Is God Fair (Luke 16:19-31; 1 Cor 1:26-31)

Invite you to read along silently because it's a longer passage. We're gonna read from Luke chapter 16, a parable there, and then some commentary from first Corinthians chapter one. If you would give your attention to God's word.

There was a rich man who would dress in purple and fine linen, feasting lavishly every day. But a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, was lying at his gate. He longed to be filled with what fell from the rich man's table, but instead the dogs would come and lick his sores. One day the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried, and being in torment in Hades, he looked up and saw Abraham a long way off with Lazarus at his side. Father Abraham, he called out, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in agony in the flame. Son, Abraham said, remember that during your life, you received your good things, just as Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here while you are in agony. Besides all this, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you, so that those who would pass over from here to you cannot, neither can those who would from there cross over to us. Father, he said, then I beg you to send him to my father's house because I have five brothers to warn them so that they won't also come to this place of torment. But Abraham said, 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 would repent. But he said to him, if they don't listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead. — Luke 16:19-31

Brothers and sisters, consider your calling. Not many were wise from a human perspective. Not many were powerful. Not many of noble birth. Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world, what is viewed as nothing, to bring to nothing what is viewed as something, so that no one may boast in his presence. It is from him that you are in Christ Jesus who became wisdom from God for us, our righteousness, sanctification, redemption, in order that, as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. — 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

This is the word of God. Thanks be to God.

We're in a series called No Bad Questions on Objections to the Christian Faith, and the next several sermons are focused around the impact of Christianity. Questions like, is Christianity a hindrance to justice? Is Christianity good for the world? Is the Christian impulse to share the Gospel not just cultural imperialism? Next week I'm going to talk about what's God's big deal with sex, and I'll just tell you parents, it will not go beyond PG. You should be safe in here.

Is God Fair?

But behind all those questions is a very important question that's sort of under everything: Is God fair?

Now, fairness is something that is so important right now. You hear discussions around fairness in so many areas of our life and culture. We want everybody to be the same. We want everybody to get the same. We want everybody to be treated the same.

I feel like every generation has a different question that they are asking with regard to the Christian faith. Baby boomers, many of them ask this question: Is Christianity true? Gen X, my generation, asked the question: Does the Christian faith give meaning and purpose? Millennials asked the question: Is Christianity good for the world? And this current generation, Gen Z, is asking this question: Is God fair?

Now I didn't come up with those questions. They may or may not fit you exactly, but those are main questions that people ask with regard to the faith. And so I want to get after this one today. Is God fair?

Here's my outline for you who take notes. Point one: yes. Point two: no.

So in Luke 16, this is the yes part. Jesus tells a parable about hell. At the very center of this question about fairness is hell. So I think it's really important for us to go to the source and ask questions about hell. Does God send people to hell for not believing him? Is God that unfair?

Now in this parable, there are two main characters: Lazarus and a rich man. Lazarus, let me just be clear, this is a story. This is not the same Lazarus who was raised from the dead. This is a fictional character. Lazarus is the only person in all of the parables that Jesus tells that is given a name. It's really important to the understanding of this story. Everybody else is a farmer, a certain man, a woman cleaning her house, a money lender, but this man is named. Lazarus—that name actually has a meaning that's important for you to understand. It means the one whom God helps.

And what's fascinating about this is looking at the passage, the parable, it looks every bit like this is the man who God did not help. This is a man who is starving. He's poor, and even Jesus adds some disgusting details here. The dogs came and licked his wounds every day. I didn't hear a yuck when we read that out loud, but you should have been going, Yuck. Right? This is obviously a person whose life is at the very bottom.

By contrast, you have the rich man, and again, Jesus gives vivid details to describe the man's wealth. The rich man is described here in terms of his underwear. I am not kidding. In the Greek, it names the type of cloth that was a very fine Egyptian cloth that was used for undergarments that was called—I can't make this stuff up—Butts. B-U-T-Z. Okay? I'm not making this up. But he's described even his undergarments are wealthy. That's how rich he is.

The second detail that we get about the rich man is that he feasted every day within a few feet of Lazarus. Within a few feet. The rich man feasted sumptuously every day. Lazarus was right outside his gate.

Now think with me. How did Lazarus get there? The community took him. The community brought this poor man and laid him at the gate of the rich man. Why? Because this is the only person in that community who could actually take care of Lazarus' needs, who could have afforded out of his excess to take care of Lazarus. So they brought him to him. Rich man ignores his plight. It's even clearer later in the passage—the rich man knew this man's name. He recognizes him. That's Lazarus up in heaven. Instead, the rich man's dogs got fed every day. Lazarus didn't even get the dog food.

The Reversal

And this is where the parable takes a turn, gets a little wacky for us, because both men die, and then Jesus tells us about what happened after that. We normally don't get this. Jesus kind of pulls the curtain back on the afterlife, and we see both men, their eternal destiny. The rich man goes to hell, Lazarus goes to heaven, and there's sort of a reversal of their fortunes. Suddenly, the poor man Lazarus is in comfort. The rich man is in agony.

So speaking of comfort, I know that talking about hell is very uncomfortable. Maybe you just came to this church this morning because somebody invited you and you're like, "Oh, I didn't know I was being invited to one of those kind of churches." I've had people ask me, particularly in the neighborhood, when we've been at school events, community events—they find out I'm a pastor, and I've got questions before, like, "Hey, you're not one of those pastors who actually believes all this nonsense about the fires of hell being literal, do you?" And I'm like, "Yeah, probably not. Probably not." And they'll go, "Oh, good. You're not one of those Christians." I'm like, "Yeah, I think it's actually metaphorical for something much worse." And they're like, "Wait, wait, what?"

You know, the point of the parable is not to tell us about the nature of hell. It's not to tell us about the geography of hell, the type of torment there. It's to tell us about why the rich man's there. That's the point. Why is the rich man in hell?

Now, Jesus is super economical in His parables. You've got to pay attention to everything. So is it because he was a rich man that he's in hell? No. Is it because he's stingy he's in hell? Not that either. There's one word that's repeated the most times in this whole passage, and it's this word: comfort.

When Abraham describes Lazarus' new situation, his circumstances in heaven, he doesn't say, "Lazarus is now healed in heaven." He doesn't say, "Lazarus is now well fed in heaven." He says, "Lazarus is comforted here." By contrast, nobody is going to bring the rich man, who's in hell, comfort.

Now, what's the point? The point is not whether they are comfortable in heaven or uncomfortable in hell. It's where did the rich man, in his life, find his comfort? Where did the poor man, Lazarus, find his comfort?

See, for us, a lot of times we use those words comfort and comfortable interchangeably. So I could say this, "Are you comfortable?" And you're like, "Yeah," you think about your present circumstances. You think about your house, your lifestyle. You think about how much money you have in the bank, and we think of that as you're being comfortable. But Jesus is talking about something deeper. He's talking about your ultimate hope, your identity, where you find significance and life and worth—something much more foundational.

We just did the Heidelberg Catechism. "What is your only comfort in life and death?" That's an identity question.

So what's the rich man's identity? It's a big clue. And the fact that the poor man Lazarus is the only person in this whole story who gets a name. Who gets a name. Why do you think that Lazarus has a name, but the rich man is given the generic title "rich man"? Why do you think that is? Names were incredibly important in the ancient Near East, just like they're incredibly important today.

If someone remembers your name, it remains you're a character in their world. They know something. They remembered you. You exist to them as a person. The fact that this rich man doesn't have a name in the story is a symbol here, that he has no identity apart from his wealth, being the rich man. Why does Lazarus have a name? Because he does have an identity. There's personhood. Lazarus had nothing, but he had a name. This is what we see in this passage. The rich man found his comfort in his comforts. Lazarus finds his comfort in God, and this is demonstrated later in the passage when the rich man is in hell.

Now, fascinating. Whoever tells you about what's going on in hell? Only Jesus. So when you hear the rich man's request from hell, it's very interesting what he doesn't say. We would expect maybe the dialogue to be something like this. Hey, Father Abraham, can you get me out of here? I'm sorry. I was wrong. Some kind of like, I got to get out of here, and I'm repentant. He never says, forgive me. He never even asks to leave hell, and that is super significant. What's his only request? Send Lazarus down. Send him down to bring me comfort.

Now, it's what the man does not say that's so significant, and it tells us about hell. Because this man, this rich man, continues to prefer hell over being with God in heaven. He continues to prefer this.

Hell as a Chosen Condition

You know, as uncomfortable as we are with talk about hell, we kind of need to think about it. The Oxford professor and writer, C. S. Lewis, said this about people in hell:

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, Thy will be done. In other words, Lord, you're in charge of me. Or, And those to whom God says in the end, Thy will be done. In other words, You get your way. All that are in hell in some way choose it. Without that self choice, there could be no hell.

Now that's a curious thing to say, but it's demonstrated in this passage. The rich man has not only made his choice of his comfort in his life, but he continues to prefer it apart from God. This is really instructive for us when we think about a God of judgment. Did God send him to hell? Is God laughing? No. This rich man chose where he is.

One writer, John Hanna, I think this is really helpful. He puts it this way. No one who is ever in hell will be able to say to God, you put me here. It is not God who sends us to hell, it is we who choose it. It is, in effect, as if hell has a door latch on the inside of the door.

Now, I'm not saying just to be really clear before you get all worried about my orthodoxy, I'm not saying people can go from change their eternal destiny—that's clear later in this passage about a chasm. But what I mean by that is that all who are in hell, in some sense, choose it and prefer it. Hell is a freely chosen identity apart from God that goes on forever and ever and ever and ever.

Again, C. S. Lewis:

It's not a question of God sending us to hell. In each of us, there is something that growing, which would be hell, unless it's nipped in the bud.

So God's judgment is not God laughing and sending anyone anywhere. When God pronounces judgment, He is only declaring in a person's life what has always been the case. There's no surprise verdict in this passage. There's no gotcha moment that God's like, I trapped another one in Hell. That is not what's going on here. Either you worship God and live for Him, or you don't. Each life on this planet has a direction toward Him, away from Him. To go to Heaven, you have to be a person who prefers God to the alternative. This is the case with the rich man. Right? He prefers where he is. He's chosen it.

So this passage is really helpful for correcting this common picture of God as some kind of laughing, cruel judge who's delighting in sending people to hell. That's not the character we see in Luke 16.

God's Compassion in Judgment

In fact, do you hear God's compassion in this passage? It comes through the voice of Abraham. He doesn't say and address the man as, You evil sinner, you, or Gotcha. He says, child. Abraham is grieved, and it represents God's grief. There's tenderness. There's compassion. The grief of a Creator, His creation, is turned away from Him and refuses to turn toward Him.

You know, when people object to the idea of a God as a judge, I wonder if they've really thought about that edited down version of God that they want. That edited down. We want a God who doesn't judge, a God without a hell. That's what we would prefer. But is that edited version of God better? If you have a God who's just kind of, I love love y'all, does it cost that God anything to love you? You may like that kind of God, but you will never love and worship that kind of God. A God who has a costless love, who has a very general, yeah, you're all fine, cosmic daddy.

Now, Abraham makes a strange statement here about a barrier between heaven and hell. You have to pay close attention.

Remember, notice in verse 26, Abraham says there's a chasm in between heaven and hell so that no one can cross over from here to there. No one can cross over from there to here. Again, what a strange statement. Of course, it makes sense for Abraham to say nobody can cross over from hell to heaven. Of course, that's what we would assume. That's what would make sense for somebody to want to leave hell to come into heaven. But to want to leave heaven and go to hell, who would ever want that? Who would ever want to make the journey from heaven to hell? One person. Jesus Christ did this.

Jesus Christ freely chose to go to the place, went to the cross, went to hell, went to the place of the dead purposely, even though he prefers heaven, prefers the company of his father. He chose to do this. Why? What does this mean? It means Jesus became—think about Lazarus' name, the one God helps. Jesus became the one that God did not help when he cried out on the cross, so that you and me, because of his death, he's going to hell in our place. His resurrection—your name can become Lazarus. You are the ones that God helps. You can become that same one.

There remains a hell. I'm not going to pull that punch. That's in the Bible. That's what Jesus says. There remains a hell for those who don't want God, who refuse to turn toward him, who will not yield, who will not put him in the center of their lives.

C.S. Lewis, again in The Problem of Pain, he writes this:

In the long run, the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell is a question. What do you actually want God to do now? What are you asking God to do? To wipe out all their past sins at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing over every difficulty, offering them miraculous help? He did that. That's what the cross was about. He's done so. What are you asking him to do? Forgive them? They don't want to be forgiven, like the rich man in this passage. To leave them alone? I'm afraid that's exactly what he does.

So is God fair? Yes. Sadly fair. That's what the parable shows. God is fair to the rich man, and he's fair to Lazarus.

God is More Than Fair

But point number two, no. God is not fair, just fair. Thank God. God is not just fair. Why do I say that? There's a problem with fair. I know it's the ultimate right now. We're all about fair. But there's a problem with fair. There's a tendency in just about every generation to take one trait of who God reveals himself to be and want that to be the main one.

For years, it was God is love. Our culture was like, yes. Love is God. God is love. That's all we want to hear about. We don't want to hear about anything else. And now we're doing it with fair. God is fair. Oh yes, we need a God who is fair. But there's a problem. Every time you take God in one of his attributes and magnify that one and cancel out all the other ones, you lose. There are things about God because he's a divine, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent being that we can't quite grasp. We can't just distill down to one character quality, and when you do that, you miss all the other richness of who God has revealed himself to be. We're doing that right now with fair.

So is God fair? Yes. Sadly so. Is God more than fair? Absolutely. And praise God, he is.

The Problem with "Deserve"

Here's how fair breaks down. Some of you are old enough to remember the old McDonald's commercial: "You deserve a break today. A break today." Right? You deserve a break today. And "deserve" is one of American advertising's favorite words. Go Google the word "deserve" and "advertising" together, and you will see thousands of examples of ads. The body that you deserve—advertisements for gyms and dieting. The spouse or girlfriend or boyfriend you deserve—dating websites. The house you deserve—real estate. The car you deserve. Oh my word, cars. We love this. You deserve. It's everywhere. And it's everywhere because it strikes a deep chord within us. Yeah, I do deserve an Egg McMuffin. Thank you, McDonald's. Thank you for finally seeing me. No one else knows how much I deserve. Americans expect to get what we deserve. We love this. That's our definition of fair.

But the Christian gospel tells us of a God who, thank God, is more than fair. He is more than fair. A God who gives unbelieving people, people who are hard hearted, people who don't deserve a break today, what we don't deserve. Thank God.

Listen to the testimony of this man Paul. He was an apostle. He says this:

Brothers and sisters, consider your calling. Not many were wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth.

Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God has chosen what's weak in the world to shame the strong. God has chosen what's insignificant and despised in the world, what's viewed as nothing, to bring to nothing what's viewed as something, so that no one may boast in His presence. It's from Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom from God for us, our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, in order that, as it is written:

Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.

Did you notice how fairness is not in that list? How getting what you deserve is entirely absent from that. In fact, it's despite fairness that God gives people what we don't deserve, and that's what seems to really delight Paul in that passage.

Paul would challenge us today. It's like, do you really want fairness? Is that all you want from God? He would say to Americans who want God to give us what we deserve—he would say, that's not actually what you really want. You want a God who's not just fair but more than fair. You want a God who loves. Love doesn't fit the categories of fair. A God who chooses to love individual people. A God who sets His affections on people no matter what.

God's Choosing Love

Do you notice the two really unfair words that I just read you? There are two really unfair words in that passage from Paul: chosen and called. "Consider your calling, brothers and sisters. God chose what's foolish. God chose what's weak. God chose what's low and despised."

Now, you can generalize that. You can say, okay, the Christian Gospel is most appealing to weak people or lowly people, people who don't have much, foolish people. It's repulsive to wise, smart, strong, powerful people. But Paul actually doesn't say this. He's writing to an individual congregation, particular people who have a particular story. God chose particularly you. You are that weak and lowly and despised.

We could put this—let's plug in our parable into this passage. We can certainly say God chose Lazarus. Right? He didn't choose this rich man. I know you're getting hell and predestination in one sermon this morning. You're like, Bradford's lost his marbles. And I get it. You're right. I'm a little cray cray this morning.

But God's choosing love—let me just say this. God's choosing love is at the very heart of the gospel, that God chose you and chose to love you. And I'm going to push you on this a little bit this morning.

Many people are really uncomfortable with the doctrine of predestination—God's choosing. They believe this: God sort of looks down the corridors of history, and He sort of knows in advance the kind of people who are going to be attracted to the Gospel. Knows in advance the kind of people who are going to like Jesus. Knows in advance the kind of people who will choose to believe in Jesus. That's not predestination. That's foreknowledge. And that actually turns grace into a conditional election. Do you realize this? That turns grace into a conditional election, that God distributes His love and kindness to the kind of people who are going to be drawn to that, who are maybe more moral, maybe more wise. It has some kind of conditionality to it.

In other words, you think that way. You think that salvation—that He gives what we deserve to those He foreknew would have the potential to be nice and good and want to believe in Him. But that's not what the Bible says. What did we just read? God chose not the nice moral, good people who would most likely believe in Him, but the lowly and the foolish and the weak. That's what He chose to love.

Now, let's test this out. You might be like, this is reprehensible to me, but let's test this out. One of my mentors, Doctor Ed Clowney, does this for us. He says this. He's talking about his own marriage: If your wife ever asks you, "Honey, why do you love me?" you say, "Honey, do you love me?" And you say, "Well, of course I do." And she asks, "Why?" And if you say, "Well, because you're prettier than other women, or because you're smarter than other women, or because you meet my needs, because you are very serviceable in this marriage"—she is going to be upset, and rightly so.

Nobody wants that kind of love. That kind of love that says "I love you because"—I love you because you are this or that. You have performed well. That's conditional love. That is loving what you're getting from someone else. Nobody wants to love someone for what you're giving to someone else. It is not being loved for who you are.

What you want to say to your wife, what she wants to hear is, "I love you because I love you." That's what God says to us. That's what God says to people.

Now, I know I want to make sure you're hearing exactly what I'm saying. When we think about God choosing people, we think of kickball in elementary school. You know, and I was never picked. I'll be honest. I was the last person picked all the time. Kind of chubby, very slow, no coordination. We think of God choosing, we think of kickball.

There's a finite group of people out here. Some are chosen, some are not definitely not chosen. In fact, I'll take you and you and you and definitely not you. Right? That's what I heard. But God is not playing kickball. God is not playing kickball. He's not excluding people from His team who want to be on His team. It's not a matter of God capriciously going through the address book of history and going You. I don't want you. I don't want him. I don't want her. I don't want that one. I don't want this one. Nice, nice, naughty, naughty. God is not doing that. He's not putting a mark by people He would love to send to hell.

Electing love does not exclude anybody from the kingdom of heaven who wants in. Rather, it includes people who never wanted in, whose direction was away from the kingdom all along. If you really get this, it changes everything.

If you don't want to get this, if you want to reject this idea of electing love and choose to believe in a God who is just fair, who is really, really fair, and you claim to be a Christian, this is what you're saying about yourself. There's something just a little bit better about me, a little bit more moral, maybe a little smarter, a little nicer, a little better. And that smug superiority comes out all the time from Christians, where we think there's something just a little bit better about me than other people. This is why a lot of people don't like Christians. I don't blame them because we can be very self righteous, very much like, I'm one of those kind of people that God loves because there's something just a little bit better.

But if you believe in a God who's more than fair, thank God more than fair, you finally come to a place where you go like this with regard to your salvation. I got nothing that makes me a candidate that God would particularly choose to love. I am one of the lowly things. I'm one of the foolish things. I'm one of the despised things of this world. And God sets His love on me. God says to me, I love you because I love you because I love you.

If you don't believe that God is more than just fair, you can't really know the love of God. I know that this is deeply troubling. I know that this messes with some of your categories. I know the logic of this is really, really hard, but it makes a world of difference.

When I meet Christians who have really been rocked by the undeserved, not fair, but unbelievable love of God for people like me, I know because they're some of the most humble people. They're some of the most self effacing people. They're people who are kind of like this. Who would have thunk? Me? A person that God loves? Me, a Christian? Really? It's shocking. And it comes out because it makes them more approachable. They're not surprised by anybody else's life being a mess. They know that they're a big mess. They're not surprised. They're optimistic about other people. There's no more likely or less likely candidates for the Gospel. They look around, they're like, God can save me. Gosh, He could do anything. He can save anyone.

Is God fair? Yes, He is. But not just fair. Thank God. Come join the failures. Come join the hypocrites. Come join the losers. There's always room for one more. The name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen.

Would you pray with me? Lord, we thank you. You sort of blow our categories, and we need that because our tendency is always to want to put you in a little box and think we have understood. Thank you, the Gospel is always bigger. Lord, you are more than one particular quality we'd like to shrink You down to. We thank You that You are fair, but so much more. We thank You that You are loving. We thank You that You are more than fair. Thank God.

We thank You that this word is a word of hope for us. Inside, we know, God, that none of us deserves. And Lord, we pray this day. I pray for those who are long term Christians. I pray for those who wonder if they're Christians. I pray for those who never wanted to be Christians who are here this morning. I pray, Lord, that we would hear Your voice above all the other voices, You calling our name, You calling us to Yourself, You expressing again Your love for us. Lord, we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

Let's respond to God's word together in song. Invite you to stand and sing with us.