Rich Toward God, Pt. 1

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Most of us have a complicated relationship with money. We know we shouldn’t want it too much, but we’re not entirely sure what “too much” looks like. Pastor Nick Gatzke presents an often-overlooked parable that challenges us to think about what we have, what we want, and what will happen in the end.

When you put your faith in the Lord Jesus and he changes your life, he doesn’t just change your eternal life, though he does. He also changes your life right now. And that process of change has a number of different axes that are challenging for us. And one of them, and perhaps the most challenging for many of us, is how does our faith in the Lord Jesus change our view of life as it relates to our possessions? Another way to ask the question is, what do you think your life is made up of? And now that you know Jesus, how have those perceptions changed? These are some of the defining questions that every single person needs to ask sooner or later. What am I pursuing with my life, with my affections, with my desires? And what does it reveal about what I believe to be the best parts of life? What does it reveal about what I value the most?

And in Luke chapter 12, Jesus… approached by a stranger in a crowd, and he has a concern about his brother not being fair in dividing the inheritance. And Jesus uses the opportunity to talk about this much greater issue. It’s an issue for every single one of us. It’s certainly an issue for me. It’s the issue of what we pursue and how it reveals whether or not we are truly rich or truly poor in this life.

And so follow with me as I read Luke chapter 12, starting at verse 13, says this. Someone in the crowd said to him, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. But he said to him, Man, who made me a judge or arbiter over you? And he said to them, take care and be on guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. And he told them a parable, saying, the land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, what shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops. And he said, I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, fool, this night your soul is required of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for

himself and is not rich toward God. The man approaches Jesus and he calls him teacher. He says, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. This is a problem that we’ve all seen before. And I can tell you, in my role, I’ve seen it again and again and again. Because when the parents pass away and leave something behind, and if their wishes are unclear, or maybe even if their wishes are clear, the tension that arises in the siblings is significant. And things can get really ugly really fast. And it’s astonishing, quite frankly, because everybody’s life can be going along just splendidly. No one has a lack of anything that they actually need. But now, all of a sudden, people become willing to tear their families apart, to have some stuff, to have some more, to have some things that they didn’t have before. They were just fine. But the temptation is strong.

And so you have grown men fighting over crockery. They have no interest in cooking or using it. But the idea of having more is strong. And you have grown women fighting over furniture. They have a house full of furniture already. And yet they like the couch that mom and dad have just a little bit better. And as a result, tension arises. And when you include land, or money, or houses, the dividing of inheritance can get even uglier. And so we don’t know this man’s situation exactly. He wanted Jesus to adjudicate. And in the Jewish world, it wasn’t uncommon for people to have a rabbi navigate their conflict of inheritance for them because the Torah outlined a variety of laws regarding this thing. And so the man considers Jesus a spiritual authority. He considers him a rabbi. And he approaches Jesus. And in his approach of Jesus, he most likely doesn’t really want Jesus to arbitrate between him and his brother. What he really wants him to do is to decide against his brother. And Jesus will not oblige the request. But instead, he uses it as an opportunity to reveal what’s really happening on the inside of the heart of the man and to highlight one of the greatest struggles that every single one of us has.

And so he says in verse 15, to everyone in earshot and to us, a warning. The warning is take care and be on your guard against all covetousness. For one’s life, your real life, your life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. Covetousness is the state of always desiring more, irrespective of need. Covetousness is greed. Some of your Bible translations might say that. Take care to guard against all kinds of greed because the desire to always have more is the temptation of every single generation and perhaps especially in our generation today. And Jesus says this acquisition of more is not what real life is all about. Now this begs the question. It actually begs two questions. Question number one is, what is it about money and things that tempt us into greed? And question number two is, if real life isn’t found in the pursuit of more, which in some ways is intuitive to us, we intuitively want to pursue more. But if Jesus is saying that real life isn’t there, then… does this real life consist of? And he tells them a parable to answer these two questions.

And since it’s short, let me remind you of it. I’ll read it quickly again, just a couple of verses. Jesus says this. He says, the land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, what shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops. And he said, I will do this. I will tear down my barns. And I’ll build larger ones. And there I will store my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, Fool, this night your soul is required of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? Now every parable, has some kind of twist or a surprise that helps us to see the application that Jesus intends. And here, the surprise is that this man has a perfectly common or natural dilemma that is before him. He’s done nothing wrong to achieve the success that he has. He hasn’t cheated anybody. His motive to that point had been pure. The growth of his crop and the surplus doesn’t cause him to store more in an attempt to take advantage of some kind of market manipulation or price increase later. This is a natural problem and everyone wants this type of problem. You want this type of problem. I want this type of problem. My client base is expanding so much that I need to hire more salesmen to meet the need. It’s that kind of problem. My work is going so well that every year they give me another raise and I’m getting larger bonuses upon bonuses. And in fact, I’ve had more money than I’ve ever had before. My crops are yielding so much that I don’t have any place to put it all. I’m gonna have to tear down my barns and build bigger ones. If you’re the one in that situation, you are saying, wow, God has surely blessed my hard work. God has surely blessed my business. God has surely blessed my family because intuitively we all want have more. And when God gives us that more, we therefore assume that this is good for us and that we are being blessed by God.

But what we see here is that the attitude and the desire that having more causes in the man becomes the sinful piece of the story. Look at verse 19. He says, I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. So what should you do? Relax, eat, drink, and be merry.

A couple of minutes ago, we asked the question, what is it about money that leads us to be tempted with greed? And here we get a glimpse because we know that money is simply a mechanism to get what we value. Money in and of itself holds little or no inherent value. Piece of paper with a president picture on it and a number up top of it isn’t worth anything in and of itself. Small coins have very little inherent value to them. But money isn’t what is valuable. What is valuable to us? And in this case, what is most valuable to the man? Himself. When the man says, I am going to use what I have to eat, drink, be merry, and relax, what does that indicate about what is most valuable to him? What is most valuable to the man is himself.

I wonder what your use of money indicates about what you value. Jesus says in Matthew 6:21, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” And I was thinking about this this week and reflecting on my own life and being convicted in my own soul about the things that my money sometimes says about what I value. And I was thinking about all of us in the same regard. And I was thinking about this perpetual struggle that we have in this world in which we have just this incredible love affair with things and having more. And it caused me to wonder, what do most people spend their money on? And there’s a number of statistics out there about the average American. Now I know… I know that most of you are far above average.

But this is what the average American spends their money on. The average American household spends approximately $61,000 per year. The majority of that, of course, is spent on housing and transportation and food, the three major costs. And if you have children, the old saying goes, every kid you have is a Ferrari, you don’t. I think that might be true. But beyond that, it’s estimated that Americans spend approximately $18,000 a year on non-essential items. And so the average American household spends approximately 10% to 15% of their annual income on vacations. The average American household spends about $900 a year on pets, which results in a $74 billion a year industry. The average American household spends 1% of their income on alcohol. And since many households don’t drink, the average for the ones that do is probably more 2% to 3% of their annual income on alcohol. And the average American household spends about 6% of their income on eating out, which is only slightly lower than the amount that they spend on food at home. I wonder what your credit card statement says about what you value the most.

I think of the prayer. Upon reflecting on this passage, Dear Lord, I have been rereading the record of the rich businessman, and his wrong choice wasn’t so obvious to me, but it has set me thinking. No matter how much wealth he had, he could not ride in a car, have any surgery, turn on a light, buy penicillin, hear a pipe organ, watch TV, wash dishes in running water, type a letter, mow a lawn, fly an airplane, sleep on an innerspring mattress, or talk on the phone. And if he was rich, then what am I?

You know, it’s interesting that money in our midlife points to what we value. In a graduation commencement a number of years ago, James Dobson once talked about our current love affair with climbing the ladder and gaining more and more and more. And he said this, he said, it’s important to use your talents in life. It’s important. But if that’s the end of it, there is a disillusionment that sets in between the ages of 35 to 50. This is commonly called the midlife crisis. And I believe that it is more of a phenomenon of a wrong value system than it is of an age group in which it occurs. Because all of the sudden, you realize the ladder you’ve been climbing is leaning up against the wrong wall. You know, money, in midlife points to what we value. And our use of money in retirement points to what we value, maybe even more so. Because when it comes to saving for retirement and spending for retirement and achieving the American dream, that’s where the story of this man and a hard working life and the large barns is in some ways told. If I keep getting more, he thinks, I can live for myself. And this is where our culture simultaneously helps us and lies to us. Because we know that it’s a good thing to save for your retirement. It’s a good thing to be prudent with your money. It’s a good thing to be able to put money away so that when you are no longer able to work, you don’t have to rely on somebody else. It’s even good as you gain more years to have the ability to slow down, to have periods of relaxation, and to enjoy your latter years. However, this is also where the culture lies to us. It lies to us because it says that the main use of your money is to value yourself above all things, especially when you retire.

And so Jesus concludes in the parable by saying in verse 20, God said to the man, fool. This night your soul is required of you and these things that you’ve prepared, whose will they be? Here’s the warning and here’s the main idea. The warning is guard yourself because your life doesn’t consist of the abundance of possessions. So guard yourself against this greed. The main idea of the parable is this: Wealth toward self leads to poverty toward God.

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This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy, but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.