invite the band to come up, and I'm going to pray.
[00:47:35] Please, could we have some people who are willing to pray, just both sides, maybe on the steps and over this side, just willing to pray for people.
[00:47:45] And I'm just going to pray a general prayer. And if you would like some prayer this morning, if you want to see things shift, because we've been sensing as a church that God wants to use these times of sitting under God's word, where our hearts are soft, to come and do something fresh in our lives.
[00:47:59] I want to encourage you to come for some prayer. Don't leave today before praying for that thing that, you know needs a touch from God.
[00:48:07] So let's pray, Father, thank you that you call us to pray.
[00:48:12] Your kingdom come, your will be done in our experience on the earth, just like it is in heaven.
[00:48:23] And Lord, we fix our eyes on the restored Lazarus in this story and see him. Imagine him with clean skin and a full heart and a full tummy and his whole body restored to health and his mind restored to health, and he is dignified and honored. He is wearing the robe of a son of God, and he is honored amongst God's family and he has everything he could possibly need.
[00:48:47] And we say, lord, let that kingdom come. Let that your will that we see played out in this story be done on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:48:56] Lord, would you do something really special in our finances for those who need it?
[00:49:02] Lord, create enough however that looks.
[00:49:08] Lord, I pray that bodies would be restored. I pray that minds would be set free.
[00:49:16] Lord, I pray that this would be a house of breakthrough and beautiful stories where that which Jesus came to demonstrate and preach is seen so clearly because you're amongst us.
[00:49:30] And so, Lord, I pray that if people have faith this morning just to reach out and touch you for whatever they need, Lord, give us the confidence and the courage to come and let this be a day of salvation. Let this be a day of breakthrough. We pray.
[00:49:50] So as we just lift up the name of Jesus in worship, I want to encourage you if that's, if you have something you'd love to pray for, it doesn't matter what it is. But if you, if you want to receive some of God's bias for those who are struggling, I want to encourage you to come forward and to receive some prayer. And we're going to see some stuff shifted today.
