| Guard against Greed |
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JESUS: His Commands: “Guard Against Greed” Luke 12:13-21 (15) Audio He hadn’t set out to be wealthy; it just seemed that he had been in the right place at the right time. In the late 1970s, when his friend Bill had asked him if he was interested in investing in his new company, he had just received an inheritance from his father. He knew it was a risk, but it was money he didn’t really need right then, so he decided to take the gamble. $50,000 – maybe he would lose it all, but then again, who knows? Maybe he would score big. In 1986, when Bill’s company went public and issued stock, he was given stock worth 4 times as much as he had initially invested. And the stock went through the roof.
Now he was rich beyond his wildest dreams. Where should he invest next? Should he just stick with Microsoft, or should he invest in this new company called Google? Or with Yahoo? Or maybe he should invest in gold. He could retire in luxury and take it easy: party and have a great time. And then came the dream, when God called him a fool. In Luke 12, the story Jesus tells is not about investing in stock; it’s about agriculture. Today He maybe would have told the story with a different setting, but the Jews of His day understood agriculture: preparing the soil, and sowing and harvesting and grain elevators. And since here in this part of the state we understand grain-growing as well, let’s read the story as Jesus told it. Read Luke 12:13-21. As we continue to look at Jesus’ commands, I was struck by the one He gives here. It’s a warning. Look at it in v.15: Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. The King James translation uses the word “covetousness”. The word means “eager to have more, especially to have what belongs to others.” “Watch out” God says. “Be on your guard against greed.” It’s one of the 10 Commandments, the final one. ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.' TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself any idols THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.' FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.' FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.' SIX: 'You shall not murder.' SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.' EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.' NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.' TEN: 'You shall not covet… It’s interesting that 8 of the commandments that God gave have to do with behaviors, but the first one and the last one have to do with a heart condition. Covetousness, greed, has to do with our heart. It’s easy to look at this story that Jesus told in Luke 12 and think it’s not about us. “It’s about someone who is rich, and I certainly am not rich.” Yet Jesus’ command that accompanies the story is not to rich people. It’s to common people, to people like all of us. You don’t have to be rich to be greedy. Greed is an equal opportunity sin: rich, poor, ethnic majority or ethnic minority, educated or uneducated – it doesn’t matter. The sin of greed, of covetousness, can be a temptation to any one of us. Jesus told the story in response to a man in the crowd who made a request of Him. “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Someone had died and had left money to this man and his brother, and now they were fighting over the money. We aren’t told all the circumstances that led to this request, but Jesus refused to be drawn into their dispute. There are some fights you don’t want to get involved in, and some requests you don’t want to respond to. Jesus gives us the example that it’s ok to sometimes say “no” to requests that are made of us. People often want us to solve their problems for them, and Jesus said in essence: “Settle it yourselves. I’m not going to get involved.” But He used the occasion to make a point: “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” All kinds of greed – and I wondered how many kinds there are. “Every form of greed”, “the least bit of greed”, “of any kind” some other translations say. It may just be saying that covetousness can take the form of a greedy longing for more things, or for more power, or for more popularity, or for more influence, or for more recognition – and whatever form greed takes, it is wrong, it is sin. What a timeless message from God! Our culture today is filled with greed. It even comes into the church baptized as the prosperity gospel. As one song-writer facetiously wrote: Name it and claim it, that’s what faith’s about! You can have what you want if you just have no doubt. So make out your “wish list” and keep on believin’ And you will find yourself perpetually receivin’. (John G. Stackhouse, jr., “the Gospel Song” an unpublished parody) Greed arises out of an unbiblical view of life. It arises out of the belief that life consists of the abundance of one’s possessions, all of the things one has. It’s how society measures us: the house we live in, the car we drive, the clothes we wear, the toys we have: our boat, our RV, our snowmobile, our 4-wheeler. If we don’t view life differently than the world around us, we will suffer from greed just as much as they do. That’s why it’s so important that we develop a Biblical view of life. Ecclesiastes In the story that Jesus tells in Luke 12, the farmer uses the words “I”, “my”, and “myself” frequently. He had no need for God because he was self-reliant and doing well for himself. He was getting along quite well without God. And in that self-centeredness, he only thought about what his possessions could do for him and not what they might do for others. It wasn’t just that he had enough; he had an abundance. I read a story by Lee Stroble about when he was a newspaper reporter prior to his becoming a Christian. One year a shortly before Christmas he wrote human interest article about a widow woman with 2 children who had been burned out of their home and were now living in a very small apartment with next to nothing. And the people of the city responded to his article in an overwhelming way with food and furniture and clothing and Christmas gifts and money. A few days after the article appeared, he went back to visit the woman to do a follow-up article. He was amazed that the woman was preparing to give away much of what she had received. Her statement was: “God has blessed us so much. Now we have way more than we need, and there are so many others in this neighborhood who don’t have hardly anything at all.” And Stroble said that incident and that woman was part of what God used to bring him to faith in Jesus. That woman understood what Jesus is saying to us here in Luke 12. She knew that God blesses us to we can bless others. The farmer never understood that. He thought it was all his to hoard, to use for his own luxury and pleasure. She trusted in God; he trusted in his possessions. We hear a lot today about retirement planning: pension plans, and 401K plans, and 403bs, and self-directed IRAs, and Roth IRAs, tax-sheltered annuities, and deferred income, and Social Security. And as I approach my 65th birthday I wonder:”How much is enough?” Do you need $100,000, $250,000, $500,000, a million? I guess it’s a little late to start asking that now, isn’t it! The question is not “How much is enough?” That’s the wrong question. The right question is: “Who or what have you put your trust in?” If you put your trust in your possessions, no matter how much you have it’s not enough. If you put your trust in God, no matter how little you have, it’s enough. Greed is not about providing for your own needs, and for the needs of your family. God says we are to do that. There is nothing wrong with providing for your family. Greed is not about needs; greed is about always wanting more, about never being satisfied. Greed says “I know better than God does what will make me happy.” God says that as I honor Him, He will supply my need. He will give me good gifts as I come to Him with a humble heart and ask of Him. And as He gives me those gifts, I am to be thankful for what I have, rather than coveting what I do not have. When Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence, I have read that he wrote of our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of possessions. “The pursuit of possessions.” But that’s not the way it ended up. In the re-writing process others convinced him that it should be the “pursuit of happiness.” And that’s the way it came out in final form. But there are still people who believe that happiness is equated with possessions. The more I have, the happier I will be. The less I have, the unhappier I will be. So they continue in their quest for more. Here is God’s assessment of the farmer, and of those today who believe that life consists of the abundance of things: “You fool!” It’s a compound word that literally means: “without understanding”. “Senseless, foolish, stupid, someone who doesn’t add up the facts correctly; someone who does not have a grasp of reality” – how would you like for that to be God’s evaluation of you? That is God’s evaluation of everyone who believes that life consists of the abundance of things. Let me give you 5 reasons why this command is so important. Your heart follows your treasure. Jesus said in Matt. 6:19-21 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. If you have more treasure on earth than you do in heaven, your heart will be more for the things of this earth than for the things of heaven. What you do for God’s kingdom stores up riches in heaven; what you do for yourself stores us riches on this earth, and your heart will follow your treasure. Earthly things are only temporary. The farmer in Jesus’ story illustrates this: when he died he left his earthly treasure behind, and he had no heavenly treasure. 2 Cor. Earthly things can choke out spiritual things. Matt. 13 Jesus tells a story of another farmer. This one is planting seed rather than harvesting. And as he plants, the seed falls into different kinds of soil – some of it good, and some of it not so good. One of the kinds of soil that Jesus describes was good soil with a problem: it has weed seeds in it. (V.22) Jesus was really talking about people, and about the Word of God. And he said that the one who was represented by the weedy soil is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. The deceitfulness of wealth – that was what had happened to the farmer we are looking at today. He was deceived into thinking that his wealth was ultimate reality rather than God being ultimate reality. And when we believe that today, the Word of God is choked out from bearing fruit in our lives. You cannot serve God and money When money controls you, God does not; when God controls you, money does not. Jesus said in 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.” Last Sunday I made reference to the story of rich young ruler, where Jesus said to this man: “sell all you have and give to the poor, then come follow Me”. And I said that this was not a universal command. It was a command to a specific individual whose heart Jesus could see into. His things were in control and He could not follow Jesus as long as that was the case. You cannot serve God and things. The love of money becomes an evil root. 1 Tim. 6:9-10 says People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. Greed, the love of money, wanting to get rich – it is the doorway, it is the root of many other evils. Think of the families that have been destroyed, the marriages that have been destroyed, the children’s lives that have been destroyed by greed. Think of the dishonesty that has grown, the lies, the cheating, the stealing, the embezzlement, the crime, the betrayal, the prison terms. No wonder Jesus says: Be on your guard against greed. I was struck by that sentence in v.10: Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. Those people used to be people of faith in God, but they had wandered from the faith. Have you seen it? There are people who used to worship among us, but they have wandered from the faith. The need to work Sundays so they could get the overtime and have a better life. And they began wandering from the faith. They money began to come, so they bought a boat, or an RV. And it didn’t seem to make much sense to have those things and not use them on the weekends, so they went out of town from Friday night to late Sunday, and wandered even further from the faith. God seemed to get squeezed out of their lives, and family pressures built. Now some of them are divorced and the children are trying to figure it all out. They have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. Let’s go back to Luke 12. The final verse of our reading this morning gives us both the real problem and God’s solution (read). The real problem when it comes to material possessions is our spiritual poverty. You see, Jesus said that the problem was not in the farmer’s storing up things for himself; the real problem was his spiritual poverty. He was rich materially, but he was destitute spiritually. And if he had been rich toward God, the material stuff would not have been a problem. Sometimes we think it’s more spiritual to be poor than it is to be rich. It was God who had blessed this farmer – his abundance came from the hand of God; he just failed to recognize that fact and ask God what He would have him do with that abundance. There are people in this congregation that God has blessed financially. God does not call them fools because they are prosperous. But He does call them fools if they are not rich toward God. There are people in this congregation who are on public assistance, and they can hardly get by from month to month. God does not call them fools because they are poor. But He does call them fools if they are not rich toward God. Are you rich toward God? What does that even mean? The word that is used literally means “to have an abundance”. Do you have an abundance in your relationship with God? I have heard people, especially older people say: “I had such a rich time with God last night. His presence was so rich; He abundantly blessed my through His word and His Spirit.” And some of you don’t even know what they are talking about. Spiritually rich, spiritually well-fed, spiritual hunger satisfied by Jesus. Rich toward God: not focused on yourself, but on Him and on helping others come to know Him. Rich toward God: seeing Him as more important than our things, and living that out in our everyday lives. Rich toward God: thankful to Him for the blessing of family and friends, for His Word and His Spirit. Filled with gratitude toward Him rather than with complaints about how He is treating you. Rich toward God: with faith in Him, and enough trust in Him to obey Him. Rich toward God: understanding that eternal things are more valuable than earthly things. Are you rich toward God? Which do you want written on your gravestone one day: “A FOOL”, or “RICH TOWRD GOD”? |
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