Life Is More: A Beggar Named Lazarus | Part 3

Welcome to the Awakening Encourage podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

If you're new or we haven't met, my name's Ryan.

We're absolutely thrilled to have you join us today, and we're in a series called Life is More.

Just go ahead and say to your neighbor, Life is More for me.

Would you do that?

And there was a great murmuring in the church.

Um why is it?

And this is what we've been wrestling with, like the more that we get, it feels like we have less of what really matters most.

We get more money yet seem to have less peace.

We have more things, but we enjoy it less and more anxiety.

We're more connected than we have ever been in human history, but we feel more isolated and alone, and we just seem like we're ever striving yet never really arriving.

And the truth is, I mean, this is Silicon Valley.

We live overworked, anxiety-soaked lives that often just produce, isn't it true, just this weariness and emptiness of our soul?

And so we've just been asking this question the last few weeks, how do we get more of what matters most in life?

Like, how do we move from just existing to truly living?

I mean, the way Jesus would say it would be how do you experience the life that's truly life, that abundant life, that it's not just eking through our days, getting by, but life.

And we said this: uh, that there's actually more to life than having more in life, and we know that.

That there's more to life than just getting more or having more in life.

Jesus said it this way.

We began the series this way, that life doesn't consist of the abundance of our possessions.

Uh that your life and my life is so much more than what we have.

And here's the reason why Jesus will say it is that uh there's more to life than just here and now.

We get this.

There's far more to life than your material possessions.

There's far more to life than the physical reality.

There's more to life than just here and now.

In fact, um, you are an eternal being, you are a spiritual being.

Uh, Dallas Willard says it this way: that you are an eternal being, your never-ceasing being with an eternal destiny in God's great universe.

Like, there's so much more to you and to I.

And one of the things that Jesus said that's so powerful is that actually a lifestyle of generosity is how we invest eternally.

Like how we leverage what we presently have for all of eternity is a lifestyle with our time, our talents, our treasure.

It actually breaks the grip of greed in our heart.

Greed is just the thought that all my stuff is where my life is, that life consists of the abundance of what I have.

And it actually, the best science of our day tells us that generosity is the pathway to truly enjoying what God has provided.

When we view ourselves not as owners but stewards, and we begin to entrust and live a generous life, we actually are much healthier and happier and enjoy more.

We get more of what matters most.

Now, today, as we continue our conversation, just want to ask this question.

I came across it a number of years ago.

My brother gave me this book.

It's a great book.

Uh, and the book, the title of the book is How Will You Measure Your Life, written by a Harvard Business School professor who recently passed away, named Clayton Christensen.

Uh now, he would teach this class, and uh let me just get the title of the class correct so you you have it.

But he would teach the class, Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise, and then he would take the very last day of the course because he noticed something with his fellow uh Harvard grads, and also he was a road scholar at Oxford, he's a very bright guy.

But he noticed something that far too many people of the best and the brightest, the most influential and affluent were deeply successful in business, but they were failing in life.

In fact, he talks about at the end uh at the introduction of his book uh this um this idea that where you know Harvard and Oxford, they have these reunions and it's to have them come back, and it's really a fundraising thing.

And so they roll out the red carpet for all their graduates, and the first five years they show up.

Uh, you know, everyone's come in and they have their great jobs, and some of them already made their first million, and you know, they have um uh maybe they're married and they're they look pretty good.

And then ten years go by, and there's a few people that didn't show up.

There's many that are already on their second marriage, and you he does a little research and finds those that didn't show up because they didn't want to like like reveal how they're actually doing in life, that they're struggling.

Another five years goes by, and a number of people he knows that they're no longer on speaking terms with their kids, they're across the country.

You know, some of the people that he graduated with, one are even in prison for you know uh making unscrupulous decisions in business.

And he's like, that's not the person I knew at Harvard and started out with all this grand intention, all this, you know, like we're gonna change the world, all these altruistic ideas, and then you get lost somewhere along the way.

And life happens.

You never ask a fundamental question.

How will you measure sorry I got this thing is breaking on me?

You might need a handheld.

But how will you measure your life?

I mean, for you.

How do you measure your life?

I don't know what word you use.

Um maybe it's what would make your life deeply meaningful and impactful.

For some, based on the way you think about life, it might be like what would a successful life look like if you look back and it was deeply, profoundly successful.

You know, Jesus told this incredible parable.

It's actually one that I think many aren't familiar with, uh, and it's a bit of an odd one.

I just got to give you a heads up.

It's a bit of an odd parable.

Um, and yet the implications of it are so incredibly profound and significant for us in how we answered that question and specifically to answer that well, that we can look back on the end of our life and know that we've lived life well.

We measured correctly what was most important and what matters most.

In fact, if you have your Bibles, would you open up to Luke chapter 16?

Luke 16 · chapter mention

Luke 16, 13.

Jesus tells this parable.

He writes, uh, There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day.

And at his gate was laid a beggar named Lat, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table.

Even the dogs came and licked his sore.

And so Jesus starts off, there's two people.

There's two different types of people, and how we measure uh them, we'd look at the rich man and go, you know what?

According to Silicon Valley, he's doing well, right?

Uh he's dressed in purple.

That's just in the ancient days, that was the finest garb you could have.

I mean, he's wearing Gucci, he's got Prada.

Do guys wear Prada?

I don't know.

Um, he he he's got the Rolex, he's driving the best car, he has the big house, he's got it all.

In fact, that line lived in luxury every day.

There's there's it's this enjoyable merriment and ease.

It's that he's financially free to do whatever he wants whenever he wants.

He can go here and there and travel the world.

He's the picture of success.

He's the American dream.

And then Jesus says, then there's this beggar.

His name's Lazarus.

And by the way, this is fascinating.

Um this is the only time Jesus named anyone in a parable.

You know, most of the parables, there's a rich man or there's a farmer or something like that.

Here Jesus names this person.

Now, not to be confused with Lazarus, who he would raise from the dead.

This is just a story.

This is a parable.

A parable is a story with the point.

Lazarus means God is my help.

Here's a man that had no help earthly.

He had nothing to his name and no one who was even looking out for him.

We don't know why he was poor.

Maybe he was poor because he made some poor decisions.

Maybe he was poor because, you know, circumstances of life, something hid, a famine or something tragic happened.

Maybe it's an injustice.

All we know is he's not doing well.

In fact, physically, he's not doing well to the extent that he can't even fend off the street dogs from licking and getting at him.

And how will you measure your life?

And we look at one, if we just judge this present moment, we look at one and go, you are the epitome of success.

And the other, wow, that must have been a big failure.

And Jesus says there's a different way to measure.

In fact, he's going to give us a glimpse of like what is happening in the eternal perspective of God.

Notice he goes on to say this.

The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side.

The rich man also died and was buried.

In Hades, where he was in torment.

That doesn't sound fun.

Uh, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.

So he called to him, Father Abraham, have pity on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in the water and cool my tongue, because I'm in agony in this fire.

Jesus gives us this glimpse into eternity, and we notice that whether you're rich or poor, we all suffer the same fate.

You know, there's been said there's only two things certain in life.

I think Ben Franklin said it, right?

Death and taxes.

We're all gonna die.

Welcome to church.

I hope you're encouraged.

The rich man goes on.

He's, but Abraham replied, Son, remember that your time in life, you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things.

But now he's comforted here, and you're in agony.

And besides all this, between you and me, a great chasm has been set in place, so that those of us who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.

And Jesus gives us this picture that there is an eternal reality.

And we don't talk about heaven and hell very much in our day.

It's not cool.

And I want you to notice that God did not sentence this man to hell because he was comfortable in life.

That is not the picture here.

The picture is he lived as if there is no God, and God gave him his reality that he wanted nothing to do with God.

He lived as if I am the only person that matters, and I will take care of just me.

It's all about me, all for me, all because of me.

And I don't want to live under the recognition that I that God is all sovereign and in control.

And because you are made in the image of God, I should care for your needs.

In fact, I like how J.I.

Packard says it, scripture sees hell as self-chosen.

Hell appears as God's gesture of respect for human choice.

All receive what they actually choose, either to be with God forever, worshiping him, or without God forever, worshiping themselves.

Tim Keller writes, in short, hell is simply one's freely chosen identity apart from God in a trajectory into affinity.

Like if you want to live the way you want to live and do the things the way you want to do them, and you be autonomous, and God says, I will not violate your will at all.

And yet there are eternal consequences for that reality.

And did you notice?

Even uh the rich man, he still sees Lazarus as his servant.

He's like, Would you send Lazarus to dip his finger?

Like I'm suffering over here.

And then he goes on.

And he says, he answered, then I beg you, Father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers.

Let him warn them so that they'll not also come to this place of torment.

I had no idea that a self-absorbed, self-centered life had such great consequences.

Send someone to tell my family.

And Abraham replied, They have Moses and the prophets, let them listen to them.

No, Father Abraham, he said.

But if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.

And he said, even if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, that's the shorthand for the Hebrew scriptures.

They will not be convinced, even if someone rises from the dead.

Jesus tells a very interesting parable.

One in which I think helps us answer well the question: how will you measure your life?

You know, if the rich man had a mantra in life, I think it might be this.

If we brought him into the modern day, I think the mantra would be something like this.

Enjoy the journey.

Enjoy the journey.

Life's a journey.

Life is just a journey.

Don't worry about the destination.

Life is a journey.

Enjoy the journey.

Enjoy the ride.

Yellow.

You only live once, so live it up.

Live your best life.

Live no regrets.

Which somehow produces deep regret.

I gotta get mine.

I gotta keep mine.

Life is all about me and for me.

And because of me.

And here's what Jesus is saying, and what we know to be true, but we don't recognize that life is more than just the journey, isn't it?

Life is more than just the journey, because here's what we know every single journey takes you somewhere.

None of you have gotten into a car and said, I'm just gonna enjoy the journey, and was like, Well, we went nowhere.

You went somewhere, whether on purpose or not, you went somewhere.

And every decision takes you into a direction, and every direction ultimately has a destination.

And so what is true is life is a journey to the destination.

To a destination.

And the question is, where are you headed?

The question is, what is the trajectory of your life and my life?

What are the decisions that I'm making today?

And where is that leading me to tomorrow?

And what if you really are an eternal being, a spiritual being, a never-ceasing being that does have a grand destiny in God's great universe.

I want to give us maybe uh two applications of what do we do?

How do we measure to help us how we measure our life, and um and maybe a new mantra.

We could try it on.

Let me give you the two little bits of application here.

The first, simply, to measure our life well, you have to begin with the end in mind.

By the way, the gospel, Jesus, and the Hebrew scriptures came up with this long before Stephen Covey did in his uh Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Begin with the end in mind.

In fact, 4,000 years before that, Moses wrote this teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

By teach us to count out and recognize that you have limited days, you are a finite being, and you know that since time is limited, then I'm gonna number them and steward them well.

When I think about the end of days, I will live this day wisely and well.

Begin with the end in mind.

In fact, I I added up how many days uh you might have, by the way.

I I I did some math this morning.

So um the average American lives 78.8 years on average.

I rounded up to 80.

You're welcome.

Um and so if you if you happen to live 80 years, obviously, no health complications, no accidents, things like that, uh, you have 29,200 days on this planet.

And so if you're 20, you have 21,900 days left.

If you're 30, you have 18,250 days left.

If you're 40, you have 14,600 days left.

If you're 50, you have 10,950 days left.

I won't continue on.

It gets painful.

To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your direction.

And Covey's seven habits of highly successful people.

This is habit number two, and he begins with this picture.

He says, Imagine that you are attending a funeral, and you come to the funeral and you walk in, and people are grieving and crying, and you come and you realize that it's actually your funeral.

And there's four speakers that are gonna speak.

One is a family member, another is a friend, another is a co-worker, and another is from your church or community, and what would you want them to say about you?

What type of character?

What type of impact do you want to have and you want to leave with others?

Again, with the end, in mind, and friends, I know I have some friends, they're incredible, and part of their heart is they work insane hours nonstop is to provide for their kids what they didn't have.

And yet, honestly, what their kids would love to have is their mom or dad.

And we spend our days striving after things that we think matter in this moment, but if you just begin with the end in mind, you begin to number your days, you realize it doesn't really matter.

And isn't it amazing that when a life crisis happens, when a major tragedy happens, that all of a sudden everything becomes absolutely clear.

And all of a sudden, priorities that were so important, they go down.

And what really matters, you can clear your schedule for all of it, can't you?

First practice I want us to partake in is would you begin with the end of mine seconds, is to recalibrate your internal compass.

If we're gonna do this, we have to recalibrate our internal compass.

Just a few verses before this, Jesus is teaching and he's talking to the Pharisees who loved money and they were sneering at him.

And he says this.

No one can serve two masters.

Either you'll hate the one or love the other, or you'll be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve both God and money.

Notice that he didn't say you cannot serve both God and the devil, you know, like I mean, or in church, you might think he might say something like that.

He's actually saying the chief competitor for your heart is your money and your possessions and your stuff.

The chief thing, money is not neutral.

This is the reason why when we talk about there's more to life than having more in life.

Intellectually we know it, but the reality is, is we begin to place our value, our center, our meaning on what we have, what we accumulate, what we're able to get because of it.

And when I get X, then I'll be happy.

Recalibrate your internal compass.

What is at the center of your life?

Whatever's at the center of your life is the source that you're looking for security, guidance, wisdom, power.

Maybe it's a work-centered life.

Your vocation.

Maybe you're in the middle of the college years.

The center is actually the degrees that you're gonna get, your education.

Maybe it is money-centered or spouse-centered or the relationship.

If I just meet the right person.

Maybe it's self-centered.

About me being happy and me getting mine.

Clayton Christensen in his book, How You Measure Your Life, says, with every moment of your time, every decision about how you spend your energy and money, you are making a statement about what really matters to you.

In fact, one of the practices, this paradox of abundant living that recalibrates the center is actually generosity.

Notice what the proverb says.

It says, Whoever's kind to the poor lends to the Lord and he will reward them for what they've done.

The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor.

See, the problem was not that this man had wealth, that this person was rich.

The problem was that his wealth had him.

See, when we begin to realize that all that I have is not mine, I'm a steward, I'm entrusted.

And so, God, you've given me all that I have, and I'm just gonna go like, how do you want to leverage this?

How do you want to use it?

How can I, how can I make your life better?

It begins to recalibrate your heart towards the very things of God, resets the compass of your heart, the true north, where you just go, like, no, it's not about me.

It's about eternity.

And it's about what God is doing in this moment.

Life is a journey to a destination.

Begin with the end in mind, recalibrate your internal compass.

And here's the new mantra.

Here's the new mantra I'd love for us to embrace.

I remember my, I was in college, I was going to the church in Chicago, and remember my pastor saying this line, and it's stuck with me ever since.

But instead of enjoy the journey, and by the way, there's some truth to that.

Enjoy the journey.

That's not a bad thing.

But there's also a destination.

Enjoy the journey to the destination.

Make sure you're headed where you want to go.

All of us are gonna end up somewhere, just not all of us are gonna end up where we thought we'd be.

But maybe this one.

Life is short.

Eternities long.

Life is short.

Eternities long.

All of us have a birthday, and all of us will have an expiration date.

On your tombstone, there will be your birth date and your expiration date, and then there's a little dash, and that dash represents your entire life.

Life is short.

We get but a few fleeting moments.

Now that I have a college student, it feels like life is in hyperdrive.

It's just going so fast.

It seems like life, as you get older, just speeds up.

Life is short, eternity is long.

Did you know, by the way, that 73% of Americans actually believe in a heaven?

62% of Americans believe in hell.

26 of Americans do not believe in heaven or hell, but 7% of that 26 believe in an afterlife?

Friends, if we're just average Americans, this was done in 2021.

This wasn't done 30 years ago.

If we're just average, three-quarters of us believe in an afterlife but live as if it doesn't make any difference in our life.

So what if Jesus' story is true?

What if how we measure our life has eternal significance?

Eternal way.

Life is short.

Eternity is long.

Bring you back to Dallas Wheeler.

We said it several times.

You are a never-ceasing spiritual being with an eternal destiny in God's great universe.

And the truth is when we answer that question, how will you measure your life?

We're searching fundamentally for something deep to fulfill and satisfy some of the deep longings of our soul.

Whether it's work, whether it's pleasure, whether it's having some sort of prestige or success, to live out the American dream, there's this ache and longing in our soul.

Some have called it through the years this God-shaped hole in our soul.

Like we try so many different things to bring satisfaction and ultimate fulfillment, and they do for a season, but they never finally and fully satisfy.

John, wildly successful.

He was named partner in his firm, one of the youngest to ever do that.

He married a doctor.

He has two kids and a dog.

His original house might have even had a white picket fence.

I don't know.

I mean, everything about him was the picture of success.

Twenties, early 30s.

You just looked at him and you thought, he has it made.

How do you measure your life?

Well, he's figured it out.

And the only problem was he got to that point and it was all found wanting and meaningless.

And so he turned to alcohol.

He just began to numb out.

His addiction to alcohol almost lost him his family, almost lost him his job.

He eventually, in desperation, got an AA where then, you know, the first thing is, I can't.

I can't.

But he can.

I need a power greater than myself.

I remember having this conversation with him.

We were at Bill's cafe.

It's early one morning, we'd met a few times.

And he's in this process, this spiritual journey of recognizing the things that he's been chasing after and how he measured his life had fallen short.

And I love that line.

A beggar named Lazarus.

Because that's how we all get to God.

We realize our spiritual poverty.

I can't.

Lazarus, God is my help.

God can't.

God is my help.

That is the only way we get to God is when we recognize our spiritual poverty.

God is my help.

So we sat at Bill's.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, shall not have an eternity forever apart from God, but have eternal life.

Which isn't just life later, it's life now, it's the presence of God now and forevermore.

Like that's the good news.

Like God loved you so much, He came for you.

He's not waiting for you to work yourself, you know, into becoming the right person or figure out all the right things.

Jesus said, I came for you.

In fact, I died on the cross to cover everything in you that is ever broken or done wrong.

I want you to experience full and final forgiveness and freedom.

And then he rose again, defeated the grave, that you might have life in him forevermore.

That's the gospel.

John, would you would you like to begin a relationship with Jesus?

Would you like to put your trust?

That's what faith is.

It's just putting your trust, it's the weight of your life.

It's just like me sitting in this chair.

I trust that it's going to hold me.

And so I sat down.

Like I placed the full weight of my life.

Like Jesus, I want you to be the center of my life.

I've made work the center, or I've made being upwardly mobile, or possessions, or pleasure, or family.

Today I make you the center of my life.

And in Bill's, we sat there and we prayed together, and he gave his life to Jesus, and it transformed his life both now and the reality is it transformed his eternity.

A single moment transformed his eternity.

And as we close today, I just simply want to give you an opportunity.

Maybe this you have that same sense, this empty, this weariness.

You had no idea.

You had a God who loves you, a God who came for you, a God who did anything to be with you, even die for you.

And so if that's where you're at, would you mind just all together, just praying together?

And if you want to begin a relationship with God through Jesus, would you just pray with me?

God, I need you.

I'm spiritually bankrupt.

I've tried so many things to bring wholeness and life and meaning.

And yet there's still that ache.

Jesus, today I put my faith, my trust in you.

I believe that you did come for me, that you did die for me, and that it sounds unbelievable, but you rose again to give me new life.

Would you come into my life and make me new?

Today I make you the center, the Lord, the king of my life.

And if you wouldn't mind, just kind of all eyes closed, and we don't do this hardly ever, but if you stepped into a relationship, God, if you made prayed that prayer with me, would you just go ahead and raise your hand so I could pray with you?

And no.

Just go ahead and lift it high.

Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

God, thank you for all the hands that just went up all over the room.

Thank you for your work.

Thank you for your love.

In fact, church, I the reality is, is it says that heaven celebrates when someone steps into a relationship with Jesus.

And I just got to tell you, there's hands going up all over.

Could we just celebrate, church, and just clap right now?

I know it's like this amazing moment, but it's just the reality of God's goodness.

Scripture says that you stepped from death to life.

That the Spirit of God now lives and dwells and empowers you.

God, I pray for my friends who just stepped into the family of God.

Would you meet them powerfully and profoundly in this moment?

And may we be a community of church to walk with them in their newfound relationship with you.

In Jesus' name, and all God's people will say amen.

Let's stand up and worship.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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