Bad Choices Series

“Bad Choices”

Luke 16: 19-31

Intro: A Sunday school teacher told his class the story in the Bible of the rich man and Lazarus. He explained that the wealthy man had wonderful clothes, lived in luxury and had all the food he could eat; but he had no compassion for Lazarus, who was a beggar. Lazarus was so poor that he longed to simply eat the crumbs from the rich man’s table.

-Later in their lives, the rich man ended up dying and went to hell, while Lazarus, who’d spent his life sick and destitute, ended up in heaven w/God. After finishing the story, the teacher asked his class, “Now which would you rather be--the rich man or Lazarus?” A boy raised his hand and said, “I’d like to be both.” The teacher was surprised and confused and said, “Explain that to me.” The boy said, “I’d want to be the rich man while I was living and Lazarus when I died.”

-Makes sense to me! Obviously, we know the right answer to the question. Our desire should be to be like Lazarus. But a whole lot of us go thru life making selfish decisions, decisions that are contrary to the leadership of God, and then we count on God blessing us in spite of our choices. It’s the ole, “I’ll have my cake and eat it too” syndrome.

-Well, I’ve got bad news for you. It doesn’t work that way. The choices we make in life carry w/them consequences. Today, we’re continuing our series “Breaking Bad.” I really believe a lot of us end up a little confused as to how we ended up so far away from where we planned on being in life.

-And we ask, “How did I get here? This was never a part of my original plan for life!” My hope is thru this series we’ll have a better understanding of how we’ve arrived where we presently are and how we can change the trajectory of our lives.

Sermon Idea: Today in our passage of Scripture we’re going to see 2 men compared w/one another. One man took advantage of his eternal opportunities and the other man didn’t. The result is one man found joy while the other man found disappointment.

-One man found what he was ultimately looking for while the other man was stunned to find what he missed out on. Today we’re going to see the significance of how our choices in life affect us.

TEXT: LUKE 16: 19-31

Bckgrd: Jesus wasn’t a popular guy among the religious leaders at this time. He condemned them time and time again. You’ll see Jesus comparing them to rotting corpses and as a pit of vipers! Not exactly “How to win friends and influence them” stuff. But in our text, Jesus was sharing w/them that another fault of theirs is they were making BAD decisions in regard to Him that would have lasting consequences.

-Instead of following Jesus, they were fighting against Him, they were refusing to put themselves under His leadership and Jesus knew there’d be a day when they’d look at themselves and think, “How did I end up here? I’m a good guy, I knew what the Bible said, I was nice to people, and yet I’m separated from Him!”

-What kind of decisions are you making in THIS life @ Jesus? B/c it’s only in THIS life that you have the opportunity to respond to Jesus‘ invitation to follow Him. Very briefly I want us to look and see how our choices @ Jesus affect our lives. The 1st way our choices @ Jesus affect our lives is:

1: OUR DESTINATION (vv. 19-24)

Exp: It’s interesting to look at this text and see the description of 2 totally different men. One man was rich. I mean he had everything the world could offer. He had the finest clothes, the nicest homes, Emily Post manners. Apparently, he was a decent man. No outrageous sins are mentioned.

A.The other man mentioned had absolutely nothing. He was crippled. Obviously he didn’t have enough to make ends meet. He was so destitute all he wanted was to be able to get the crumbs from the rich man’s table. I found this interesting. During this time, bread often times was used as a napkin. So after the rich man would’ve wiped his mouth off w/some of the bread, he would’ve thrown it on the floor.

1.But if you look at these 2 men on the surface, which one would you say was going to have a better destination? Which one would you think was going to be the one who’d turn out all right?

a.The answer is the rich man! In the school yearbook he would’ve been voted “Most likely to succeed.” When you’ve got that type of $ you’re going to have a better opportunity to determine where you’re going to spend your time, right?