One question I often get is this. They’ll say, “I want to understand the Bible.” As a good engineer, of course, I’m usually trying to figure out what the question means, and so I ask myself, what do they mean? “What precisely is it about the Bible that you want to know?” Do you want a simple history lesson? Do you want to know how to have eternal life? Do you want to know how to liver life here more abundantly? The Bible answers so many life questions; I often don’t know how to start.
But, if you want to know, what is that the Bible is trying to accomplish – what the plan for your life and growth is, this is a good place to start. You see, in this story we just read, Jesus is going to tell you what the plan is – where it is you need to go. What you need to do to grow. In its own way, this story is going to give us an ‘roadmap of faith’ that takes us from where we are to where it is that he wants us to be.
This is a story a lot of people know, and its one that should make us all a little bit uncomfortable. After all, the inescapable point is pretty simple – Real riches consist not of what we have but in who we are. There are several teachings like this – the Rich Young Ruler, ‘You cannot serve God & wealth,’ even some of the stuff we read in the responsive reading, that should make any American, who by definition, lives in the richest country in the world, feel just a little bit nervous. This message is not one that is going to tell you how to be healthy or wealthy – just wise.
This morning, I want to suggest that the outline of this story is the same outline of the journey that all of us must make – a journey of learning how to see and what that means for each us. If you have your Bibles, I want to point out three easy sections of this story that mirror own journeys.
If you look at verses 19 – 22, I’d suggest this is where each and every one us starts. Here, you’ve got a rich man who is blind. While we may not all be rich, we’ve all been blind. Simply put, he doesn’t see, he doesn’t believe. He lives his life not badly, just blindly. But in verse 23, you’ll see that he, like everybody is going to have a moment when he learns to see. See what it says here? In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.
That’s going to be the crux of the story – he learned to see. And once it is you learn to see, you can never be the same. It is going to change you. In verses 27-31, you see the natural result of seeing – believing.
So briefly we’re going to look at these three stages: (1) Not Seeing, Not Believing, (2) Seeing, (3) Believing. This week, we’re going to look at the first two, and next week we’ll look at number three.
Not Seeing, Not Believing
But, I want to start by just making one point about the set up of this story, and the point is this. This rich guy? He isn’t evil – he’s just blind. I’d argue that any grown-up assessment of life is that there are very few people in this world who actively try to be evil – in reality, they’re just blind. Very few hunters set out to shoot their friends; they just mistake them for quail, vice-presidents or not.
If you’ve ever watched kid’s shows as a grownup, you’ve seen this. Kid’s stories often seem flat and one-dimensional. They have one guy who is the perfect white-hat hero battling the evil black-hat villain. The villain wants to do bad things, just to be bad. He’s hard to relate to, because frankly, I don’t know anybody like that.
As we get older, our villains tend to turn into the ‘misguided’ type. These become a little more realistic because we can understand that motivation. If you ask a bank robber, “Why do you rob banks?,” I suspect his answer would be, “Because I need the money.” It isn’t some nefarious plot to take over the world; it’s just an attempt to survive and do well. But you have to ask yourself, survive and do well in what context? It’s an understandable motivation – but it is one that is blind to the fact that it’s not fair.
In the movies, you often see Sunday Schools where the teachers are telling flat, uninteresting stories that seem to have no relationship to “real life.” I don’t know where they get that, because frankly real Bible stories are pretty complex things. You have to dumb down a Bible story pretty badly to make it seem irrelevant.
The Bible doesn’t give us ‘evil villains,’ just ones who don’t see the evil they’re doing. Remember Goliath? He’s just doing what any good soldier does. Sodom & Gomorrah? They’re just ‘living for today’ like any of us. Judas? Jesus just wasn’t getting’ with his program. He needed to be taught a lesson.
Even Satan, it is said, comes as an angel of light. Outside the Bible, the story goes that his rebellion against God was simply an outgrowth his anger that man refused to obey God. When God still honored man – even lifted him up, he’s disgusted. He’s not some flat guy in a red suit with a pitchfork. He’s just a misguided guy for whom God just isn’t getting with his program!
When we who are rich try to treat ‘the poor’ like some flat, one dimensional underclass and not as the men and women of worth, dignity and grace they are, I don’t think it’s because we’re somehow irredeemably bad people, it’s simply that we just don’t think about it. We’re blind.
If our God loves us each and every one of us in ways that we can’t even imagine, then he must be able to see something we can’t. What the Bible is trying to do – what we try to do is here is pretty simple. We just want to see. We need to learn to see the way God sees.
Seeing
If we want to be like God, then our eyes can be opened. It’s not that we can become God. But, one day we will all see as he does. Look with me at verse 23 – the Rich man lifts up his eyes and sees. Now that he’s dead, he sees alright, but I don’t think he likes what he sees.
Look at what he sees. He sees his torment. He sees Abraham – the very symbol of who he thinks he is as a Jew – and he’s far off. He sees this poor old beggar, being lifted up. Worse yet, he sees this poor guy who used to beg at his gate getting the good stuff. He is finally seeing wrongs righted. That’s good news if you’ve been the one wronged, but not so good if you’ve been the one doing the “wrong”-ing. He finally sees that he’s been seeing life completely backwards.
I know some of you are thinking, ‘Oh that isn’t how life really works. It’s just a pie in the sky vision.’ Well, if you are limited in your thinking to just what you can see with your eyes, that’s not surprising. But if there is God, why do you think that he would have to operate in ways that match your limited notions of him? Why should he have to operate only on your eyes.
Deep inside all of us is a desire for a better world. We all want to live in a world where everybody is cared for, where everybody can be live together in peace. We all even say, ‘this world is so messed up!’ Why do you think we all share that. Maybe deep down inside we know we really don’t see things right side up. So, should we be surprised if one day we wake up and find out that the way we see world really is backwards?
If we knew how to see, we’d realize how much sense this all sadly makes. But, we live in a world that tries its best to teach us, ‘Look out for yourself! You’re number 1! You deserve a break today!’ It’s a world that’s just trying to sell you the lie you want to hear. Learn to see past the advertising. See the truth – the truth that this world is a fake; it’s perishing, it’s never going to right itself on its own.
You’ve heard the expression, ‘Seeing is Believing?’ I’d be okay with it if it weren’t for the fact that it really isn’t what people mean when they say it. When somebody says, “Seeing is Believing, what they’re really meaning is “Looking is Believing.”
People think that the images that pass through their eyeballs are the only things you can rely on. That’s just looking. I mean come one – we’ve all seen enough magic tricks to know that the eyes can be fooled. We’ve all been jilted by enough loves to know the heart can be lied to. But seeing means looking beyond the image into the heart of the matter – just as God intended.
This rich man looked at Lazarus enough to be able to recognize him at a distance. But if he had really seen that Lazarus was a man of worth, he would have acted differently. He would not have seen a leprous beggar but a child of God. He would have seen a good life ordered the way God intended it. But he just looked. He didn’t see.
You know, I just have to mention this guy’s hometown for you to know who I’m talking about. Up in the Italian mountains, there is a little village called Assisi. Eight hundred years after he died, I’m sure you’ve still heard of a guy named Francis. What you may not know is that he was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant. He had it made, but for one thing – he knew what it meant to see.
The story goes that one day he was out carousing with his friends when he saw a simple beggar out on the streets. And, he truly saw him. Where his friends simply looked at a beaten down man in rags, Francis saw Christ. He took off his robe and gave it to him. That beggar changed his life.
Francis saw a better world. He saw that there was a world better than this so-called life, and so he gave up everything for it. The reality of Christ was that this world’s riches were a fake. I suspect he could have been comfortable as a cloth merchant, but even today we know of his joy and love because he gave it all up.
You see, seeing takes us to action. Once we see, I think reasonable people will do what’s right – but we have to see first.
So, how do we learn to see? I’m going to look at this much more closely next week, but I’d like to direct your attention to the answer Abraham gives.
When this rich man sees his torment, his own agony, he doesn’t want his family to go through it. Like I said, this rich man isn’t evil – he was just blind.
If I may digress for a second, I’ve seen the bumper sticker that says, ‘All my friends are in hell, I may as well join them.’ Let me suggest to you that your friends are not in hell. No friend would want anybody to join them in hell. If you’re just imagining some bonfire with roast sinner for dinner, may I suggest to you that you have a pretty flat and childish view of the afterlife. No – the natural reaction of anyone who has seen hell is to do their very best to make sure that nobody joins them there.
So, how do you see? As I said, Abraham says, ‘look – they have the law and the prophets.’ That’s just the Jewish way of saying, ‘They’ve got the Bible.’ That should be enough! ‘No, no,’ the rich man says. Send back Lazarus – surely they’ll listen if somebody comes back from the dead!
My friends, somebody did. He can show you that indeed he is the Way, the Truth, and The Life. Believe in him and you’ll see how right it is. Look to Jesus and he can show you not some dry history lesson, but how to have life, and have it more abundantly!
Let Jesus teach you how to see. Would you pray with me?
Long Branch Baptist Church
Halfway, Virginia; est. 1786
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Enter to Worship
Prelude David Witt
Invocation Michael Hollinger
*Opening Hymn #9
“All Creatures of Our God and King”
Welcome & Announcements
Morning Prayer
*Responsive Reading [See Right]
*Offertory Hymn #337
“The Solid Rock”
Offertory Mr. Witt
*Doxology
*Scripture Luke 16:19-31
Sermon
“Believing is Seeing”
Invitation Hymn #32
“Immortal, Invisible”
Benediction
Congregational Response
May the grace of Christ of Savior / And the Father’s boundless love
With the Holy Spirit’s favor / Rest upon us from above. Amen.
* Congregation, please stand.
Depart To Serve
RESPONSIVE READING
Look here, you people who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.”
How do you know what will happen tomorrow? For your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.
Look here, you rich people, weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you.
Your wealth is rotting away, and your fine clothes are moth-eaten rags. Your gold and silver have become worthless. The very wealth you were counting on will eat away your flesh in hell.
And because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, where else should we go? Only you have the words of eternal life.
Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? The king will answer them,
‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me
By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” Then Jesus said to Thomas,
“Put your finger here and see my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. See and Believe!”
Jesus asked, “Have you believed because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.
- Jas 4:13-14, 5:1-3; John 6:65-66, Matt 25:37-41;Heb 11:3,1; John 20:25,27,29
Title: Believing is Seeing
Text: Luke 16:19-31
FCF: We must learn to see as Christ sees.
