Believers Are Word Receiving

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010325AM Mark-49 Masters Message in Luke-9
THE MASTER’S MESSAGE SERIES
LUKE-9
RECEIVING THE WORD

This morning we are looking at one of the foundational truths of our
salvation. True Christians are those who have received God’s Word. Think of
the verses you know so well:
John 5:24 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and
believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come
into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
Romans 10:17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the
word of God.
James 1:21 Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of
wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is
able to save your souls.
1 Peter 1:23 having been born again, not of corruptible seed but
incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,
But so few have received God’s Word, right? Have you been reading the
news this week? Another school shooting in California, more terrorist bombs
in Russia, and the daily rates of evil in America with 54 individuals murdered
every day in America and 16,939 assaulted. That makes 19,810 who are
killed and another 6.1 million that are injured in fights and attacks HERE in
the USA. So we live in a land overflowing with violence, greed, and suffering.
So what do crime statistics have to do with the Gospel? And what does God
expect from us who live in these last days? God wants everyone to receive
His Word and be changed from their sinful ways. To see this turn with me to
2 Timothy 3 and follow along as I read these timely verses.
2 Timothy 3:1-5 But know this, that in the last days perilous times
will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money,
boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful,
unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control,
brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of
pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but
denying its power. And from such people turn away!
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Listen to a paraphrase:
Don’t be naive. There are difficult times ahead. As the end approaches,
people are going to be self-absorbed, money-hungry, self-promoting,
stuck-up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse, dog-eatdog, unbending, slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical,
treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust, and allergic
to God. They’ll make a show of religion, but behind the scenes they’re
animals. Stay clear of these people.1
God’s Word shows that the unsaved, the lost, the worldlings to the very end
of time are unwilling to “receive the Word” and be changed. Remember the
sky is falling down literally in the Tribulation and the lost cling to their stuff!
Revelation 9:20-21 But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by
these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, that they
should not worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and
wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. 21 And they did not
repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or
their thefts. Or in modern English: The remaining men and women
who weren’t killed by these weapons went on their merry way—didn’t
change their way of life, didn’t quit worshiping demons, didn’t quit
centering their lives around lumps of gold and silver and brass, hunks
of stone and wood that couldn’t see or hear or move. There wasn’t a
sign of a change of heart. They plunged right on in their murderous,
occult, promiscuous, and thieving ways.2
And to start join me in Luke 16:8-13. Please stand as we read these
verses.
18. JESUS SAID THAT THREE EVIDENCES OF SALVATION ARE:
LIGHT LIVING, GOD SERVING, AND WORD RECEIVING Luke 16:8
“The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted
shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with
their own kind than are the people of the light. PEOPLE OF LIGHT
Luke 16:13 “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate
the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and
despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” DEVOTED
TO ONLY ONE MASTER 16:31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not
listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if
1 Peterson, Eugene H., The Message, (Colorado Springs: NavPress Publishing Group) 1997.
2 Peterson, Eugene H., The Message, (Colorado Springs: NavPress Publishing Group) 1997.
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v.22 1) Only body died
2) God escorted Lazarus to bliss
3) Rich man to discomfort
v.23 4) Recognition intuitive – he never had seen Abraham before “seeth
Abraham”
5) Recognition was over all distances, these are eternal areas ‘afar off”
v.24 6) Selfish desires still present and would be forever “cool my tongue”
v.25 7) Memory unimpaired
8) Righteous are comforted
v.26 9) Separation forever of good and evil
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10) Beyond help
v.27 11) No communication of dead to living!
12) Dead have no influence on spiritual world
v.29 13) God’s Word determiner of destiny – all else passes away!
14) Still want to help those still here but to no avail
So that is the content of the parable, but I think there is more. If you step
back ask yourself, so what made the rich man so bad? Did he harm Lazarus?
Did he commit gross moral sin? Was he a murderer, liar, or anything like
that?
If we look carefully at these 13 verses we see that every word, every phrase
is chosen to communicate such depths of meaning. Jesus contasts two
characters.
First, there is the rich man, usually called Dives, which is the Latin for rich.
Each new phrase builds a picture of this man. The point Jesus is making is
about the luxury in which he lived. His clothing was purple and fine linen. If
you remember our series in Exodus you know that is exactly the elements
God chose for the robes of the High Priests. In modern terms those robes
would cost about $75,000 to $100,000. Even today a normal person would
never be able to afford a wardrobe in which each outfit would require an
average person to spend his entire earnings from 6-8 years of full time labor
per outfit!
But Jesus goes on, this Dives or rich man ate a luxury feast every day.
Infact, the Greek word Luke uses denotes a gourmet feeding on exotic and
costly dishes. And Jesus emphasizes that he did this every day. Think of
Bible times where normal people felt very fortunate to get to eat meat once
in the week. And that was only after laboring for the other six days. But
Dives not only didn’t have to work it seems, but he also was feasting. This
paints a picture by Christ of indolent self-indulgence.
When Lazarus waited for the crumbs that fell from Dives’s table it is another
insight into the Biblical world.. In Christ’s time most people had no knives,
forks or napkins. They usually ate food with their hands. But in very wealthy
houses, the rich would clean their hands by wiping them on chunks of bread,
which would then be discarded by the servants into the trash.
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Now enters Lazarus. He sat by the trash thankfully getting any chunk of
used hand cleaner bread.
Consider Lazarus. Because Lazarus is the only character in any of Christ’s
parables who is given a name we are led to ponder whether this may be a
true life account. Lazarus is the Latinization of the Hebrew name Eleazar,
which means God is my help. So Eleazar or Lazarus was a totally helpless,
sick, and starving beggar, covered with ulcerated sores; and so helpless that
he was unable to keep the dogs that roamed the street from bothering him.
So life passes for both and the scene in the after life shows a drastic switch
in their conditions.
Jesus tells us that Lazarus is in the glory of Heaven’s waiting room and Dives
is in the torment of Hell’s waiting room. Again I ask, what can we find was
the sin of Dives?
It wasn’t cruelty, the text doesn’t say he ordered Lazarus to be carted away
from his gate.
It wasn’t hatred, the text doesn’t say he locked his garbage cans.
It wasn’t murder, the text doesn’t say he wounded Lazarus as he drove
through the gate.
It wasn’t violence, the text never implies Dives was harming Lazarus at all.
The only sin we can see from God’s Word is that Dives seems to never have
even noticed Lazarus.
To Dives the Rich Man, this poor, dying beggar was just another clump of
the landscape.
To Dives the Rich Man, it was “perfectly natural and inevitable that Lazarus
should lie in pain and hunger while he wallowed in luxury. As someone said,
It was not what Dives did that got him into heaven; it was what he did not
do that got him into hell.”
So let me emphasize this, Jesus paints us an unforgettable picture. In it we
see a man who could look on the world’s suffering and desperate needs and
simply never feel the conviction of God.
This Rich Man would look at a fellow human who was starving and deathly
ill, and do nothing about it.
So Jesus paints the punishment of those who never noticed. When God’s
Word is not received, Christ’s compassion is also absent.
But why was the part added that Jesus told about refusing to send a warning
to Dive’s family? Could it be Jesus is saying that to those who are exposed
to God’s Word and yet when they see the pain, sorrow, and dying of this
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world, and it moves them to no feeling and to no action, nothing will change
them?
The terrible warning of the sin of Dives is not that he did wrong things, but
that he did nothing.3
What happened to him? The word of God was never received, it never
pierced the heart. When God’s Word is received the life begins to change.
Self-centeredness begins to die
Self-indulgence begins to be disciplined away
Self-sacrifice begins to be pursued
Compassion, kindness, caring, and love take root and grow.
Ezekiel 16:44-50 says that worst that Sodom’s sin were the refined sins of
God’s People. What can possibly be worst than sodomy? Listen to what God
said:
Pride, Fullness of food, Abundance of idleness.
3 Adapted from Barclay, William, Daily Study Bible Series: The Gospel of Luke (Revised Edition), (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press) 2000, c1975.