The firefighters Luke 16:19-26
First of all the Rich Man was immune to the need.
Notice (v.20) that Lazarus sat at the rich man’s gate. Now what do you do with a gate. Yup, you go in and out. Thus the rich man would have passed by Lazarus everyday. He saw him. He got used to seeing him. Now Lazarus would have been hard not to notice. He has dogs licking his sores; he is covered in shores from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head.
The rich man had to have saw him. Yet, he became used to what he saw.
At first he was just repulsed till slowly Lazarus became invisible.
Church we are doing the same. We see people all the time that are in need. Yet, we have become immune. We have just become used to the fact the people are headed for a Christ-less eternity. We see them. Those people over there. They have huge gapping holes in their hearts and lives yet we have become used to that fact. Oh, but that too hard. It takes too much time. I am not a good speaker, I don’t know my Bible enough.
Who cares meet the need. When you signed on to this Jesus thing you signed up to snatch people from the fire.
The second thing the rich man did was to ignore the need.
Scripture tells us that Lazarus begged for a crumb. Just a crumb from the rich man’s table. All Lazarus needed was for his need to be meet. Yet, the Rich man chose to ignore his need and walked on.
Church that has become our mindset. We ignore the need. And let us not kid ourself it is a conscience disision. The Rich man did not even acknowledge Lazarus.
Church have we turned into a Holy Huddle! Oh, we have of hymns, our bumper stickers, T-Shirts and kinds of other stuff all the way down to “Christian” breath mints. All that is great. But it is not going to save a soul until we break the huddle and go into action tell the good news. The Rich man was comfortable. Church have we become so comfortable that we will not become un comfortable (yes, that mean change) to reach the lost.
Recently I have made myself uncomfortable. I went to a 2 day training session for the Ok. KEEP program. Explain KEEP. I now teach at that Hardor House. It is a place for kids with special learning needs. Out of the 18 there are 2 or 3 “church” type teens. When I have conversations with the other teens I can tell that they need the love of God. They need some forgiveness, purpose and direction in their lives. And as soon as I am done with that in the next few weeks I will start work on getting myself into the Choctaw High School or another receptive place.
1 other quick example. One is Barry McMerty he is the Sr. minister at Southland Christian Church. There attendance in the several thounsands. He is from Australia were he worked with churches that had 30 or 20 in attendance. At the church he now attends he hates the music. Is it up beat and contempry. He grew up singing hymns. Yet, he says the reason he sings the chorces is because he knows that his kids, and grandkids like and will come to worship there because of it. So he puts up with it. Besides the teenagers time is come. There kids won’t like there music either.
Church we can not longer ignore the need of others around us. That need is Jesus.
The third thing that the rich man failed to see was the need in his own soul.
The Rich man forgot “Don’t just attend to your own affairs.” He fail to recognize that in by becoming immune to Lazarus by ignoring him that his own soul was affected. He had let his heart become jade by the world.
All the Rich was concerned about was himself. I don’t know maybe because he was rich people were constantly asking for money from me. Maybe. But here is a guy right by his front gate, wanting just a crumb from the table and even that seems a bit much for the Rich man to consider. Are you at bit jaded or is you heart still soft enough for God to use?
Because the rich man failed to see that need of his own soul that are consequences.
1st consequence – Hell is a world of extremes. V.24
Hell is a world of extreme suffering. The Rich man says “I’m in pain, agony. I want some relief. Notice also that Hell is a physical place. The Rich man says “I want water” and “I suffer” both physical.
2nd consequence – Hell is a place of extreme separation.
Abraham let’s the Rich man know that there is a great span that can not be crossed. In other words “You can’t get there from here.” What great torture. To sit in Hell in pain and be able to see pleasantness of heaven.
3rd consequence – Hell is a place of extreme sorrow.
The worst thing for the Rich Man is one word – Remember. He sits now in great sorrow and remember. He remembers all the times that he walked past Lazarus and saw the dogs licking his sores. He remembers went he would walk past the gate and Lazarus would cry out for a crumb of food.
Oh, he remembers now. All those lost opportunities. Oh, I’m too busy, my schedule is a bit too packed. Just a little too inconvenient. A little too uncomfortable. Yup, the Rich man remembers now.
Anyone here know the definition of the word perquisite?
Well just like in college you have to have math 101 before 201 or English 101 before English 201. The prerequisite for snatching people for the fire is that you have to have the eyes of Christ. You must have a heart for lost people. Why snatch people from the fire of there is no heart for them?
We must develop the eyes of Christ. KEY - When we see people as Christ sees them then we will love them as Christ loves them!
Yet, in the Christian world today we see lost people as the enemy.
This may or may not come a surprise to you but Disney promtes a “Gay Day.” They close that park to regular visitors and set a side a few days for gay and lesbians to come to the park. A lot of Christians said – Boycott. Let bring this billion dollar corp. to its knees. All Christian have done is make ourselves look like a bunch of dorks. We would rather throw rocks then make relationships. We would rather build up walls that emphasize people.
Read Matt. 20:29-34
This passage is in direct contrast to the one with the Rich Man.
How do we develop the eyes of Christ – well you watch the Master.
First – Jesus saw the need. (32) – Jesus Stopped.
He recognized the need he saw that they were lost.
Folks here is a clue – Lost people act lost and that makes us mad.
“I saw a kid/teen running in the church”
“I saw a kid/teen acting goofy” – Praise God – someone is excited about being in church.
They smoke or drink or had a child outside of marriage”
Where is a better place for them to be then here. Where they can hear and see the love of Jesus. This is not play play time. This is real. People are dieing without Christ and sometime I wonder if we really care. After all if the lost want Jesus they will just some how find there way here. Have we lost our minds! Or maybe just our passion to snatch people from the fire.
Maybe all we can see is that the church was not too hot or cold today, the song slides worked and the singing was nice. Where is the passion?
The problem with most of our churches is that we want to clean the fish before we let them in the boat. If we want to reach sinful people, we can’t expect them to clean up their lives before they start coming to our meetings and hearing the gospel.
Jesus not only acknowledges what he saw but he acted. He stopped.
Many of us see the need yet do nothing be because complaining about the problem is a whole lot easier.
Second – Jesus saw opportunity . . . and he took it. (32) and called them
Not only do we have to see the opportunity we have to take it. People are dieing without Christ all around us. We know this . . . I guess we have become comfortable with the idea. I guess what God has given us is not all that great. For if it was then surly we would be taking more opportunities to snatch people from the fire.
Third – Jesus had compassion on them. (34)
People don’t want your petty they want your compassion. Jesus did not look at these people and see a new project that they could fix. All he saw through his eyes was a person in need of love. People church is not a holy huddle were we can come a be “safe” from the outside world. This is the hospital were the sick need to be.
To have the eyes of Jesus is to have a heart for the lost. When you have a heart for the lost you can become a hero.
The Super Heroes
We all want to be heroes. Who was you favorite hero? (Wait for hands and response).
Story of child hood Hero.
I wonder what would have happened on 9-11 if the fire fighters and police would have said “Where’s my hat – I need my hat then I will go in to building” or “Hey where is spot the dog – can’t go with out the dog” NO! These people were not dumb. They know a fire like that can do to a building. And they ran in anyway. When you became a Christian you have no chose but to become a hero. To snatch people from the fire.
Let us look at one of the 1st Hero’s for Christ.
Read Message version Acts 6:1-5, 7:1, 52-60
Wow! What a hero. I don’t know about you but if I had a bunch of people throwing rocks to hit and kill me. I do not think that I would be down on my knees in prayer. Ouch! That hurts. Run away. That would be me.
Not Stephen. He saw all that was happening to him as a wonderful opportunity to tell the story of Jesus. It was all to the glory of God.
She desperately wanted a son. In fact she made a promise to God that if granted a Son she would bring him up in the knowledge of the Lord. She got her wish and Watchman Nee was born in China in 1920. As he grew his mother constantly sang hymns and read the Bible to him. Around the age to 17 he chose Jesus as his Lord. Watchman began snatching people from the fire. In March 1952 he was arrested by the Communists and taken to trial.
They said Mr. Nee we have over 2,000 complaints against you. What do you have to say for yourself. I wish there were more! He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. While in jail he was aloud to write. In the Chinese culture of the time write was an expression of the soul and so even those in jail could write. While in jail he wrote pages of stuff and would smuggle them out of the jail to Christian on the outside. When the Communist found out what he was doing they placed he in his cell and posted a guard and limited his visitors to only his wife. By the end of the month the guard went missing. Nee had witnessed to the guard. This happened a few more times. So the Communist said OK we will place a new guard every week. Well by the end of the week that guard went missing. The Communists told Nee that he had to stop or face punishment. They did not want to kill him for that would make him a martyr. So they decided to change the guard everyday. Well, by the end of 24 hours. Yup, that guard went missing. Finally, the Communists pulled Nee into a room and told him to stop. Nee said I can’t. I have to write. I have to talk about my Jesus. They grabbed him and place his hands on a block of wood. They said you have got to stop. Will you stop? I can’t stop.
Then the Communists cut of his hands. Nee – Lord I thank you for considering me worthy enough to suffer for you. Hold hands in the air.
Nee died in June of 1972. Six months later his wife was notifed of her husbands death and cremation. Before his death Nee is creditied for started 400 church and a through his ministry 30 more church in surrounding contries as far away as the Philippiness.
That is a hero. Church when will it get into our hearts to snatch people from the fire.
Closing.
