Where Are Your Riches? (Luke 16:14-31)

Reformed & Expository Preaching

Christ’s strong statements about the law and prophets are a response to the Pharisees’ letter of the law application of Moses. They are asking the question: what is my legal right? It is true that God sets boundaries in his law. However, the deeper question we are invited to ask is, “What pleases my Lord?” This radically changes one’s orientation in this age. One moves from a position of self-righteousness to a position of humility where one desires to be taught by the Spirit.

Christ does not undermine the authority of God’s law. He emphasizes the enduring nature of the law and prophets, highlighting their role in proclaiming his confirmation of their word. Christ gives examples where the Pharisees have a fixation on technicalities using the example of loving mammon, not a demon, but mammon meaning their own significance in this age (wealth, prestige, social class, etc.). They also give the technical legality of divorce misunderstanding the intention for marriage and man’s hard-heartedness. Ultimately, Christ is pointing out that the sinners push and strive to enter the kingdom while the Pharisees sit on the sidelines mocking it as a mere preference at best.

Christ then teaches a parable that seems to contradict his concerns regarding the Pharisees. Why this strange story about a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus? Well, Christ is teaching the importance of understanding God’s standard and the intention of his standard rather than just the letter of the law. Despite the rich man’s outward prosperity, his self-righteous self-indulgence demonstrated by his lack of care for Lazarus, led him to eternal suffering, while Lazarus’s long-suffering and waiting on the Lord ended with him in eternal comfort exalted at Abraham’s side at the heavenly banquet. The rich man remains clueless demanding that Lazarus does something about his pain. Like the unjust manager, he fails to see how his actions, and false comfort in himself lead to his predicament.

The parable shows that the rich man should have seen the deeper implications or intentions of God’s law. He should have manifested compassion like the Lord shows compassion for his people. Instead, he flaunted his wealth and thought he was righteous rather than showing mercy to the man named “Assisted by God” or Lazarus. The challenge of this age is valuing things with the eyes of faith. It is the challenge of having the humility to see that we need Christ not only for our heavenly inheritance but even for the wisdom to live it out as we live as living sacrifices to the Lord out of gratitude. May the Lord grant us the values of heaven and may we be in the class of people who push our way into the Kingdom of God.