“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?
b.And then we’d say, “But the poor guy, Lazarus, wouldn’t have that chance.” Why? B/c nothing went his way. He was a beggar. He’d just be able to get what came his way. I mean, we all know poor guys don’t fly 1st class.
2.But as you continue to read thru these verses you’ll see that their eternal destinations were quite different. The rich man’s destination was hell. The poor man’s was heaven. Now why didn’t the rich man make it to heaven? Was it b/c he was rich? No! Abraham was a wealthy man and yet he was in heaven. He was in hell b/c of bad choices; b/c his #1 priority in life was himself. He refused God leadership of his life.
a.I want you to know something. There’s not enough wealth in this world for us to buy our way into heaven. If there was then Christ wouldn’t have had to go to the cross for us. We can’t grandfather our way into heaven either.
b.At this time many of the Jews believed that just b/c they were Jewish, they’d be able to enter heaven. We think the same thing. We think if we’ve been brought up going to church, that’s good enough to get us to heaven. Or b/c we’re fairly moral people everything will pan out just fine for us in the end. If that’s your thought process, it’d behoove you to pay attention to what Scripture says. The man in our text ended up in hell! He missed out on his desired destination
B.Why? By all accounts he was a fairly decent guy. But he made the choice of looking at life as being centered around himself. That’s a tragic mistake b/c it’s one that will affect your eternal destination.
1.People need to know they have a choice. But our choices are sealed at death. You see, when you die there’s nothing you can do to change the outcome of your choices.
ILLUS: Every summer as a kid I’d go and spend a couple of weeks w/my grandparents in Texas. And on one particular visit I was going to get to fly home from Texas. I still remember it like it was yesterday. It was the 1st time I’d even flown on an airline. And my grandparents put me on the plane. They left and I was sitting down when I heard the flight attendant say, “We’ll be departing for Hartford, Connecticut in 5 minutes.”
-Even though I was only 10 years old I knew that Connecticut wasn’t a short cut to home. Now was I trapped on that plane? Did I have to sit on that plane and fly to a place I didn’t want to go? No! I jumped off that plane and made a bee line to the gate that was bound for home! Now why’d I do that? B/c that’s where I wanted to go! But if I’d stayed on the other plane until take-off then my destination would’ve been sealed.
a.This text is a reminder to us that we better determine where we want to spend our eternal destination. And then we need to make sure we’ve got a ticket to go there. What’s the ticket? Jesus gave us the answer in John 14: 6. He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except thru Me.”
b.Have you invested your life in Christ? Do the people you know and care @ have their tickets for heaven? B/c if we don’t, then there’s literally hell to pay. Now I know a lot of you are already followers of Jesus. You have your destination squared away. But have you become so comfortable w/that that you haven’t put a thought into anyone else’s destination?
Reit: The 1st way your choices @ Jesus affect your lives is your destination. The 2nd way your choices @ Jesus affect your lives is:
2: YOUR REWARD (vv. 25-26)
Exp: Once a person makes a decision they have to live w/the consequences of that choice. And that really seems to be a hard thing for us to grasp. We like to think we can make any decision we want w/o having any consequences. And it’s a shocking lesson you learn when you find out there are consequences to your actions.
A.Let me give you an example. I love onions. I especially love the ones w/the green stalk. Now if I indulge myself and eat that onion I’ll satisfy my craving for that moment, but I have a consequence that comes later w/that choice as well. You know what it is? It’s horrible breath! It’s impossible to eat an onion and it not affect your breath. Even after brushing your teeth the onion still has the ability to overpower your toothpaste.
1.There’s a lesson for us in decision making. Pay attention to the long term affects of the choices you make. Lazarus was pretty limited in what he could do in this life. But he made sure he made wise choices for the next life.
a.What did he do? He made sure he had a relationship w/Jesus. How did that affect him? He was sitting next to Abraham in heaven at a great feast. The rich man, on the other hand, was in dire straits. What happened? He simply got what he deserved. You see, he put all his chips on the table in this earthly life and his rewards were reaped here.
b.He lived the good life on earth. But his investment in earthly things didn’t pay off in eternity, did they? Jesus gets fairly graphic w/hell in this story. He speaks of it as being a place of torment and agony. The rich man was so thirsty he just wanted a drop of water placed on his tongue.
2.I believe part of the reason Jesus told this story was to open people’s eyes to the realness of heaven and hell. It can seem so far fetched and hard to believe in that we put all of our attention on THIS world. And b/c we can experience things in this world NOW, I believe one thing we do is try to marginalize eternity to justify what we want now.
a.Too many of us lull ourselves to sleep concerning eternity, but there’ll be a day when we’ll face a rude awakening if we’re not careful. And Xians, we have to understand the importance of telling other people @ Jesus or we’re simply living in denial that somehow everything’s going to turn out all right.
ILLUS: I’m sure you’re familiar w/how to boil a frog to death. You take a frog and put him in warm water. When you put the frog in, he won’t jump out of the pot b/c he enjoys the comfortable water. Very slowly you turn up the heat, and eventually the water begins to boil.
-You’d think as the water became hotter and hotter that the frog would jump out of the pot to save his life. But that’s not what happens. The frog chooses to stay in the water b/c he gets used to the water warming up even though it’s slowly boiling him to death.
b.A lot of us are slowly being boiled to death spiritually, not realizing we have no reward to look forward to in eternity b/c we’ve chosen this life over the next one. We get so accustomed to living for now that we give no thought @ what’s going to happen concerning our eternity. So what do we need to do to avoid that; what do we need to do to keep from boiling to death?
B.Take time to weigh the long term affects of living for Jesus and living for yourself. Make a pro and con list. Then after that, make a choice! Now if you want to reap the reward of heaven or you’re praying for your friends to, a surrender needs to take place. A surrendering of the control of your life to the leadership of Jesus.
1.Why Him? B/c He’s the only one who has the ability to rescue us from our sin. 2 Cor. 5: 21, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
a.When we surrender ourselves to the leadership of Jesus, Jesus covers over our shortcomings, our sins, w/Himself. The result is that when God examines our lives, He no longer sees us but instead He sees the perfection of Jesus.
Reit: The 1st way your choices @ Jesus affect your lives is your destination. The 2nd way is your rewards. And the final way your choices @ Jesus affect your lives is:
3: YOUR INFLUENCE (vv. 27-31)
Exp: If you were to die today, what kind of influence or legacy do you think you’d leave behind? You might think, “I’m going to leave behind a lot of $ for my kids” or “I’m going to leave behind a good work ethic for my kids to follow.” You my even say, “They’ll be influenced by the quality time I spent w/them.”
A.Now all those things can be good things. I look in our text and I’d guess the rich man had some of those qualities. He was probably rich b/c he had a good work ethic. But how long does that type of influence last? At best a lifetime. Why? B/c when they die they’re not going to take any of that $ they left behind. The legacy of hard work won’t go w/them and not even their love for their family will.
1.Look at the rich man. He had all of these qualities. He was hard working. He cared @ his family. V. 27 showed his concern for the eternities of his brothers. But after the rich man died, he knew he’d wasted the opportunity to leave behind the greatest possible legacy; which was squaring away one’s eternity.
a.But after death there was nothing he could do @ it. You see, once you die your legacy is set in stone. Again, what kind of legacy are you going to leave behind? Don’t you want it to be one that really makes a difference? One that lasts for an eternity?
ILLUS: In 1993 in a Massachusetts town, police found a woman dead on her kitchen floor. Now that might not sound all that strange, but it was. You see, she’d been dead on that floor for over 4 years. The tragedy of the story wasn’t so much her death but the fact that no one had even noticed she’d died.
-Back in 1989 some of her neighbors thought it was strange that they hadn’t seen her for a while . So they called the police. The police contacted her brother who told them he thought she’d gone to a nursing home. The brother said he was sure his sister wouldn’t want to be bothered. After that news, the post office quit delivering her mail.
-So over time, the neighbors didn’t think anything @ it. After a few months the power company shut off her electricity. The lady had been living in that neighborhood for over 40 years. Everyone knew her, but it didn’t take long before everyone forgot her.
b.What a sad testimony @ someone’s life. Xians, we have an opportunity to share w/people the greatest news of all time. And that news is that they can have a relationship w/Jesus Christ. That news is that sins can be forgiven and they have the promise to spend their eternity in a place where there’s no more pain, sorrow or tears.
2.We all have the opportunity to make an eternal difference in someone’s life, but we have far too many people who are spiritually dry and dead making no impact whatsoever.
a.Don’t miss out on your chance to make an everlasting difference. B/c after we die our influence ends. What kind of influence are you going to leave behind?
Conclusion: The decisions we make in life affect us. My goal and my desire for you is to move away from bad choices and make good ones! You see, the decision we make @ Jesus will impact our lives for an eternity. How so? Our destination will be affected. Our reward for life will be affected. And finally, our influence will be affected.
-Now some of you here today are going to be a day late and a dollar short concerning your eternity. And I want you to know you’ve got the chance right now to change that. You’ve got the chance right now to ask Christ to change your life; to be in charge of your life.
-If you’d like to do that, pray this prayer after me. Dear Jesus, I know I’m a sinner and I ask you to forgive me of my sins. I believe and trust you died for me and rose from the grave that I too may conquer death. I ask you to save me and be the Lord and Savior of my life.
-Others of you are followers of Jesus yet you’re not doing much in your Xian journey. You know your destination is taken care of; you know your eternity is set. But you’re not leaving behind a strong legacy for your family. Take advantage of the Xian life and share it w/someone else so they’ll have a chance to get to know Jesus as well.
-You see, we’re the only Jesus people see. Are people seeing Him thru you?
