Pastor Nick Gatzke

Every pastor has heard some version of the same phone call. A parent dies and before the grief has even settled, the siblings are fighting—over land, jewelry, and furniture nobody wanted a month earlier. Grown adults who loved each other for decades suddenly find themselves at odds over a china cabinet. It’s one of the oldest tensions in family life, and it’s the same problem that is shouted to Jesus in Luke chapter twelve.

Divide the Inheritance

A man calls out from the crowd, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” In the Jewish world of Jesus’s day, it wasn’t unusual for a rabbi to be asked to settle exactly this kind of dispute, and the man clearly hopes Jesus will rule in his favor.

Jesus won’t take the bait. “Man, who made me a judge or arbiter over you?” he asks—and then he does something better than settling the argument. He exposes what’s underneath it.

Jesus says, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). Covetousness is the relentless appetite for more, regardless of need. It doesn’t discriminate by income or generation, and it isn’t solved by getting the inheritance settled in your favor.

The Parable of the Rich Fool

To make his point, Jesus tells a short parable. A rich man’s land produces so abundantly that he has nowhere to store the harvest, so he tears down his barns to build bigger ones and settles in for the good life. “I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry’” (Luke 12:19).

The man hasn’t done anything wrong to get to this point. His fields simply produced more than expected—the kind of problem most of us would love to have. When it happens to us, we tend to call it “blessing”. But God calls the man something else entirely: “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:20).

His mistake wasn’t the size of his harvest. It was the size of his self-regard. Every plan he made was for himself—my barns, my grain, my soul, my relaxation.

What Your Wallet Reveals

Money itself has no real value. It’s a piece of paper with a president’s picture on it or a few metal coins. What gives money its power is what we use it to pursue. Jesus put it plainly, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). Our bank statements and credit card bills are some of the most honest journals we keep. Beyond the basics of housing, food, and transportation, most of us funnel a surprising share of our income toward vacations, eating out, and simple comforts. It’s worth asking what your own spending reveals about what you treasure most.

Jesus draws the parable to a close with a single, piercing summary: “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:21). This shows up in the ladder-climbing disillusionment sometimes called a “midlife crisis”. It shows up in retirement planning, too. Saving wisely is good and prudent, but our culture tells us the point of saving is to finally live for yourself. That’s the lie hiding underneath otherwise good financial advice.

What It Looks Like to Be Rich Toward God

So what’s the alternative? Being rich toward God means instead of storing everything up for yourself, you hold what you have with open hands. More than that, it means finding God of greater worth than anything money can buy—treasured above the next car, the next vacation, the next big win. Paul lived this out: “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord . . . in order that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8).

Being rich toward God also means letting your excess become someone else’s provision, giving faithfully to the Lord’s work and looking for real opportunities to bless others. Years ago, construction workers laying a foundation outside Pompeii uncovered the remains of a woman fleeing the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Her hands were still clutched around a collection of jewels, remarkably preserved after centuries underground. She kept her grip on the treasure to the very end—and death took it from her anyway.

The message that you don’t have enough is relentless. Contentment doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the fruit of trusting that the God who has met your needs today will meet them tomorrow, and even into retirement.

He is No Fool

Jim Elliot, the missionary who gave his life on the mission field, wrote something worth carrying with you: “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” Wealth toward self leads to poverty toward God. But treasuring God above everything else—that’s where real life is finally found. So take an honest look at where your money goes. Ask what it reveals about what you value. Then ask the Lord to make you rich toward him.

“A Word From Pastor Nick” is based on Pastor Nick Gatzke’s teaching series: Beyond Repair, message: Certain Death