One minute after you are dead, will what is important to you now, change?

QB 
The day began as most every other Monday during football season.  His first thoughts were about yesterday’s game.  Several key plays flashed through the young quarterback’s head.  He remembered a pass to his favorite wide receiver for the go ahead touchdown.  He also remembered with a groan a sack when he had been pounded into the ground by a gorilla they shaved and put at defensive end.  The whirlpool sounded great. “I think I will go into the stadium today and sit in the whirlpool and get one of the trainers to work out all the kinks.”  But the most important thing he remembered, from the previous day, was the victory!  They had soundly defeated their arch rivals to clinch their division and put them into the playoffs.  It had been a spectacular day.    

Shopping Cart Guy
It was also Monday for another person.  But it was a much different day for the shopping cart guy - as he was less than affectionately known to the guards around the stadium.  Mondays during football season meant lots of extra food in the dumpsters.  If he got to the stadium before the garbage truck, he could have his pick of all kinds of hot dogs, nachos or, his favorite, pizza.  It seemed that football pizza was still pretty good the next day, if there wasn’t too much beer spilt on it.  Football season was good for the shopping cart guy. Sure, it was colder and he had to work hard to stay warm in his culvert, but at least every other week he ate great.  His stomach grumbled at the thought of all the delicious food in those dumpsters. 

QB 
What would he drive to the stadium this morning?  Mondays were off days, but this close to the playoffs the coaches would be in watching film.  It was too cold for the Harley.  He only drove the Vette if there was no chance of rain. And the Weather Channel, which he always checked first thing, had said there was a good chance for storms through out the day.  Then it would have to be the Hummer.  The charcoal gray Hummer certainly fit his mood.  He felt invincible.  He grabbed his espresso - the maid had fixed for him - as he went out the door and fired up the Hummer.  The rumble of the 454 was satisfying.  As he backed down the winding driveway, he glanced back at his mansion and thought to himself, “Not bad. I’ve done pretty well for myself.  Maybe I need to get a wife to go with the house.  That would be good… perhaps in the off-season.”

Shopping Cart Guy
His culvert was carefully chosen to be close enough to the stadium to be able to walk, but not too close for the guards to harass him. On Mondays the team didn’t come and the cleaning crew was usually late. If he timed it right he could rummage through the dumpsters without anybody noticing.  Maybe he could find some pepperoni, his stomach rumbled; louder this time.  He quickly packed all of his possessions into his Wal Mart shopping cart.  He had to take all of it with him or somebody might steal his stuff.  As he struggled his cart up the embankment out of the ditch where he lived, he noticed the clouds forming.  He muttered to no one in particular and everyone in general, “I hate the rain.”

QB 
The rain began all at once like someone flushed a huge commode in the sky.  “Wow,” the quarterback thought, “I’m glad this wasn’t yesterday.  I hate the rain.”  The windshield wipers were just barely keeping up.  He saw the road about half the time.  He was almost to the stadium. A flash of lightning and the swipe of the wipers revealed something on the road in front of him.

Shopping Cart Guy
“This is miserable,” the homeless guy thought to himself as he attempted to see where he was going through the downpour. “Fortunately nobody is on the road to the stadium.  I can walk on the road.  Nobody comes down this road on Mondays.”  As he glanced back over his shoulder he froze.  There were two huge headlights flying towards him. 

QB
The young QB hit the brakes which did nothing on the wet road, but turn the car loose. He cut the steering wheel, which only accomplished him going sideways down the road.  The last thing he saw, before going off the road, was a shopping cart flying over the Hummer.  He slid off the road, down the embankment and into the culvert. 

Shopping Cart Guy
There wasn’t time to do anything but close his eyes.  It was odd.  It just like the movies it was in slow motion only there wasn’t even any sound over the pounding rain, until that terrible thunk. 

QB 
When the National Football League Pro-Bowl Quarter Back opened his eyes the Hummer was gone.  The stadium was gone.  The world was gone.  All that was left was pain.  It took him several moments to realize he was dead and he was in terrible pain.  As he raised his eyes, he saw in the distance a person he somehow knew to be Abraham and beside him, sitting at a glorious banquet table, was the shopping cart guy. 

TIM Luke 16:24-31   So he called to him, “Abraham, have pity on me and send the shopping cart guy to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.”  But Abraham replied, “Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while the shopping car guy received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.  And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.”  He answered, “Then I beg you send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.”  Abraham replied, “They have Jesus; let them listen to him.”  “No, Abraham,” he said, “but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.”  He said to him, “If they do not listen to Jesus who was raised from the dead, they will not be convinced even if the shopping cart guy come to them from the dead.”

One minute after you are dead, will what is important to you now, change?

None of us are NFL QBs.  Nor are any of us homeless.  You are you.  On Monday mornings you get up and take a shower and brush your teeth and go to work or do the things that you do on Monday.  Life falls into a routine.  We do the same things over and over.  We worry about the bills.  We worry about our relationships.  We worry about our health.  We worry about our kids. We dream about that new (fill in the blank).  We wish we had this or that.  We want to do the thing that we have always wanted to do.  Our lives are what they are.

But one day you are going to die.  It may be at the age of 103 or it may be in 103 minutes.  Life, at best, is just a mist in the morning that is soon gone.  You may die in an accident, like falling off the roof.  Or you may die of some mysterious disease.  Or you may die nothing but old age.  But one day you are going to die.  And so I have to ask my question again.

One minute after you are dead, will what is important to you now, change?

The context of the story of the rich man and Lazarus, or as I have told it, the QB and the Shopping Cart Guy, is fascinating.  If you haven’t read Luke 16 recently you may not know the context of the rich man ending up in torment is money. Jesus tells this startling story to make the point that just because you have money doesn’t mean God has blessed you.  Nor does the fact that you may not have any money, mean God does not care for you and will not bless you.  Your relationship to God is not measured in monetary units. 

We don’t quite think as the Pharisees did.  They assumed the ones with the best relationship with God had the most money.  God cursed the ones he didn’t love with poverty.  So, Jesus tells this story of reversal to teach them God’s love is not to be measured by wealth.  We don’t quite have that theology, but certainly we need to reevaluate our perspective on money in light of eternity.  To paraphrase what I have already said, “One minute after you are dead, will money be important to you, at all?” 

The trick to handling money, in this life, is to understand:

NLT Luke 16:15 Then he said to them, "You like to look good in public, but God knows your evil hearts. What this world honors is an abomination in the sight of God.”

Lord, I want to see.  I want to see like you see. I want to have your sight. I want to understand what is truly valuable.  I want to have your perspective.  I want to honor what you honor. I want abhor what you abhor.  I want to answer, “No.” to my question. One minute after you are dead, will what is important to you now, change?  “Well, no.”  I don’t want to suddenly realize, one minute too late, that my perception was all wrong.  But how do I do that? 

There is another story in Luke 16; a strange story, a parable which we can get lost in the details.  But it makes a powerful point that can help us to gain God’s point of view towards money. 

Luke 16:1-9  Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions.  So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.'  "The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg--  I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.'  "So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?'  "'Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,' he replied. "The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.'  "Then he asked the second, 'And how much do you owe?' "'A thousand bushels of wheat,' he replied. "He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.'  "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.  I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”

What is the point?  Don’t get distracted by the seemingly dishonest actions of the manager. That is not the point.  Jesus is not saying it is okay to be deceptive.  In fact just a few verses later Jesus says.

Luke 16:10-12  "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.  So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?  And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?

Jesus says we should have integrity in our financial dealings.  If you cannot be trusted with rinky-dink money then how can God trust us with eternity.  We must be honest.  Our integrity is essential to our Christianity. 

What is the bottom line from the parable of the shrewd servant? If it is not okay to be dishonest what is the point?  Use wealth to gain friends for eternity.  Isn’t that a fascinating thought? Instead of using our money for ourselves, for our recognition, for our enjoyment, for our selfishness, we are to use our resources to gain friends for eternity. 

One minute after you are dead, will it make any difference how much money you left behind or how many relationships you took with you?  What is worth more a million bucks or someone spending eternity with you?  Here is God’s perspective on wealth, at least in part.  Use money to make an eternal difference.  The money we have today should be used to reach out and touch eternity.  Jesus lays it out in verse 13. 

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."

But don’t make money your master.  How silly is that?  To serve something that will not last past your death.  How much more important it is to serve the One who invites us to the eternal banquet?  Be the master of money and use it to bring souls with you to eat with you at the banquet. Isn’t that an exciting thought?  You are sitting in the glorious banquet hall and all around you are the friends you have helped to get there.  Wow.  That is worth all the money I could possibly spend!

Whether you are a NFL QB or the guy with the shopping cart or you are you, one minute after you are dead, will what is important to you now, change?