Rich Toward God, Pt. 2

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There’s an old saying: “you can’t take it with you.” It’s one of those truths that we agree with, in theory, but never quite gets all the way down into how we live. Pastor Nick Gatzke returns to a powerful parable to find out what our money says about what we value.

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’s 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. Money helps us get 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 hardworking 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 the main idea. The warning: guard yourself because your life doesn’t consist in the abundance of possessions. So guard yourself against this greed. The main idea: Wealth towards self leads to poverty toward God.

The parable is not primarily about wealth. It’s about wealth that is solely directed toward self. And there is a difference. The man heaps up great possession. He assumes that he is secure because of those possessions. He believes that his property is his own instead of seeing it as God’s property that is used through him. And his mindset regarding his things is toward himself. But wealth towards self leads toward poverty, toward God. And Jesus applies it to all of us when he says, so it is for the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

Guys, I really want to be rich toward God. Don’t you? Don’t you want to be rich toward God? And it’s interesting that in this passage, Jesus… tell us specifically what it means, what steps you can take to be rich toward God. But when you take a step back and you look at the totality of his ministry, you start to get a glimpse. And the meaning in this passage of being rich toward God is displayed in the plain contrast. So let me give you four brief statements of what it means to be rich toward God, especially as it relates to our struggle with possessions. Being rich toward God, is the opposite of storing treasures up for yourself. That’s the plain contrast of the parable. Being rich toward God, and this I think is the most important. If you take nothing else away today, take this. Being rich toward God is finding him to be of greatest value in your life. And this is the struggle.

Because the only way that you have to grow in seeing God in majesty and power and infinite value, value that is so much more desirable to you than a new car, value that is so much more desirable to you than the next exceptional vacation. The only way that you begin to see him more clearly in this regard is to learn more and more about him by seeking him in his word and learn more and more about him by seeking to follow him in obedience in your life. Even when you don’t feel like it and even when it doesn’t make the most sense to you. Because when you know him and you obey him, you will begin to confer the proper value to him. He will continue to become supreme in your life.

And when you begin to love him more than you love him today, when you begin to love him with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your… mind and with all of your strength. When you love God like that, you will treasure him supremely over all things. You will be like Paul who says in Philippians 3:8, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” You know, when you fix your eyes in this life on material things, it will be material things that you strive for. When you focus your affection on houses and cars and good food and great vacations, you show that you treasure above all things yourself.

But when you fix your eyes on the Lord, when you show your gaze in his direction, when you point to the Lord Jesus who forgave you on the cross, who shows himself to you to be sufficient for all things, your greatest need of your sin and your intermediate needs of God. The material world who loves you with an everlasting love, when you fix your eyes on him, you will treasure him. And when you treasure God above all things, you will handle your money differently. And so what are you fixing your eyes on? Where does your gaze rest? Because wealth towards self leads to poverty toward God.

But being rich toward God changes how you value everything else. Being rich toward God is the opposite of storing treasures for yourself. Being rich toward God means that you find him to be of greatest value in your life. Being rich toward God means that I bless others with my overflow. I grow not only in loving the Lord, my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, but I also grow in loving my neighbor as myself. And how that applies to your money is that I seek to make my excess a blessing for other people. We give faithfully to the Lord and to his work through our church. And we look for opportunities to be generous to those around us and to bless them as well. And lastly, being rich toward God means that you fight. and that you trust, that you fight and that you trust. We have to fight for contentment today. I have to fight for contentment every single week of my life because the messages telling me I don’t have enough are pervasive. We have to fight for contentment. And we can be generous and grow in generosity with our excess because we choose to trust, to trust the Lord, to trust that God not only will meet my needs today, but that out of my excess, I can be generous because I trust that God will also meet my needs tomorrow and the next day and even in retirement. And so we fight. And we trust.

Several years ago, construction workers were laying a foundation for a building outside the city of Pompeii. And they found under the surface a corpse of a woman who must have been fleeing from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. But she was caught in the rain of ash. The woman’s hands clutched jewels, which were well-preserved even after years and years of the body’s decay. She had the jewels, but death had stolen it all.

And that’s the bottom line in life. Worldly treasure is not a wise investment. because you can’t take it with you. Jim Elliot, the missionary who was martyred for his faith, understood this reality and one time wrote in his journal, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” Wealth towards self leads to poverty toward God. But being rich toward God means that we value him above all things. And so I close and just ask you the simple question.

As you think about this parable of Jesus and as you think about yourself and what you value and where your resources are allocated, what changes might you make to let the gospel reflect in your life? Because if you’re anything like me, you hear a message like this and you think about it in the moment and it stings a little bit. It hurts there a little bit and you start to wonder, but it becomes kind of complicated and kind of hard. And as time goes on, Monday afternoon or Tuesday afternoon comes along and it’s just easier to say, oh, I was challenged by that, but I’m just going to set it aside. But what changes might you make to express your true values? Because this is, Jesus says, real life. And this is the greatest life. And friends, I want us to be rich toward God together. Let’s pray.

Father, make us rich toward you all the more, we ask. God, help us loosen our clutches on our material things. God, grow in us a deeper affection and desire and value of you. God, help us to see the reality around us with greater clarity that you are supreme in all that you do and that your ways are best and that we can trust you for our needs and we can follow you faithfully with our wealth. God, we confess that so often we have not done this well. I confess that so often I have not done this well. And today we ask for the ongoing change that your spirit does in our heart and our mind and through our actions. And we pray together, longing to be rich in you. Amen.

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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.