Good morning. If you would open
your Bibles to the book of Luke, Luke chapter 16. Luke chapter 16. Luke 16, let's start in verse
19. Luke 16, 19. There was a certain rich man,
which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously
every day. And there was a certain beggar
named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate full of sores, and
desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's
table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked
his sores. And it came to pass that the
beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was
buried. This passage goes on to give
more details about this rich man and his experience in hell. And there are many earthly applications
to this passage, but I don't even want to get into them or
acknowledge them because I want to talk about the only detail
that is given about this man Lazarus. There's only one thing
said about him. And it says it in verse 20, and
there was a certain beggar named Lazarus. Lazarus was a beggar. It gives a few more details about
Lazarus, but all of those are simply more details of him just
being a beggar. What is a beggar? The definition
of a beggar is a person whose life depends on begging. Well,
what's begging? Begging is the act of asking
for a gift or charity. So a beggar is a person whose
life depends on asking for a gift or for charity. This morning, I want us to look
at the spiritual application of being a beggar. That's who
we are spiritually. We are a person, we are all individuals
who our life completely depends upon asking for a gift or for
charity. Thankfully, we have someone who
can provide a gift, someone who can provide us with charity. Spiritually speaking, what is
the gift we want? What is the gift we need? We
need eternal life. This book says the gift of God
is eternal life. That's the gift. And we need
charity. We need love. It says in this book that God
so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. The
Lord Jesus Christ is our gift. He gives us what we have to have. And he is love. So when it says,
when the definition of beggar is our life depends on someone
giving us a gift, someone giving us charity, he is the only one
who can do that. And it's important not to forget
that being a beggar, there is an action involved. You have
to ask. You're not a beggar unless you
ask for a gift, unless you ask for charity. This morning, I
just want to take a couple minutes, look at a few different beggars,
look at a few different scriptures that talk about this, and what
it is we get, what it is a beggar gets. Now we all, are desperate
not to be beggars. When we see a beggar or someone
calls us a beggar or say you're begging, that offends us. We
don't like that. Turn with me to John chapter
9. John chapter 9. Whenever I stand up here to preach
in preparation for it. There are a lot of things that
are on my mind. First and foremost is to just
preach Christ and Him crucified. But there are so many little
things that come into play, such as where are you going to preach
from? What are you going to say? What passage do you use? What
type of message? What illustrate? There's so many
parts of this. And one underlying thing that is so important and
it seems to be completely lost in today's preaching is the tone
in which someone preaches. And I think my favorite way of
describing this is the phrase that I'm not sure who said it,
but a preacher is just one beggar telling another beggar where
they found bread. And that's a great illustration
because it's saying that the person who's preaching is no
different than the people they're preaching to. Any grace that
they've received, any mercy that's been bestowed upon them, any
knowledge they have is all just a gift. It's all just the love
of God that's given them that to tell other people that. But
if I'm being honest, the deceitful sinner that I am have always
had one problem with that phrase. One beggar telling another beggar
where they found bread. If I'm a beggar who's hungry
and I find bread, I'm not telling you about it. I am stuffing all
the bread I can find in my face. And if there's more than I can
eat in that moment, I'm going to hide it somewhere that I can come
back and get the bread later. I could only think of two reasons
why a beggar would ever tell another beggar where they found
bread. The first is because they love
that person more than themselves. Now I wanted to say, and initially
had thought to say, that they love the other person. But there's
a lot of people that I would say I love, that if I'm starving
and I find bread, I'm going to eat as much as I can eat until
I'm full before I'm going to share. So I need to use the phrase
that the beggar must love the other beggar more than themselves.
When I was thinking of that, I thought of our sister, Irene,
who loves the phrase, I love you, and uses it liberally. And
I believe her, and I think she'd share the bread with me. But
I know myself. And apart from the grace of God,
I know there's nobody that I would share bread to because I love
them, because I love myself too much. Now let's get to the second
reason why a beggar would tell another beggar where they found
bread. And this is so important. If I realized that there was
more bread than I could possibly eat, more bread than I could
possibly save, and more bread than all of us together could
eat, meaning if there was an infinite supply of bread, I would
tell everyone where I found bread. Spiritually speaking, the Lord
Jesus Christ is the bread of life. He is an infinite supply
of this gift of this love that we require, that we need. There
is no sin that is too much for the blood of Christ. Man cannot
take more than he can give. Man cannot require, the sinner
cannot require more than our Lord has provided. His sacrifice
was sufficient, it was perfect. So the reason that we can preach
to each other about the bread that this beggar has found is
that the person who has this bread is the bread of life. They're
everything. That's why we share it. So in
John 9 here, look at the end of verse 8. It said, Is not this
he that sat and begged? This is a description of the
person we're going to read about. This is what all the people said
about this person. It's not this he that sat and
begged. Look at verse 1. And as Jesus
passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And
his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man
or his parents, that he was born blind? These people thought so
poorly of this beggar. that their thoughts went to,
did he sin or did his parents sin? How could he be this bad
off? Verse three, Jesus answered, neither hath this man sin nor
his parents. but that the works of God should
be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him
that sent me, while it is day, the night cometh when no man
can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of
the world. When he hath thus spoken, he spat on the ground,
made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind
man with the clay. Then he said unto him, Go wash
in the pool of Siloam, which by interpretation sent. He sent
him his way, therefore, and washed, and came clean. The neighbors,
therefore, and they which before had seen him, that he was blind,
said, Is not this he that sat and begged? And some said, This
is he. Others said, He is like him.
But he said, I am. Therefore said they unto him,
how were thine eyes opened? He answered and said, a man that
is called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said unto
me, go to the pool of Siloam and wash. And I went and washed
and I received sight. This beggar, this man who sat
by the highway side begging, this man right here, everyone
thought so little of him. that they weren't even sure if
it was the same person. Now, of all things to be remedied,
sight, I don't think it really changed this man's appearance.
Yet everyone wouldn't be sure who he was. Think, these people
thought he was interesting. They thought their attention
was called to him all because he had had this miracle done
to him. Am I the only person that when I'm driving and there's
someone on the side of the road begging and I see them, my immediate
reaction is I can't look at them. I don't know if that's out of
guilt. I don't know if that's because if I don't look, I don't
think they'll ask me. But if I'm driving and I turn
a corner and I catch a red light and there's a person with a sign
or something begging, I just either look down or I look straight
ahead and I do exactly the opposite of what I do normally. If there's
nobody there, I'll look around, just see what's going on. But
if there's a beggar there, I don't want to look at them. I don't
want to acknowledge them. All the connotations of a beggar
are negative. Oh, we don't want to be called
a beggar. Yet, at the same time, there's benefits to being a beggar.
What did we read in that first passage in our text? That beggar
died and was carried by angels to glory. Why is it that we don't
want to be a beggar? Why is it that we don't beg?
I think the answer to this basically comes down to our pride. Our
pride gets in our way. famous song that's, Ain't Too
Proud to Beg. And the song says things like,
I'll beg and I'll plead for you, I'll cry for you, I'll sleep
on your doorstep, I'll give up my pride as long as I get you.
It's a great example of what we should be when we beg for
eternal life. When we beg to our Lord, we must
beg to Him. And with these negative connotations,
let me read you something in Samuel. In Samuel, this is what
it says. He raiseth up the poor out of
the dust, and he lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, and
set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne
of glory." Why do we try so hard to not be called something that
that's what is described? The beggar here is lifted from
the dunghill, set among princes, and made to inherit the throne
of glory. That's what we want. That's what
we need. We don't want to be beggars,
but we have to be beggars. We have to be a beggar. We must
ask our Lord. We must ask him, please make
us to beg. Please, Lord, we want you to
save us. Now turn with me to Genesis chapter
32. And let's just look at a couple illustrations of someone begging. The action that comes with being
a beggar, we have to ask for something. We have to make it
known that we need something. Our pride doesn't want us to
admit that we need someone else to do something for us. Now,
we have all begged at different times for different things. And
usually begging takes a while to get to. Now, I've been approached
on the streets by someone, and you know, a person that I would
describe as a beggar, they don't actually start off begging. It
usually initially starts with simply a question or a request.
Can I have this? Can I have something? Can you
give me something? And if I say no, then we learn
how much need there is, how much desire there is. And a follow-up
question comes. Can I please have this? Can you
please give me this? And if you say no again, then
maybe it becomes, I'm begging you for this. I need this. When
we were children and you wanted something from your parents,
You asked them for it. Say you wanted to go somewhere.
You said, can I do this on Friday night? Well, if the answer was
no, and it was important enough to you, then you would establish
that. You would say, I really want to go. I know you said no,
but think about it again. I really want to go. And if the
answer is still no, what do we do? Depending on how bad we need
it or how desperate we are, we will eventually get to begging.
Now, if something isn't important, we don't beg, do we? If it's
not that important, we don't beg for it. Our pride gets in
the way. We don't want to beg for something. I don't want you
to see me groveling for something. But eventually, if we need something
bad enough, we ask for it. And these characteristics that
I'm going to say, each of these people are things that we have
to have in our begging, okay? So many people, and I'll read
a passage, we'll get to it in Luke 11, that ask unto the Lord
and it will be given to thee. There are a lot of people who
are asking of the Lord this morning. There's a lot of people who are
asking questions. But it's not enough to ask. That word and that phrase is
translated beg. We have to beg the Lord for something
if we want it. Look here in Genesis 32, verse
24. Genesis 32, 24. And Jacob was
left alone. And there wrestled a man with
him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he
prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh.
And the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled
with him. And he said, let me go, for the day breaketh. And
Jacob said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. And
he said unto him, what is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And
he said, thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel. For
a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him and said,
tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, wherefore is it
that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And
Jacob called the name of the place, Peniel, for I have seen
God face to face and my life is preserved. When we ask of
the Lord, when we beg him, there has to be urgency. In this passage,
Jacob had his hip dislocated out of joint, an extremely painful
thing, but it didn't matter. He said, I will not let go except
thou bless me. How urgent is it that we beg
the Lord to save us? It's urgent enough that if you
take this moment right now, you can ignore and not listen to
a single word I say for the rest of this message if you will urgently
ask the Lord to save you. It's that important. It's more
important than anything else we can do. We have to ask him
urgently. We don't know how much time we
have. We don't know if we'll ever feel that again. We have
to urgently ask of the Lord, please, Lord, save me. Now turn
over to Matthew chapter 15. Matthew 15. There's nothing wrong
with being a beggar. If we know how bad we need something,
we're not embarrassed to beg. Look at Matthew 15, look at verse
22. And behold, a woman of Canaan
came out of the same coast and cried unto him, saying, Have
mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David. My daughter is grievously
vexed with the devil. But he answered her not a word,
and his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away, for
she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am
not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then
came she and worshiped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered
and said, it is not meet to take the children's bread and to cast
it to dogs. And she said, truth, Lord. Yet
the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from the master's table.
Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy
faith. Be it unto thee even as thou
wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour. When
we come to the Lord, we must come humbly. We must come to
him begging that he helps us, knowing that what we're asking,
what we're requesting is for a gift. What we're requesting
is his love. We're not requesting a trade.
We're not negotiating for anything. We understand that who we are
means that we've got no reason to be given anything. We don't
deserve the gift. And also in verse 23, when this
woman, when it describes the disciples at the end, they said,
send her away for she crieth after us. This word crieth here
is translated in a few unique ways, such as shriek or scream,
or even to make the sound of a screech of a bird. Do you know that our begging,
Faithful begging to the Lord is often described as loud and
annoying to others. You know, in this world, begging
of the Lord to save you is thought of just a nuisance. It's thought
as just noise. Nobody wants to beg. I don't
have to beg. Nobody wants to do it. But we
must beg urgently. We must beg humbly. We must beg
loud. We must scream to Him. If you're
a beggar, does it matter what kind of beggar you are? If you
need something bad enough, and we'll look at someone here in
a couple minutes, if you need something bad enough, who cares
what everybody calls you? If you're a beggar and you're
hungry, and you don't know how long you've got till you're gonna
starve, does it matter what anyone else around says if the one who
has the bread, if you can get their attention? This woman didn't
care what anyone else thought. She didn't care how she had to
get it. She just needed the master to give her a gift of bread.
Turn to Luke 23. Luke 23, look at verse 50. Verse 50, Luke 23, And behold,
there was a man named Joseph, a counselor, and he was a good
man and a just. The same had not consented to
the counsel and deed of them. He was of Arimathea, a city of
the Jews, who also himself waited for the kingdom of God. And this
is right after our Lord had died. This man, Joseph, went unto Pilate
and begged the body of Jesus. And he took it down, and wrapped
it in linen, and laid it in a sepulcher that was hewn in stone, wherein
never man before was laid." This man went to the person who made
the decision, and earthly speaking, that the Lord would be crucified.
He upheld the punishment, knowing that who knows what consequences
would come to him by asking this. And Mark, it describes him going
to him. It says, he went in boldly. unto Pilate and craved the body
of Jesus. I love that description. It says
he went boldly. It said he craved the body of
Jesus. It's what he wanted. He wanted
to honor his Lord. He knew what he did. When we
go to our Lord, when we ask of him, when we beg him, we must
do it boldly. Boldly in a manner that Doesn't
say we deserve it, but boldly in a manner that we know who
He is, that in His kindness, in His love, in His generosity,
in who He is, He loves to bestow gifts upon His children. He loves
to do it. He wants to do it to His sheep.
All right, turn over a couple pages to Luke 18, and we're almost
done. Luke 18, verse 35. Talk about somebody who sure
didn't care about what anybody else thought, as long as he got
what he was asking for. Luke 18 verse 35, And it came
to pass that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind
man sat by the highway side begging, just a beggar, a blind beggar.
And hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant. And
they told him that Jesus of Nazareth passed by. And he cried, saying,
Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. And they which went
before him rebuked him, that he should hold his peace. But
he cried so much the more, Thou son of David, have mercy on me.
He is not going to let anyone stop him. And they which, in
verse 40, And Jesus stood and commanded him to be brought unto
him. And when he was come near, he asked him, saying, What wilt
thou that I should do unto thee? And he said, Lord, that I may
receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Receive
thy sight, thy faith hath saved thee. And immediately he received
his sight, and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people,
when they saw it, gave praise unto God." There are numerous
examples in the Scriptures of people that approach the Lord
with all the emotion they had. It was their life. Everything
hinged on this moment, and they didn't care what was going on.
They didn't care what anyone thought. They didn't care what
anyone said. They realized there was one thing they needed, and
there was only one person who could provide it. We have to
approach our Lord. He is the only one who can provide
us with this gift as a beggar who needs bread, who needs the
bread of life. There's only one place we can
find it. There's only one who can give
it to us. And when we approach him. It's okay that we're emotional
about it. It's that important. If it can't
be seen in your face when you ask, then your need isn't that
great. If it can't be heard in your voice, then your desire
can be questioned. If there isn't emotion, then
it isn't genuine. And finally, turn over a couple
pages to Luke chapter 11. Luke 11, verse 5, and this is our Lord
speaking here. He said unto them, Which of you
shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and
say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves? For a friend of
mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set
before him. And he from within shall answer
and say, trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children
are with me in bed, I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto
you, though he will not rise and give him, because he is his
friend, yet because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as
many as he needeth. When we beg of our Lord, we must
be persistent about it. We can't stop. Anyone who understands
their need, even after knowing what the Lord has done for His
sheep, you will never stop asking. The bread of life is new every
morning. It's such as the manna in Egypt.
When those people were hungry, every single day bread fell from
heaven, and they could eat all they wanted, but it didn't last
to the next day. Because His mercies are new every
day. We don't have to hoard it. His mercies are new every day.
Look here at verse 9, and I say unto you, ask and it shall be
given you. Seek and ye shall find, knock
and it shall be opened unto you. This word ask in verse 9, ask
and it shall be given to you, that word is translated oftentimes
as beg. It says, the Lord says unto the
people, beg and it shall be given to you. And let's close with
a few more verses of what this says. For everyone that asketh
receiveth. Everyone that begs receive. And
he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall
be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any
of you, that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he
ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he
shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being
evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much
more shall your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to them
that ask him? It just says, if we beg Him,
our Heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to us. Everlasting
life is in the Lord. And I have to say, I keep repeating,
we've got to ask Him, we've got to beg Him. We can't do it apart
from His grace and His mercy. I know you know that, but I just
want to say it. We beg the Lord to save us. We beg the Lord to
make us ask to beg to save us. I mean, we have to beg Him so
that we beg Him. But may the Lord make us to realize
that He is the only place to find this bread. We're beggars. Our lives depend upon His gift
and His charity. That's all we have. We have one
thing, and we just must ask Him. Ask the Lord. Beg Him. Don't
worry about anything else. Beg Him this moment. Beg Him
humbly. Beg Him boldly because He can
give it. Beg Him with all your emotion.
It is that important. If when we beg Him, we don't
have emotion in it, Then we're just like anybody else who's
just asking of things of the Lord. And we must be persistent. We must constantly ask Him. Every
waking moment, we must come to our Lord. Lord, I beg of you,
please, please save our souls.