Exit Church Teachings

Commonly referred to as " the rich man and Lazarus," this parable sums up that last four chapters worth of Jesus' focus on money. His emphasis is to highlight how short-lived finances are in light of eternity. Rather, we are to spend our lives in pursuit of Jesus' kingdom.

Jesus continues pressing into the Pharisees and challenging their values by how they approach money. This shows us that money reveals our true values. Jesus' concern is that they (and us) will justify their own actions and deceive even themselves into thinking that they are in right relationship with God when they were actually out of alignment with him.

As disciples of Christ, we submit all things to Him. This includes what we believe and how we engage in this world. The word of God says a lot about the value of human life and how we are to treat one another. Abortion is common in our nation and our culture is passionate about it. Between the clarity of the word of God and the emphasis of our culture, it is fitting that we take the time to thoroughly think through the implications of our submission to Jesus in regards to abortion. This was recorded during a Discipleship Training session at Exit Church.

In this puzzling parable, Jesus tells the story of a rich man and one of his managers who was deceptive and dishonest. And while there is no overt protagonist in the story (both the rich man and the manager have significant character flaws), Jesus purposefully includes this story in his teaching to provide picture for us to learn how to walk in wisdom in our finances. This is incredibly relevant today as it speaks into the need for all Christians to use their finances intentionally with prayer and discernment to move forward the kingdom of God.

In this iconic text of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son, Jesus puts on display the heart of God towards repentant sinners. For those that have been a Christian for some time, this paradign-shifting text can seem mundane and commonplace. But when we truly see that it is aimed at us, it completely tranforms the way that we think about God, his affection for us and how we view ourselves in light of his affection.