Messages

A message from the series “Daily Devotional Videos.” Judy Mandl reflects on 1 John 4:9-11 and encourages us to ask ourselves who it is that we’re loving who isn’t necessarily easy to love.

A message from the series “Daily Devotional Videos.” Do you sometimes struggle with fear or worry? God has provided us with a powerful tool to help us win that battle, yet sadly it’s a tool that many of us never use. Pastor Rick looks at the promises of God, given us to us in Psalm 119:11 and Joshua 1:8, and what we need to do in order to claim them as our own.

A message from the series “One Minute After You Die.” For centuries, humans have tried to figure out how to live longer and avoid this inevitable fact: we all die. When faced with that reality, how do you feel? Fearful, hopeful, somewhere in-between?
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It’s good to welcome you as we come together for worship. And as we do, we’re wrapping up a series we’ve been in called: One Minute After You Die.
Looking at what we can expect One Minute After We Die Today looking at HEAVEN. Which is something that a lot of people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about. In fact, for some people, it’s the last thing they think about…
The way that we think about Heaven is very different than the way the Bible talks about it. The Bible repeatedly says things like you’ll see in our MEMORY VERSE for this week, Colossians 3:1: “Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand.”
It tells us to “FOCUS” on heaven. In fact, the original Greek word translated “SET YOUR SIGHTS ON” is the Greek word Zeteo and it refers to a search or a quest. It’s the same word that’s used in the GOSPELS when it says that Jesus came to SEEK that which was lost. It’s also used to describe how a shepherd looks for his lost sheep, and a woman searches for her lost coin. It’s referring to a diligent, relentless, focused, single-minded search That Greek word there is in the present tense, suggesting that it ought to be, for us an ongoing process.
It’s telling us that as followers of Jesus Christ we shouldn’t just have a conversation, or read a book, or listen to a podcast about Heaven. The Bible instructs us to commit to a focused investigation about heaven because when you do, it’s gonna benefit your life down here. Now, do we do that? No! Why not? I’ll give you three reasons…
1. We Think It’s BORING
Gary Larson, in one of his “FARSIDE” cartoons, shows a guy with Angel Wings, and a halo, sitting on a cloud doing nothing. There’s nobody else in the picture and he has a totally bored blank expression on his face and his thought balloon says, “Whew.. . . .I wish I’d brought a magazine.” That’s the picture we’ve got of Heaven. BORRRRRRING! Because what purpose do we have there? In Heaven, forever and ever, doing what? Singing Hymns? And someone tells you… “Oh, but you’re gonna want to sing hymns forever there.” And you respond…. “Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.” To some people that sounds more like Hell!
And then secondly there are those who feel like…
2. It’s Not As Good As What We’ve Got
As we move further and further into 2021, with the Pandemic hopefully in our rearview mirror, we realize that our lives are in fact pretty good. We want to forget the past and think about the future, but not a future as far off as Heaven. Given the choice, we would rather think about our favorite SPORTS TEAM or our UPCOMING VACATION or our next HOME IMPROVEMENT PROJECT because those things somehow just seem more real to us than heaven does.
And then a third reason is that Heaven is for a lot of us…
3. We Think This World Is All There Is
You tell someone you believe in Heaven, and they might respond by asking you: what else do you believe in? The Tooth Fairy? The Easter Bunny? Santa Claus? There are a lot of people who believe that this world is all there is. As followers of Jesus Christ, I believe that The Key To Staying Excited About Heaven Lies in understanding the PILGRIM PRINCIPLE
What’s the Pilgrim Principle?
Simply stated it’s that: Heaven is my Home, Earth is merely my HOTEL ROOM.
This is a principle that you see lived out in the lives of the people of God all throughout the Bible. In Genesis 47, toward the end of the book of Genesis, we find Joseph reunited with his brothers, who were the very ones who had sold him into slavery. At the beginning of this 47th chapter, we see Joseph introducing his brothers to Pharaoh. After the introduction, Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Your father and your brothers have come to you, and the land of Egypt is before you; settle your father and your brothers in the best part of the land. Let them live in Goshen.” And they and their descendants would live there for the next 430 years until the Exodus.
As you read on, you see that after the brothers meet Pharaoh Joseph brings his father to meet Pharaoh In verse 7 we see, “Then Joseph brought his father Jacob in and presented him before Pharaoh. After Jacob blessed Pharaoh, Pharaoh asked him, ‘How old are you?’” (Genesis 47:7-8). A straightforward question, not difficult to answer, but notice the way that Jacob answered it Verse 9, “And Jacob said to Pharaoh, ‘The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.’” (Genesis 47:9-10)
Notice the word that Jacob used to refer to his life here on earth He calls it a “PILGRIMAGE.” And he uses the same word “pilgrimage” when referring to the life of his father ISAAC and his grandfather ABRAHAM. Jacob says the only difference between his pilgrimage and theirs was that their pilgrimage was longer than his. ISAAC lived to the age of 180, and ABRAHAM, his grandfather, lived to the age of 175. I don’t think that Jacob used this word PILGRIMAGE by accident, I think he used it because it gives us some insight into his perspective, when it came to his life here on earth. He saw himself as a pilgrim.
What is a pilgrimage? The essence of a pilgrimage is that we are on our way somewhere, but we haven’t arrived there yet Pilgrims are people who are in transit, and this is what Jacob meant when he referred to the years of his life as a pilgrimage. He meant that he was simply moving through this earthly life. He was simply in transit while on earth and on his way to his final destination which was Heaven.
As followers of Christ today, we need to remember that this is the view of life that all of us are called to have. The Bible calls us to see our lives here on Earth as PILGRIMS. Just like Jacob every one of us is a ‘pilgrimage’ too. This is why David prayed in Psalm 39:4, “Show me, O LORD, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life.”
Just like Jacob, all of us who are followers of Christ are on a pilgrimage. Just like Jacob, this world isn’t our home, we’re just passing through, on our way to our final destination which is an eternal one. All of us were created to be eternal beings, and all of us are going to spend eternity somewhere. Where that somewhere is, gets decided during the days of our pilgrimage here.
All of us will spend eternity in one of two places…
Either a REAL PLACE called HEAVEN
Or else as NO-LESS REAL PLACE called HELL
Which one of these real places we wind up in, depends entirely on what we did with Jesus Christ during the days of our pilgrimage on earth. If we received Jesus Christ as our personal savior, if we trusted in his finished work on the cross as our only hope to pay for our sins, the Bible says our final eternal destination is Heaven.
On the flip side, the Bible says if we reject Jesus Christ, if we’re not willing to trust in what he did on the cross as the payment for our sins, then the opposite is true. Our final destination will be Hell for all eternity.
The Bible says this plainly. If you’re here today and you’ve never placed your trust in the work that Jesus Christ did for you on the cross, then I want to challenge you to think about this. All of us are headed for eternity. I don’t know if you’ve researched this, but the latest data tells us that the mortality rate for human beings is 100%. Everybody dies. That’s not a subject that’s open for debate, the only question is where you are going to wind up when you die. And the Bible says our default destination when we enter this life is not heaven. We’d like to believe it is, but it’s not. And if you come into this life and do nothing to change where you are headed. . . when your life is over, your final destination won’t be Heaven.
GOD WANTS YOU in heaven with him. He wants it so much that he sent his own Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to die on a cross to make it be possible to be with him forever in Heaven. He has done everything necessary to get you there, except for one thing…
You need to receive what he has done for you. You need to receive it as a gift and make it your own. This is something that can only be done while you’re here on your earthly pilgrimage. You do that, you receive that gift, and God has prepared some awesome things that he has waiting for you in his Heaven. You wonder, what are those things? What will Heaven be like? Not the Heaven of the movies, but the Heaven that the Bible describes. What will I find when I get there?
Lots of things . . . Amazing things . . . Things that words can’t describe. But I’ll share with you just three. When you get to heaven you’ll find…
Real People With Real Bodies
Not disembodied spirits. The Bible provides us with a clue, a key to unlocking what we’ll be like in Heaven. Look at what it says. In his first letter, John says, “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2) When it says “we shall be like him”, the HIM that it’s talking about is JESUS.
Think about what Jesus Christ was like after his resurrection in his glorified body. The Bible says he could be “touched.” He walked around, He could talk, He had a real body, He cooked breakfast one time, fish and toast for the disciples, He was physical. He had amazing powers (could pass through locked doors) but He had a glorified human body, He was not a ghost.
1 Corinthians 15 tells us that, “…the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed…” (1 Cor. 15:52) We’ll be changed into real bodies, not just spirits, and we will be with other real people with real bodies.
When the Bible talks about those who have died in Christ before us and gone on to be with Him, it describes a day when Jesus will return and all of those who are with him now will return with Him and their bodies are in the grave right now, will be resurrected, new, alive, and glorious. The Bible says “…we will be caught up together with them in the clouds… and so we will be with the Lord forever.” (1 Thess. 4:13) Don’t miss that phrase, ‘together with them’ Think about that for a minute Who are you looking forward to seeing when you get to Heaven? For you, it might be a mother or a father or a brother or a sister. To be able to see them again and hug them again and weep, not with grief but with joy, that’s what Heaven promises. Friendships rudely interrupted by death are going to continue
We’re gonna have real tangible bodies in a real reunion with real people in a…
Real Place
A real place where we’re gonna walk around and have activity and interesting stuff going on Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.” (John 14:2) Look at the words there, ‘A place’ . . . ‘A House’ . . . ‘rooms’. Jesus deliberately chooses physical words to describe heaven because He wanted to give his disciples something tangible to look forward to.
Revelation 21 says it’s a real place where there’s no more pain, suffering, or tears. It’s a real place where there’s no more deceit or darkness. It’s a real place where there’s pure joy and breathtaking beauty. Revelation four describes it like rainbows that shine like emeralds. I said earlier that one of the reasons that heaven is the last thing we think about is that we think this world is all there is. Or maybe more accurately stated, we’d like to convince ourselves that this world is all there is. The fact is that the Bible tells us that we’re hard-wired for Heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us that, “God has set eternity in the human heart.”
In other words, God has hard-wired us to long for eternal life. Too long that, we won’t die and that we will live forever. That longing has been placed there by God. C.S. Lewis, the famous author and thinker, said it this way, he said, “Creatures are not born with desires, unless satisfaction of those desires exists.” He says, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” That’s the reality a lot of people don’t want to admit it, so they try to chase after experiences in this world.
But, but, but, – What do you do, when you’ve come to the end of that? What do you do, when you’ve checked off every item that was on your bucket list, and you’ve experienced every experience that this world has to offer? Well, if you’ve got the means, what you do is you add to your bucket list, some experiences that are “out of this world.”
This week we’ve seen two billionaires in a race, to become the first non-astronaut to travel to space. Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos have been racing to be the first to get there. Richard Branson did it last week, but not to be outdone, Jeff Bezos is saying that Richard Branson didn’t go high enough – didn’t really get to space – it fact, Jeff Bezos says that Richard Branson only traveled in space based on U.S. definition.
This coming Tuesday, Jeff Bezos is travelling further, so that HE can be the first non-astronaut to travel to space based on the International definition of where space begins. There’s not a lot of love on our planet for Billionaires, which is why tens of thousands of people have signed a petition to stop Jeff Bezos from returning to Earth. I don’t fault these guys for chasing after their dreams. They’ve got the means to pursue their dreams. They’re not hurting anyone as they do that. But as I look at what they’re doing I try to remember those words of C.S. Lewis “If I find myself with a desire, which no experience in this world can satisfy. . .” Like maybe the desire to live forever…
The most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. Heaven is a place where all our desires will be met. Some people wonder, will there be sports in Heaven? I don’t know the answer to that question. But I do know when the Bible describes what Heaven is going to be like, what I see is a lot of purple and gold.
The Color Purple, being a kingly color and Streets of Gold. Interesting, no green and gold, just purple and gold. And I encourage you to meditate on that this week. And just think about the meaning of that, I wonder, have you ever heard someone say “I don’t want to go to Heaven if there’s not BLANK there?” And you can fill in the BLANK with whatever you want. If you’re a sports fan it might be DODGERS BASEBALL. For you, it might be KOREAN BBQ, or the ability to BINGE WATCH your favorite series. When someone says that, it helps you to understand how much they value those things now. And I can’t tell you if those things will be in Heaven.
But I can tell you, that if when you get to Heaven, you still feel that same way, that Heaven isn’t Heaven without those things, then I can tell you that they’ll be there because there will be no unmet desires in Heaven. Heaven is a REAL PLACE with REAL PEOPLE, and most important of all . . . .
Real Presence of God
We’ll see him in a way that we’ve never seen Him before. Our faith will be turned to sight The Apostle Paul says it this way… “Now we see through a glass darkly but then we will know perfectly.” The Apostle John describes his vision of Heaven with these words He says, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.’” We think of the MIRACLE of Christmas. The MIRACLE of the INCARNATION. A baby born to a Virgin – Immanuel – God with us No less miraculous is the miracle of heaven. Not only God with us – but we with him forever and ever. If this HOPE is in our heart, it ought to make a difference.
All this stuff about Heaven is nice to think about, but what difference does any of this make to me today? Let me challenge you to think about this…
It’s one thing to KNOW that you’re a PILGRIM, it’s another thing altogether to let that translate into your life. I want us to look at THREE ways that our lives ought to look different than those who aren’t pilgrims. Than those who believe that this world is their home because after all, this world is all there is.
Difference #1 – The Way We Spend Our Time And Money
One of the biggest mistakes we can make is to live our lives under the delusion that we have unlimited time here on Earth. That was the mistake of the Rich Fool in Luke chapter 12. Do you remember his story? Jesus said, “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods.” And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
As you think about that story, don’t miss the fact that at the heart of the folly of this fool was the delusion that he had time lots of time. We don’t know, we’re not told, but it may well be that he had intentions to someday, do something with his treasure other than sitting on it. Maybe someday he was gonna get around to doing some good with it. We don’t know. What we do know is that he thought he had time! What he didn’t know was that his life was going to end that very night, and he’d have to give an answer as to what he had done with what he had.
Pilgrims realize that our time here is not unlimited. Because of that they do the best they can to ‘do good’ when they have opportunity. Whether that good is helping a friend in need, feeding the hungry, or serving the Lord or sharing Jesus Christ with someone they have been meaning to share with, they make the most of every opportunity, because they don’t know how many opportunities they are going to have. They know their time is limited. And they leverage their time and money to make a difference here and now.
The second way in which pilgrims are different is in…
Difference #2 – The Way We Look At People
We see the people around us as ETERNAL BEINGS All of them headed to one of two very different eternal destinations I like the way that C.S. Lewis described what it’s like to look at people in that way, “The dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. . .” “or else a horror and corruption such as you now meet only in a nightmare. . .” There are no ordinary people. It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”
Pilgrims are different when it comes to The Way We Spend Our Time And Money, The Way We Look At People, and…
Difference #3 – The Way We Live Our Lives
In 1 Peter 2, Peter writes, “I urge you as foreigners and pilgrims, to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world.” (1 Peter 2:11-12)
Peter says that Pilgrims live different lives. Why? Because one day we are going to stand before God and give an answer for how we’ve lived our lives. You know two of the most successful TV game shows of all time are JEOPARDY and WHEEL of FORTUNE. And both of these were created by the same man, the late MERV GRIFFIN.
Apparently, he was also a man with a sense of humor. Having made his living in television, he decided to reference that on his tombstone, which if you visit his grave, you will see says I will NOT be right back after this message, and Merv was being interviewed and he said something very telling. He said, “One hundred years from now, who in the world is ever going to know what any of us did so why worry.”
The Bible tells us that Merv was mistaken. The Bible tells us that as followers of Jesus, when we get to Heaven, God is going to meet with us and review our lives. This review will not be for the purpose of determining whether we stay in Heaven or not.
That issue was decided on the day that you placed your trust in Jesus Christ and accepted what he did for you on the cross as the only possible payment for your sins. But we will be reviewed for the purpose of deciding what REWARDS we will or will not receive in heaven. We looked at this two week ago.
2 Corinthians 5:10 – “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”
Romans 14:12 – “So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.”
This is something that Pilgrims need to remember. One day we will all stand before Jesus and give an account for what we’ve done here And the reality of that day, ought to affect the decisions we make here and now. Merv Griffin was wrong. What we do here and now will be remembered 100 years from now, and it will be examined. If you are living like a pilgrim you’ll remember that and your life will be different.
Do you know what the biggest obstacle is that stands in the way of us reaching our community for Jesus Christ?
It’s not the liberal media, it’s not the schools, it’s not the government, who is in the White House, or who controls the Congress, or who sits on the Supreme Court…
The biggest obstacle to reaching our community for Jesus Christ is us!
The problem is that people in our community don’t see any difference between the way that followers of Jesus Christ live, and the way that everybody else lives. If you and I would just live like a PILGRIM, if you and I would use our time like a PILGRIM, if you and I would manage our money like a PILGRIM, if you and I would make choices like a PILGRIM realizing that there is always an afterwards, and we will have to give an account for what we do here. Then we would live differently and the people around us would notice. And that’s what I want to challenge you to do today, to adopt a ‘Pilgrim Perspective.’ It’s one thing to KNOW you’re a pilgrim, it’s another to LIVE like one.
I pray we would. . . . Would you join me in prayer. . .

A message from the series “Daily Devotional Videos.” Judy Mandl looks at James 1:27 and challenges us to ask ourselves whether we care about the things that God cares about and whether we are willing to put feet to our faith and step into places to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

A message from the series “Daily Devotional Videos.” Pastor Rick looks asks the question – “Who Would You Like To See Lost In Space?” – and challenges us to answer that question in light of Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:45-47.

A message from the series “Daily Devotional Videos.” Raquel Blanchard reflects on Matthew 18:19-20 and reminds us that not only is there power in prayer, there are also people all around us who would count it a privilege to pray for us and with us.

A message from the series “Daily Devotional Videos.” Pastor Andrew looks at Peter’s message in Acts 3 and reminds us that God specializes in using the most unlikely of individuals to accomplish his purposes.

A message from the series “Daily Devotional Videos.” Mark Twain is often quoted saying: “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.” What about you? Do you ever feel the same way? Judy Mandl reflects on James 1:22-24 and what he says about allowing God’s Word to do its work in us, as opposed to simply reading it and then forgetting what it says.

A message from the series “One Minute After You Die.” It’s good to be with you church, if we haven’t met, my name is Andrew I serve as one of the Pastors here. It’s a privilege to be able to share God’s word with you. Today we’re going to look at one of the hardest, ugliest doctrines of Christianity and that is the doctrine of Hell. I’m not bashful to say, if there was one aspect of Christian belief that I could edit or even remove this would be it. Maybe you feel the same, you want to head for the door as you hear that it’s the topic for our time. It is one of the most objectional aspects of our faith to those outside our faith. In our age of supposed tolerance, the conclusion that apart from a saving faith in Jesus all are condemned to an eternity in Hell, is nearly unthinkable.

But we can’t ignore it. It’s in God’s word, and a right understanding of Hell is essential to healthy Christianity. We are a community here that is striving unapologetically to be formed by God’s Spirit, through His word. So, it’s God’s word that we give precedence in shaping what we believe about Hell. Not cultural depictions of it. Not our emotional reactions to it. But what the bible has to say about it.

Take this for instance, in preparing this message, I read an article in the Christian Century by Barbara Brown Taylor written back in 2006. In it, Taylor described a phenomenon of “Hell Houses.” Maybe you’re familiar with these. I certainly wasn’t.

“Some congregations” Taylor says, “went to great lengths to turn their fellowship halls and Sunday school rooms into “hell houses,” where believers and unbelievers alike could get the devil scared out of them for free… Hell houses contain rooms in which certain grave sins are portrayed, including drug use, abortions, same sex relationships, school shootings and satanic rituals.
The perpetrators of these sins show up in hell later on—where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth—while visitors are offered the chance to choose heaven instead.”

I want to trust that their hearts were in the right place. But when the biblical authors speak of Hell, by and large these are not the pictures they portray. Perhaps a more biblical hell house would contain a hell room for those who called their brother a fool, a room for gossips and slanderers, for those who failed to give food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, shelter to the stranger or visit to the sick or imprisoned, there would be a special room set apart for those who bury the talents God’s given them. Do you see the difference? Hell is often popularly portrayed as a place for the other: for the most egregious violators of social and religious norms, certainly not a place for us. Here we need to be careful. Jesus’ words about hell were often delivered as a warning to his disciples and a rebuke to the most religious. Hell is as much a doctrine for us as it is for others.

We’re going to begin our look at Hell, in Luke chapter sixteen.

As you turn there, you’ll see we’re looking at a story that Jesus told. The reason I’ve chosen to begin with this passage over possible others, is because it’s a story told by Jesus. Which means Jesus believed in Hell. For all of you who might be on the fence, thinking “I’m not sure if is it a real thing is it not a real thing. Clearly Jesus thought it was real.” He talks about Hell, more than anyone else in the bible. That doesn’t mean He’s some fire and brimstone preacher or even that His use of hell is identical to the image it stirs in your mind. It does however tell us that Hell played a significant role in his preaching and mission.

Let’s jump in. Luke chapter 16, beginning with verse 19.

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Even on the first readthrough it’s hard to miss the contrast set up. The rich man clothed in purple and fine linen, speaks of profound wealth, perhaps even royalty. While Lazarus is clothed in sores. The rich man feasts, which is a term used for elaborate meals on special occasions, yet he does it on the daily. Lazarus lay at the gate longing to receive even a crumb from his table. We’re told Lazarus was kept company by wild dogs, who licked his sores, and of which he was too helpless to fend off. This isn’t Lassie keeping him company, these dogs are anticipating one day soon he’s dinner. In the minds of many Jews of Jesus’ day, the rich man would have been seen as righteous and upright. His wealth and status would have been understood as the outward validation of God’s favor, while Lazarus, destitute, helpless and unclean surely was receiving the due reward for sinfulness.

All but one detail would lead to this conclusion and that is the name. While the rich man’s name is omitted, the poor man is named – Lazarus – a name that a Jewish audience wouldn’t miss – it means “God helps.” And help he does. Lazarus dies and angels sweep him off to Abraham’s side, or more specifically to Abraham’s bosom, the word implies intimacy and embrace. While the rich man dies, is buried and finds himself in Hades. Hades is one of the three words in the bible for Hell.

We have to be careful in how we handle some of the details in this story. Some are reflective of reality, for instance, this life isn’t all there is. After death we will go somewhere. While other details are used as a vehicle to communicate the meaning and purpose of the parable. In verse 23 for instance, we’re told that from Hades, the rich man looked up and saw Abraham. Not only that, he was able to communicate with Abraham. I could be wrong, but more than likely, that is not something that will be true of the ultimate state. Rather it’s a conversation embedded with deeper truth. It’s also probably not too helpful to speculate much about whether this is a picture of some intermediate state before the resurrection and judgement, or after. Remember Pastor Rick shared last week that after we die we will stand in judgement. It doesn’t seem like that’s happened yet. We can hold these details somewhat loosely because the answers to those questions do not take away from the main point Jesus is making that There are eternal consequences for how we live.

Another thing this text teaches us is that Hell is a place of agony and torment. I’m not making that up, Jesus describes it as torment in verses 23 & 28, and agony verse 24 and 25. I’m not going to embellish those words, there’s enough horror in them on their own, but nor can we remove them. We must sit with them, as if being presented with the diagnosis of a life-threatening illness. Simply pretending it’s not there doesn’t make it go away. Rather it solidifies the inevitable. Unlike some of the other details in this story, if you take away the fact that the experience of hell is horrendous, the story collapse without purpose. There’s then nothing to warn us about – there would be no consequences for how we live.

This is a side note, but generally speaking it’s the those most insulated and comfortable that are most adamantly opposed to the idea of a place of eternal punishment. Whereas those who have experienced gross injustice, terrible suffering, the realities of war, they struggle much less with the idea that there are some people who would be consigned to hell. In fact, it gives some comfort that the architects of atrocities would receive justice for their actions. We are personally freed from the need for vengeance because we can rely on God’s justice. In this His eternal discipline is demonstrated as a sign of love not the absence of love. Because only an unloving God would refuse to act on behalf of those he loves. Right?

Back to the text, in verse 26, Abraham speaks of a chasm. “between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’” Just as the gate separated Lazarus from the rich man, now the rich man is separated from Lazarus and Abraham. The word fixed implies finality. There is no opportunity to cross back over, there are no do-overs.

We get one chance to repent and that’s it.

Beyond those three points, I don’t want to become too speculative. Hell is an eternal consequence for how we live, it is a place of agony and torment, and from which there’s no turning back. But we haven’t really talked about the why. I’ll tell you the text is rather silent as to why Lazarus was with Abraham. He gets left behind in the narrative. But there are some pretty solid clues as to why the rich man ends up in Hades.

Some of you might conclude that it’s because of his sinfulness. Others of you might get more specific, “well because he lacked compassion or generosity towards Lazarus.” But that begs a question: if the rich man would have merely invited Lazarus to dinner would he have gotten an angel uber to Abraham as well? That doesn’t necessarily line up with the gospel.

Let’s take a detour and talk about context: We don’t know where Jesus told this story. Perhaps he was out in a field, a large spacious area in town, maybe he was eating a meal. Wherever it was, Jesus had disciples around him, along with a surprising audience of those viewed as the untouchables in their society. In addition to that were a few angry Pharisees. In the beginning of Luke 16, Jesus told a parable about generosity and the way we use our wealth. At the conclusion of which he stated “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

Luke interjects with the observation “The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him.” In other words, they rejected Jesus, because of their love of money. “So (Jesus) said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts,” Meaning God knows what you love. “for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.”

The word abomination is often used describing God’s attitude towards idolatry. In Daniel 9, Daniel prophecies of a pagan sacrifice offered in the temple, it’s called the “the abomination that causes desolation.” It was an abomination because it was a sacrifice offered in the house of God to something that wasn’t God. Jesus uses that word to speak of the Pharisee’s love. Their love was an abomination because it was putting something, namely wealth, before God. Another way of encapsulating this is to say We worship what we love most.

In a 2005 Commencement Address to Kenyon College, the author David Foster Wallace made the observation “there is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” He then goes on to sa “If you worship money and things—if they are where you tap the real meaning in life—then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when the time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you.”

Let’s connect this back to the story we’ve been looking at. Right on the heels of his interaction with the Pharisees, Jesus tells the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Why? He didn’t need to tell the Pharisees what hell was like. They would have known it’s a consequence for the way we live, it’s a place of agony and torment and from which there was no turning back. What would have shocked them was Jesus’ conclusion they were in jeopardy of ending up there. That’s the surprise. The rich man in the story didn’t go to hell because he failed to give Lazarus some food from his table. He wasn’t just there because of sinful greed. He was there because he built His life on worshipping something that wasn’t God. He was there for idolatry. In a sense, that’s what hell is about. We don’t just go to Hell because we sin, we go to hell because we have placed something in our lives before God and our idolatry leads to us sin. Paul says as much in Romans chapter one.

There Paul talks about the wrath of God being revealed against humanity “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” To glorify God is to acknowledge and worship him. Humanity, Jew and gentile, failed to worship God. That doesn’t mean they didn’t sing. You know worship is bigger than that don’t you? In Romans 12 Paul says “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” They were offering their lives to something that wasn’t God. They “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.”

If you’re familiar with Romans you know what comes next, a catalogue of sins. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. “They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.”

They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them. It begins with idolatry, God gives us over to our idols and sinfulness, and it leads to death. And if you know Paul, death doesn’t just mean physical death. Often, he’s speaking of spiritual death and hell.

The hell of hell is that our idolatry and worship doesn’t cease with death. We will continue to worship eternally whatever it was we worshipped in this life. If it’s God the Father, Son and Spirit, praise Jesus. But if it was something less than God, we will continue to chase that desire eternally. But tragically now in eternity it will be totally vacuous and devoid of even the slightest goodness or grace that was present in it in life. It will be hollow, infinitely insufficient to bring about the fulfillment we eternally created for in Jesus. As Augustine says, “our hearts are restless until they find our rest in God,” the converse of that makes Hell an eternal restlessness, forever chasing shadows.

In Psalm 115, the Psalmist states: “But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.” Did you catch that last bit. We will become like them. This is the last principle of biblical worship we become like what we worship. As in Corinthians “contemplating the Lord’s glory, leads to being transformed into His image with ever increasing glory” So in the same way our worship of idols conforms us into their craven image. If you’re familiar with the Lord of the Rings, this is what happened to Smeagol. His love for the ring, his precious eventually transformed him from a hobbit into Gollum. How long will we be in hell before we cease to be human at all, before we become the very horrors of hell?

If we go all the way back to our text in Luke, I believe that’s what’s happened. The rich man has been given over to love of money, and in in death he continues to be consumed by it and conformed to it. He views Lazarus as an object, he see’s Lazarus’ function is to serve him by refreshing him with water, or to take a message to his brothers. As bad as Hell is, we find no contrition in his heart or repentance on his lips. Isn’t it interesting that he does not ask to leave, only for a slight bit of comfort where he is. He has bound himself to Hell as much as he is bound by it. In the Romans chapter one, three times it says “God gave them over.” There is a sense where that is what Hell, God giving us over to that desire, for whatever it may be, with zero chance of fulfillment. In the Great Divorce C.S. Lewis has that wonderful and terrifying line “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.”

As we close, I want to remind us of the good news here: Jesus is the one that Moses and the Prophets spoke about, who himself crossed the great chasm, and rose from the grave. In order that we could be saved.

Peter tells us in our memory verse: it’s not God’s desire that any should perish, and all would come to repentance. As such, Jesus’ word of warning is not against us. It’s for us. It is so easy for us to live like the Pharisees, good moral, religious people, trusting in our oqn righteousness. Not drinking too much, not sleeping around or with the wrong sex. To come to church regularly, give minimally, share our faith sporadically, and all the while worshipping the idols of our own choosing. God wants more than the crowded margins of our lives, he wants all of our lives. And his son paid the price for all our lives, and all of our eternities, if we would only repent, turn away from our idols and turn toward Him. I pray we would hear his warning, recognize ourselves in the Pharisees and the Rich man, the areas where we’ve placed things in our lives before God, worshipping things other than God. Repent of those things. I pray that we see ourselves rightly in Lazarus. We are the blessed poor in Spirit, we have nothing to offer God, or with which to commend ourselves to Him. Diseased and defiled, we are helpless. But church God is our help. Let us throw ourselves on his grace and mercy, and allow his mercy to lead us to love, love that leads to worship, and worship that leads to an eternity in His presence.

Father God, we praise you that in Jesus you have delivered us from death, and in your grace provided us the gift of eternity in you. Would you convict us of our sin, waywardness, and idolatry. Help us to be a people who treasure you above all others, that you would be our joy, hope and help.

Lord, I want to lift up to you, those who have not entered into a saving relationship with your son Jesus. May today be the day for them. That today, would be their homecoming, and embraced by you their heavenly father. If you hear that, and you know that’s me, and I want that. You can begin that eternal relationship today, all you have to do is in the quiet of your heart say, Father God that is me. I confess all of the things I my life I love more than you, I want you to be first, I want to love and worship you above all others. Would you become the Lord of my life.

Father, again I thank you for the work you’re doing amongst us. In Jesus name. Amen

A message from the series “Daily Devotional Videos.” Pastor Rick reflects on what Genesis 4 tells us about the first murder recorded in history and what we can learn from it about the importance of putting God first in everything.