Saved People Love – Trinity 1

Saved People Love

Trinity 1 T Luke 16:19-31

INI

Many sermons on this text focus on the fact that the rich man passed by Lazarus. That the rich man should have taken care of the poor beggar, or at least invite him inside his gate for a meal. Because then, maybe he’d be at the bosom of Abraham just like Lazarus.

There’s truth to that. The rich man should’ve mercifully loved Lazarus. But the epistle lesson shows why he didn’t. John writes, “God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him…. If anyone says, “I love God” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

These texts don’t teach that loving others saves us. It teaches that saved people love. That’s a big difference. One teaches works righteousness. The other teaches the transformative power of the Gospel.

You see, the root problem with the rich man isn’t his morals. His problem is that he serves the wrong God. He serves the gods of pleasure and sensuality – which teach him to focus on himself. Thus, he’s bound to Himself.  So, when he goes about his day, he can’t even open his eyes to the possibility of his neighbor who needs his help. Perhaps, the rich man thought He was a child of God. He seemed to know Abraham in heaven, even calling him Father – which indicates he was a Jewish believer. However, he didn’t live like a believer in God. He doesn’t seem like a hateful guy, causing great harm to those around him for no good reason. But what John says rings true for the rich man – “If anyone says, ‘I love God’ and hates his brother, he is a liar.”Sure, the story doesn’t tell us that the rich man hated Lazarus actively – by kicking dirt towards him while the dogs licked his wounds. But passively, the rich man did hate Lazarus. He didn’t go out of his way to help the poor in need.

If the rich man were a modern man, perhaps he goes on about his day, thinking about the big watch party for the NBA finals he’s going to host, and the spread of food he’s going to supply for him and his friends. He’s so hyper-fixated on the party that he passes by the poor man on the street without a thought. Or he ignores a phone call from an old friend who’s been having issues because he doesn’t want to be distracted from the party he’s going to throw. God forbid if someone else’s needs would prohibit him from his party.

So, you can see how his slavery to his passions prevented him from living like a Christian. He needed to be freed from himself. But freedom from oneself is only something God can do. Only when He worships the one true God, then he can freely love and serve Lazarus – because His eyes are taken off himself, and loves others because God has first loved him.

The downfall of the rich man, and even Christians who say ‘I love God’ and yet passively hate their neighbor, wasn’t his money. Or even his misappropriation of fasting and feasting. These are just a larger symptom of his distrust and ignoring God and His Word, which ultimately landed him in Hades, the place of eternal torment for the sins he committed.

            We see this distrust in God’s Word when Abraham tells him that a great chasm has been fixed between heaven, the place of comfort and rest with God, and Hades. Once he figures out that there’s no relief for his torment, he finally opens his eyes to be able to see the needs of others. Albeit, not out of a place of recognizing the justice of God’s work – banishing evil people to hell forever and those who are poor in spirit to heaven. Rather, he merely doesn’t want his family to suffer. So, he asks “Can I go warn them? So that they won’t come here like me?” Abraham says, “Let the Word of God spoken by Moses and the prophets warn them.” And of course, the reason is because they have a lot more to say to them then just “here’s the way to escape hell.” Rather, through God’s Word, they are instructed on how to live.

The rich man’s next statement shows his unbelief that damned him. He said, “no Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” He shows that he’s unsatisfied with God’s Word spoken by His messengers. He wants more. He thinks that a resurrection from the dead will convince his partying, selfish brothers, from eternal hell which awaited them.

The problem with the rich man is that he doesn’t love God’s Word. He’d rather bypass God’s Word and place his hope in miracles and signs and wonders. He wants to get his brothers out of hell, but not actually to show love to the one true God, who frees us from ourselves to be able to love our neighbors. He just doesn’t want them to suffer.

I would venture to guess that many of you are like me. We all share in the same sinful flesh anyways. When I pray for other people, whether the prayer be for their conversion, or a more devoted walk with Christ, or for health and healing, I always want the miraculous. I want God to zap people with miraculous power on high to change or heal them. Why? Because it’s easy. It allows me to be absent from helping my neighbor in need. It allows me to go about my day, and be absent from sharing the Gospel with someone. Or at the very least, it allows me to focus all my time with them to be about having fun and maintaining a ‘peaceful’ relationship without bringing God into it at all.

But just like the rich man, that shows that we would rather bypass reading, teaching, and living God’s Word, and we place our hope in miraculous signs and wonders. This isn’t to say that we have any power in and of ourselves to provide conversion or healing. God alone gives those things for which we seek. But we are messengers of His grace and mercy shown to the humble, like Lazarus. We are called to walk alongside our needy neighbor in love and mercy. If they need food, we give them food. If they need someone to talk to, we lend a passive ear. If they need shelter, we invite them into our home. If they need some material thing to make our way of life possible, we lend it to them. If a fellow brother or sister in Christ is living in sin, we respectfully and gently make that known to them, that they may repent of their sin, and receive the healing balm of Christ Jesus. All these things are done out of love for God and love for neighbor. But Love takes work. Love can’t mean walking past someone like Lazarus, whether they be in material or spiritual poverty. Love means tending to their wounds, and showing them the way of the cross. Love means looking outside of ourselves and being willing to tend to the needs of others. Love means inviting Jesus, the one who’s conquered all things, into our shared sufferings, that even in the midst of death, He may grant us the peace of life everlasting. This way of love is revealed, established, and strengthened by a love for God and His Word.

Abraham responded to the rich man’s desire for the miraculous by saying this: “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” And this is proved true through Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead. God has provided the miraculous. A man did rise from the dead to warn all people about the reality sin, death, and hell. The God-man Jesus has defeated the evil powers of Satan that would lead to a false confession of saying “I love God” but then hating one’s neighbor.

This false guise of love is replaced in the hearts of man through the transformative power of the Gospel with a real love – a perfect, sacrificial love – that not only shows love towards others, but towards God. For how can we, who love God, leave the needs of our neighbors unattended? It’s unfathomable. It’s a symptom that shows that sinful man would rather be like the rich man, being lazy toward the labor of love, and active in the pursuit of the false gods of pleasure. But by the power of Christ’s resurrection, His Word, and His means of grace received at this altar and pulpit, a true faith is born out of a humility and reverence to the warning God has given in His Scriptures. The warning is this: if you passively hate your neighbor, it shows you don’t actually love God. Eternal punishment awaits such evil.

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  True faith sees that we are just like Lazarus. We are beggars for mercy at the gates of God due to the frailty of our own flesh. But by God’s grace in Christ Jesus, He allows us to confess our sins and receive forgiveness. He takes away the desire that our evil, self-conceited fleshly passions have. By the power of the Holy Spirit, he places in us a love for Him and desire for the labor of love toward our neighbor. Because afterall, they’re just poor Lazurus’ too, made in the image of God, just like us.

Only when we see ourselves like Lazarus, can we understand the depths of God’s rich grace. And only when our sinful flesh is put to death by Christ’s own death and we are raised to new life through His own resurrection, only then can we know that saved people love.

INI