Luke #38: The Uncrossable Chasm (16:19-31)
Notes
Transcript
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B: Luke 16:19-31
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Welcome
Welcome
Bye, kids!
Thank you, choir.
Good morning again, and thanks for being here today, whether you’re in the room of online, to worship the Lord Jesus together, and to spend time in fellowship and in the study of His Word with the family of Eastern Hills.
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Opening
Opening
Last week, we considered basically the first half of chapter 16 of the Gospel of Luke, looking at the notoriously difficult passage commonly called the Parable of the Unrighteous (or Unjust, or Dishonest) Manager. Ultimately, what we saw that the parable and the teaching that Jesus gave following it boiled down to was that we are to be generous and faithful, and keep our priorities in order. In considering Jesus’s explanation of the parable, we were challenged by the truth that our most important stewardship is the stewardship of our hearts—this means that stewardship is a discipline not just of our finances, but of our relationships as well.
This morning, we consider the rest of the chapter, considering the story of the rich man and Lazarus. So please stand as you are able to in honor of the reading of God’s Holy Word, and turn in your Bibles or Bible apps to Luke 16, and I will begin reading in verse 19:
19 “There was a rich man who would dress in purple and fine linen, feasting lavishly every day. 20 But a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, was lying at his gate. 21 He longed to be filled with what fell from the rich man’s table, but instead the dogs would come and lick his sores. 22 One day the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 And being in torment in Hades, he looked up and saw Abraham a long way off, with Lazarus at his side. 24 ‘Father Abraham!’ he called out, ‘Have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this flame!’ 25 “ ‘Son,’ Abraham said, ‘remember that during your life you received your good things, just as Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here, while you are in agony. 26 Besides all this, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you, so that those who want to pass over from here to you cannot; neither can those from there cross over to us.’ 27 “ ‘Father,’ he said, ‘then I beg you to send him to my father’s house—28 because I have five brothers—to warn them, so that they won’t also come to this place of torment.’ 29 “But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ 30 “ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said. ‘But if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ 31 “But he told him, ‘If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.’ ”
PRAYER
Have you ever experienced deja vu? You know, when you have the feeling that what you’re experiencing in that moment is something that you’ve experienced before?
You know, when you have the feeling that what you’re experiencing in that moment is something that you’ve experienced before? (Kidding)
I experienced some deja vu this week.
Last Sunday, I mentioned that I came into our focal passage without much of an understanding of what that parable meant. That’s not the case this week. Our focal passage this morning is one of my favorites. But as I worked on my sermon preparation and study this week, I was struck by the fact that the direction that my outline was going felt like I’d taken that path before. So I checked in my Bible study software to see if I’ve ever preached from this passage, and full disclosure: I have. This was my focal passage over six years ago during one message in our “Who’s Your One?” series, where we were focusing on evangelism through the challenge of each of us having our “one:” the one person that we were striving to share our faith with.
What was really funny about that discovery is that my working through the passage this time was flowing in largely the same direction as that sermon six years ago, with one substantial change because of the context of coming into this passage from the passage before it: the addition of some helpful context that I only now really have because of last week’s study.
So if you’ve been taking notes in your Bible for the last six years, you’ll find that this passage is already marked (if you have had the same Bible for the last six years). This morning, we will consider first the story itself followed by how we might apply it to our lives today:
1: The rich man and Lazarus
1: The rich man and Lazarus
What kind of passage is this? Most would say that it is a parable, which you will recall is an earthly story with a spiritual meaning or point. Most commentaries call it a parable as well. However, if it is a parable, then it is unique among Jesus’s parables, because He does something in it that He doesn’t do in any other parable: He gives a character a name. Look at every other parable, and none of the characters have names. They have titles: the younger son, the landowner, the persistent widow, the shrewd manager, the unmerciful servant, but no names.
However, here we have a character with a given name: Lazarus. There are three ways to take this:
Jesus just felt like naming this character. It is, after all, His story, and He can do what He wants to do with the characters; or
Jesus named this particular character Lazarus for a particular purpose; or
This isn’t a parable at all, but is instead a historical account that only Jesus could have known about.
I find the first reason unlikely. Sure, Jesus can do what He wants with His parable characters, but I highly doubt that this choice had ZERO meaning, given that He never named any of the other characters in His parables.
So what about possibility number 2? Could Jesus have had some reason for naming this character Lazarus? Certainly He could have.
The name Lazarus means “One whom God helps.” This is a fitting name for a character such as Lazarus, whom God does indeed help. Not only that, but later in the ministry of Jesus, He raised another Lazarus from the dead, and rather than believing because of that incredible miracle, the religious leaders decided that not only did Jesus need to die, but probably Lazarus needed to die as well. We find that in John 12:9-11. So then, perhaps Jesus uses the name before raising Lazarus to essentially predict what the Pharisees were going to do when someone named Lazarus really did rise from the dead: They would simply not believe, which is exactly what Abraham in the story said would happen.
This is definitely a fair position to hold, and it is a reasonable possibility. One of the strongest defenses of this perspective is the awareness that the rich man has of his plight, and the fact that he can see both Abraham and Lazarus in that awareness. There’s no indication in Scripture that this actually occurs (though I suppose it would make the torment of Hades all the worse to be able to see paradise from there).
But I have to admit that I struggle taking this as a parable because of the uniqueness of the story: It just doesn’t sound fictional to me. However, while I think that this is an actual historical account that only Jesus could have known about, I can’t say that with absolute certainty, and so I won’t be dogmatic about it.
There are just some things about it that lead me in that direction, especially when put together with passages like Revelation 20:11-15:
11 Then I saw a great white throne and one seated on it. Earth and heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them. 12 I also saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged according to their works by what was written in the books. 13 Then the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them; each one was judged according to their works. 14 Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
Hades itself gets destroyed in the lake of fire, which we commonly think of as hell, and thus it seems reasonable to separate the two. So, while we often think about this passage in Luke as a passage about hell, I tend to think of this as something else… an intermediate state for the wicked between physical death and final judgment. Not a place like the Catholic idea of purgatory, a place where baptized people go to work off their sin, still with a hope of salvation. No, this would be a place where the beginnings of the eternal judgment of God are dispensed before God wraps everything up at the end of time—when the grave is emptied and final judgment is given.
On the other hand, the place referred to as “Abraham’s side,” in Jewish thinking, is believed to be a place of paradise, rest, and peace for those who belong to God through faith, experiencing His presence, as Paul describes it in 2 Corinthians 5:
6 So we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 In fact, we are confident, and we would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
Paul says that when believers are away from the body (at least temporarily), we are at “home” with the Lord, until the time of the resurrection, when we will live in the new heavens and the new earth, when God’s children will receive our glorified bodies.
If you don’t agree with the idea of an intermediate state, that’s fine. Scholars don’t agree on this, either. Taking this as a parable is just as effective.
This story, whether parabolic or real, is filled with contrasts between the rich man and Lazarus: the richest of the rich/the poorest of the poor, covered with wealth/covered with sores, well fed/starving, eating like a king/being licked by dogs, secure in his own house/lying on the ground at someone else’s gate. The rich man could have seen Lazarus and been a blessing to him while they were alive. But we have no indication that he ever was. There had always been a chasm between them, but one that could have been crossed in life.
In their deaths, the contrasts continue: the rich man is said to have been buried, but Lazarus wasn’t; one goes to Hades, the other to Abraham’s side; the rich man is in torment, while Lazarus is comforted. And so we see that the chasm between them in death is even wider than it had been in life. So wide, in fact, that the distance is insurmountable—it is uncrossable. This chasm is “fixed:” while there might be those who are in comfort who would desire to cross over to help those who are in agony (perhaps like Paul in Romans 9:3), they can never do so. And certainly those who are in torment would desire to cross over to comfort, but that likewise is impossible.
Regardless of how you take this story, we see this point: there are just two possible eternal outcomes for people, and these two outcomes are vastly different from one another. And once we reach that moment, there will be no “crossing over” from one side of this uncrossable chasm to the other.
2: The stewardship connection
2: The stewardship connection
When I preached this before, I had a particular focus: evangelism. And that’s not wrong. This is definitely a passage that warns the unbelieving and challenges the believer. However, what I didn’t see before is the importance of stewardship in this story, given what came right before it in chapter 16. One of the dangers of lifting a passage out of its context is that we might miss the point in light of the passages around it. And while evangelism is a great application of the rich man and Lazarus, when we consider it in conjunction with the parable of the unrighteous manager and the teaching of Jesus from the beginning of the chapter (last week’s message), then we find ourselves with an additional piece of interpretation that I hadn’t noticed before, and to be honest, one that I likely wouldn’t have arrived at without the study that I did last week in order to finally land on a satisfactory understanding of verses 1-18.
The question that this prompts me to ask myself is this: While I know that I am saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus, how am I stewarding that incredible gift of grace in my life? How am I impacting the lives of others? How am I stewarding the Gospel?
Stewardship of our lives
Stewardship of our lives
We are each given a resource to steward. That resource is our very lives. We talk about our lives as if they truly belong only to us, but this is not the case. No, we each are made by God and each of us bears His image. Granted, we have marred and discolored and abused that image, but it is still there in each and every one of us. That likeness points us back to the One whom we are like, and reveals to us that we belong to Someone far greater than we are.
When I came to faith in Jesus, part of my journey was this kind of question. After addressing whether or not God was the most reasonable explanation of my existence (He is), and whether or not this created some form of intended purpose for my life (it does), I had to ask whether or not I was using my life for that purpose (I was not). It was then that I realized my sinfulness and my need for Jesus.
God is Creator. We are creature. In his discourse on the Areopagus in Acts 17, Paul argued:
24 The God who made the world and everything in it—he is Lord of heaven and earth—does not live in shrines made by hands. 25 Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things. 26 From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. 27 He did this so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 For in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’
Even though we see the reversal in the things that the rich man and Lazarus experienced in the grave, that doesn’t mean that because the rich man was wealthy in life, and Lazarus was poor in life, then those facts determined their eternal destinies. Instead, the issue is one of faith:
The rich man lived for his wealth, his prestige, his clothes, and his food, relying upon his material resources for his life’s purpose. Ultimately, those things were his god, and he didn’t give any thought to the Lord. He had placed his faith in the trappings of this life alone.
Lazarus, who had truly nothing and was likely crippled (he couldn’t even do anything about the dogs), lived up to his name because God was the only One he could rely upon—the only One who could help him, the only One he could place his faith in. We never hear Lazarus say this, because he never speaks in the story. But the outcome of his life reflects it.
Paul spoke about this dichotomy in his letter to the churches of Galatia:
7 Don’t be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a person sows he will also reap, 8 because the one who sows to his flesh will reap destruction from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.
If we live for the things of the flesh like the rich man, we will inherit destruction like the rich man. If we live by the Spirit in faith, we will receive eternal life like Lazarus.
We must start here: The Bible tells us that the One who we are like took on humanity to be like us, so that He could take our place in death, in order that we could be forgiven of our sins and receive eternal life. Philippians 2 says:
5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. 7 Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.
We are saved not through what we do, but by faith in what Jesus has done. In our brokenness, we simply cannot live in a way that merits eternal life with God. We can’t cross that chasm by ourselves. Jesus lived that life for us, so that He could take our punishment on Himself. Through believing in Him: trusting in Him as Savior and surrendering to Him as Lord, we are made right with God again (justification), and begin the journey of becoming who God means for us to be in this life (sanctification), and ultimately looking toward the gift of living in His presence forever free from sin and shame and fear and death (glorification). It all starts with faith.
6 Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
The proper stewardship of our lives begins with believing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
And once we have trusted in Christ for our salvation, it matters how we live—not in order to be saved, but as a response to the fact that we are saved, and we now represent Christ because we bear His name. As we said last week, we are to be generous and faithful with the resources that God has given to us, while also keeping our priorities straight for His purposes. As believers, we are called to walk in righteousness. The Scriptures are clear in this regard:
7 For none of us lives for himself, and no one dies for himself. 8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
1 Additionally then, brothers and sisters, we ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus, that as you have received instruction from us on how you should live and please God—as you are doing—do this even more.
As I said earlier, there is going to come a time when God will renew this broken, fallen world, replacing it with a new heavens and a new earth untainted by sin. As we look forward to that day, we are called to live lives that bring Him glory and honor. Peter explained it this way:
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief; on that day the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, the elements will burn and be dissolved, and the earth and the works on it will be disclosed. 11 Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, it is clear what sort of people you should be in holy conduct and godliness 12 as you wait for the day of God and hasten its coming. Because of that day, the heavens will be dissolved with fire and the elements will melt with heat. 13 But based on his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.
Take stock for a moment: Am I a stewarding my life well? Am I like the rich man, living for myself alone, trusting in the things of the world rather than in God for my happiness, my purpose, my security, my hope? Or am I like Lazarus, understanding that God is my only hope, my only help?
This brings us to a second question that the story of the rich man and Lazarus prompts us to ask: Am I making a difference in others’ lives?
Stewardship of others’ lives
Stewardship of others’ lives
It matters how we minister to others. The rich man had food to spare, yet refused to give any to Lazarus. This wasn’t a short-term, one-off kind of thing. The story implies that there was a span of time that the rich man had opportunity to interact with Lazarus, but he didn’t.
Remember Jesus’s teaching following the parable of the unrighteous steward which we looked at last week? In verse 9, Jesus said:
9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of worldly wealth so that when it fails, they may welcome you into eternal dwellings.
I explained last week that there are only three “Friends” who can welcome us into eternal dwellings: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We will not take the wealth of this world with us, but we can use it for the glory of God and to fulfill His purposes in our lives through how we bless others. Obviously, the rich man didn’t “make friends” by means of his worldly wealth.
I suppose what I’m asking is this: Do we see that others have value? Are others worth investing in as God leads us to? This is part of the rich man’s failure of stewardship: Even in the grave, the rich man didn’t see Lazarus as having value.
The rich man cries out in his agony, not asking—demanding that Abraham have mercy on him and send Lazarus to could just come put a drop of water on his tongue to comfort him. He hasn’t really changed. He’s still just as focused on himself as he was in his life. He actually commands Abraham to make Lazarus leave the comfort he is receiving in order to come and serve him. He hadn’t served Lazarus in life, and here he demands that Lazarus serve him in death.
The rich man could have lived his life by faith in God, and not by faith in his wealth, and he would be with Lazarus in paradise. At the same time, Lazarus would have had a more comfortable time in life as well.
We should have open hands for God’s use. If our lives are a sacred stewardship we’ve been given, so is everything our lives contain—whether that’s money or time or talent or skills or whatever. I’m not saying that the answer is to find a crippled homeless beggar and give him our leftovers from lunch (unless that’s what God moves you to do). I’m saying that we need to be available and willing for whatever God moves us to do whenever He moves us to do it. If it’s praying with someone who’s struggling, then do that. If it’s singing in the choir, then do that. If it’s serving with the children’s ministry for a couple of weeks, then do that. It’s not a question of context: it’s a question of stewardship of whatever God has given to you to use for others.
If we belong to God through faith in Christ, then we are also called upon to steward the lives of those around us as God gives us opportunity, directs us, and provides the means for.
Paul said to the church at Rome:
2 Each one of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. 3 For even Christ did not please himself. On the contrary, as it is written, The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.
Peter wrote:
10 Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others, as good stewards of the varied grace of God.
And continuing the passage we saw earlier about stewarding our own lives for God’s glory, Paul continued by speaking about us stewarding other’s lives as well:
9 Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.
One way that we do this is through participation in the church body. How do we see the church? As an organization that provides activities that I like, or a family of fellow believers on mission to love and reach others with the life-changing message of the Gospel? This brings us to our last stewardship application:
Stewardship of the Gospel
Stewardship of the Gospel
One thing that is remarkable to me about our focal passage is the sudden change in the rich man as far as the life he left behind is concerned. When he was alive, he lived for himself. He didn’t care about the things of God, and he didn’t care if the people around him cared about the things of God. But once he found himself in Hades, the rich man became an evangelist.
27 “ ‘Father,’ he said, ‘then I beg you to send him to my father’s house—28 because I have five brothers—to warn them, so that they won’t also come to this place of torment.’ 29 “But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ 30 “ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said. ‘But if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ 31 “But he told him, ‘If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.’ ”
He apparently realizes that he can’t go tell his brothers himself, so he begs that Abraham would send Lazarus to them to tell them about what he’s going through… to warn them against living their lives in such a way that they would end up in Hades. He wants his brothers to know the truth of what he’s experiencing.
But Abraham responds that they should know about this from the Scriptures. They, just like the rich man himself, will have no excuse if that is where they end up. None of us will, according to Romans 1:
18 For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, 19 since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse. 21 For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened.
But the rich man says that if someone rises from the dead and tells them, they will repent. Abraham disagrees, saying if they won’t listen to the Scriptures, then even a person rising from the dead will not persuade them.
I think that in this story, whether a parable or not, Jesus ends by making the point that many will reject the message of the Gospel even if they see something as miraculous as someone rising from the dead. In John 11, Jesus proclaimed exactly who He is, just before He raised the other Lazarus from the dead:
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.
The religious leaders didn’t believe in Jesus when that happened, as I said earlier. But more than that, in a way Jesus was predicting what was going to happen in His life, because the Gospel of Jesus Christ was proven true in the fact that Jesus Himself rose from the dead!
30 “Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
Last week, we read Jesus’s words when He said, “the good news of the kingdom of God has been proclaimed, and everyone is urgently invited to enter it.” (Luke 16:16b). We are all invited to enter the kingdom of God through faith in Christ. And once we have entered the kingdom through believing the Gospel, we are then entrusted with an additional stewardship: the stewardship of the Gospel message itself. We can tell people about what Christ has done so that they don’t end up like the rich man.
But still many reject the Gospel. That doesn’t mean that we should not share it, church. We saw in the “lost” parables a couple of weeks ago that all of heaven rejoices when one sinner repents and comes to faith. This is our message to steward, our message to declare.
Closing
Closing
The rich man failed to steward himself, failed to steward the resources and opportunity that God had given him to be a blessing to others, and didn’t care to steward the message of faith until it was too late to do so. As a result, he found himself on the wrong side of the uncrossable chasm between eternal life and eternal death—separation from God.
Have you believed the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
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PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
I want to take a moment to remind us of our mission and values as a church this morning:
Remember that our mission is to be People helping people live out the unexpected love of Jesus every day.
And in the process of fulfilling this mission, we have four primary values:
Authentic Family
We have fun and encourage each other through life’s ups and downs.
Real Truth
We dig into Scripture for clarity in a confusing world.
Transformational Growth
We thrive as we learn to become more like Jesus together.
Practical Impact
We seek to meet the needs of our neighbors wherever we find them.
Bible reading (Ephesians 3:1-4:16, Psalm 85)
Pastor’s Study tonight
Prayer Meeting Wednesday @ 5:45 after churchwide dinner
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
18 Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. 19 That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.”
