<< Back to September 2001 Sermons

2001
23rd September (am) - People matter to God ..... and he needs to matter to them.
Luke 16:19-31

People matter to God, it says on the front of our halls.
Even people like dirty, ragged, maybe even smelly beggars, like Lazarus, said Jesus, when he told the parable we read from Luke's Gospel this morning!

Lazarus sounds like the most pathetic specimen of humanity that you can imagine - lying by the side of the road every day, surviving on the scraps thrown out of a rich man's house, his body covered in sores which the dogs of the street came and licked!
You can't get much lower than that in life - it's the very bottom of the pile. Lazarus sounds like the sort of person nobody else bothered about - he didn't matter to anyone else - but he mattered to God, says Jesus - for his story makes Lazarus 'the good guy' - the one who enjoys God's compassion and hope.

So Jesus' story is a stark reminder to us that whoever people are and whatever their lives look like to us, churches must be interested in them, open to them, concerned about their needs - because all people matter to God. There is absolutely no-one who can be excluded, no sort of person whom we should reckon is beyond the pale.

Lazarus is quite a contrast, isn't he, to the other man in Jesus' story?
- the rich man, dressed in the best clothes that money could buy; living and dining in affluence every day of his life. We get the impression that he would have been a well known man in the district - although Jesus makes his point well by not even mentioning the man's name! ..... When it comes to what really counts in life, it is not our 'name' or image or our reputation, or any successes we've had that really matters. The point of Jesus' story is that there is something far far important for any of us and all of us think about in life - and he's going to make us do that as we listen to his story about these two men.

So the first contrast in this story is between the lifestyles of these two men. But there is an even more stark and sobering contrast to notice - that is the contrast between their 'deathstyles', their funerals.

Lazarus, the beggar, who had been more or less dumped at the side of the road during his lifetime died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side - it's a quaint Jewish way of saying that he was brought into heaven. It's a picture of death and the beyond that is full of dignity and love and joy and hope - everything that we would long for, for ourselves and for others.

But for the rich man, it was very different - he died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side ... Can you possibly imagine a more bald description of his death than that - he died and was buried!
Can you think of more sorry state of affairs after his death - he was in torment!
It is absolutely appalling!
This man who had enjoyed all the trappings of a fine lifestyle, and all that it can say about his 'deathstyle' is that he was buried, full stop!
This man whose life had been full of the very best that life could offer, was now in a place of torment enduring the worst of absolute hopelessness! I am in agony in this fire, he says.
And yet, in response, Abraham tells him that there is no way back, that it is too late to do anything about it.

 

I think by now, you know that I wouldn't call myself a 'hell-fire' preacher, and I hope you wouldn't call me that either. However, here is an unavoidably clear and desperately sobering warning, from Jesus himself, about the awful truth of Hell. Hell, says Jesus, is as much of a reality as heaven. Dismiss the idea at your peril. Understand the references to fire and agony and torment as you wish, but do not miss the awful basic point - hell is for real.

People matter to God - but we dare not understand that to mean that everyone goes to heaven automatically, regardless.
It's an attractive idea to think that at the end all will be well - at least for all but the most evil and perverse of people - but it is impossible to listen to Jesus' teaching and take that view - it just doesn't hold water, either in what Jesus said, or in the rest of what the Bible says. In hell, where he was in torment ...
How sobering a thought for anyone.

So we have noticed 2 contrasts so far in this story - between life styles and 'deathstyles'. But there is another one.
This time it is a contrast between how the rich man felt about things before and after his death. We don't hear much more about the beggar; the story focusses our attention on the rich man - I suppose because whoever we are more like him than we are like the beggar.

Before his death, you couldn't have described this man's life in any terms other than his prosperity, his possessions, and all the things that his affluence made possible - it would have been foolish to explain what made him tick in any other way - that was his life and that was the heart of how he thought about life - and it is not dissimilar to how an awful lot of people think about life - maybe ourselves included, at times. We like what life has to offer in return for our money!

But after his death he felt very, very differently about things. His views about what really mattered had changed dramatically!

All he wanted for himself was a drink of water to cool his tongue - no a dribble of water from the beggar's dirty finger would have done. Some change in his priorities from the days when the servants probably set all manner of refreshments on his table.

All he wanted for his family, especially his brothers who were still alive, was that somebody would be sent to alert them to the truth of God and the realities of heaven and hell - Send Lazarus - the beggar we all ignored. Hopefully they won't ignore him now! The rich man's overwhelming concern was that his own family would realise the importance of God's realities before it was too late for them. But, says Abraham, it wouldn't make any difference - they'll not listen or pay any serious attention -they're too entrenched in the sort of lifestyle you chose. What makes you think they'll change now? After all they've had every opportunity to know the truth of God already. As good Jews they've been taught that truth from the OT books of Moses and the prophets - week after week at church! But they haven't done anything about it. Other things are far more important to them, just as they were for you.

What a contrast.

The rich man saw his own needs so clearly when it was too late.
And, he saw the needs of his family and friends, so starkly and so urgently. He wanted to do anything and everything possible to make sure that their lives did not end in this place of torment and hopelessness.
What an unmistakably urgent warning for all people everywhere - ourselves especially. It couldn't be any more stark or blunt. No ifs, no buts, no maybes, no exceptions.
It is heaven or hell!
As we think about our own attitudes in life, what really makes us tick, what comes first before anything else?
Do this story give us cause to do some serious thinking?
Do some of the things that we thought were important not seem just as vital as we thought they were?
Do we feel an urgency of concern for some of the people in our families that we haven't felt up until now?

A story of stark contrasts - lifestyles, deathstyles, attitudes about what is really important.
But there is one piece of the jig-saw still missing. It only fits in one way, and without it, the picture doesn't make proper sense.
It's the vital question of why these two men had such dreadfully contrasting conclusions to their lives.
We need to be so very careful how we fit in this piece of the jig-saw!

The beggar was not in heaven because he was a beggar - he was in heaven because he was a believer.
Just because you have had a terrible life here on earth doesn't mean that the tables are turned in the hereafter. It's all to do with the opportunities for godly faith and trust that we have had, as the latter part of the story makes clear. The rich man was not in hell because he was rich, but because he was careless. Just because you've had a good life doesn't mean that you'll get the opposite hereafter! The problem with the rich man lies in the fact that he had lived a life of self sufficiency, believing that his possessions and financial security were the key to his long term wellbeing. - he found out that he was wrong, at terrible cost. There is absolutely no suggestion that he had lived any kind of immoral or corrupt life - he had just lived a careless life where he had been indifferent to the matters of God and the opportunities for faith - and his family were doing the same thing. It's too late for me, but don't let them do what I did! Bring them to their senses when they still have the opportunity. Being a beggar is not a passport to heaven, being a believer is. Being a rich man is not a ban on heaven, but it can be a very dangerous blockage.

People matter to God ..... but they must allow him to matter to them. There is a choice to be made that is of utterly long term importance - a choice which determines our destiny hereafter, as well as shaping our lives now.
There is just no getting away from this basic point in today's story - and there is no getting away from it in all of the Bible's story.
This man hadn't bothered too much about what he knew about God and about faith from the OT teaching that he had learnt from childhood, and there had been no signs of inward godly faith producing any outward caring or compassion for the beggar at his gate. He had settled for life on the level of possessions, reputation, financial security etc, and in the end it had let him down.

We might not classify ourselves as rich men or women - but that's not really the point of this story, is it?
The point is that we too have had so many opportunities to hear and know and understand the truth of God, and to make some solid and serious choices about our lives on that basis. If should someone rise from the dead, it is no guarantee that they'll do anything about it is the final ironic comment in Jesus' story - and neither it is, to this very day!
It is all too easy to do nothing, to sit lightly to it all, not to turn our backs on it, but not to accept it in any clear way either.
And yet ......... sobering thought of all sobering thoughts, Jesus Christ, the final word of God to the world, did die and rise again.

People matter to God, but this story drives home the point, relentlessly, that people must allow him to matter to them.
We must allow him to matter to us - and he has appointed his Son, Jesus Christ, as the one through whom we are to thrust in God.
We must not presume upon God's love and hope - telling ourselves that it is all right for nearly everyone in the end.
When there is opportunity to listen and respond, we must pay attention to Jesus' warning that there comes a time when it is too late, when there is a great chasm fixed, with no further crossing or choosing opportunities.
People matter to God .... but that great good news is sometimes like a generous cheque that someone makes payable to us, but we never cash it, and so no benefit follows.
It's like a wonderful invitation to some great event that you receive, but it sits on the mantlepiece, nothing done about it - and the day and the opportunity passes.

People matter to God - you matter, I matter, we matter - more than we will ever, ever understand or appreciate.
Does he matter to us? Have we made that clear and definite choice to allow Jesus Christ to be Saviour and Lord in our lives? We need to make sure ...... before it is too late.

Maybe this morning is the day to make sure.