Future Fear: Finding the Fault-lines in our Finances, Foolishness, & Faith

how many of you have ever had so much stuff that you had to have a… garage sale… or you took it to goodwill… or you had so much stuff that you had to get a storage unit… and then maybe another one, or a bigger one… or maybe had so much stuff you didn’t know where to put it in the attic or the garage, or the closets bursting at the door hinges...

turns out…

we might have more in common with this “rich” man than we initially thought.

One of the biggest challenges for us to recognize and then realize is when we are actually “rich” - when we don’t really consider we are, especially if we still fall under the usual American standard of living - which is rich.

because the median US income is between 40 and 60K… and the global average is only about 20k. that means for most of us, we’re earning, we’re managing, we’re sorting through twice as much at the world average. If you made twice as much as you making right now, wouldn’t you feel rich?

No matter how we might perceive our income, most of us are in fact rich. Because we’ve all taken stuff to donate far more often than we’ve actually worn it all out beyond repair.

so when Jesus starts talking about rich people, we all tend to think he’s talking to someone else, somewhere else, or among some other group of folks. but we’re all a lot more rich than we realize… so let’s pray before we dive into another parable today.

Luke 12:13–21 NIV

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” 16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ 18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’ 20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ 21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

Jesus is interrupted while talking about spiritual matters, of letting go of the concern of those who might even kill our bodies, of being concerned for the kind of defense we might have… and as He’s teaching about the Holy Spirit, from the crowd is pushed a question: a question about financial issues… it’s the inheritance… it’s what is handed down…

How many of you have ever received an inheritance? There is a sense of a certain rightful claim to it… yet Jesus warns of it. Of seeing everything that we should have coming to us, that we are getting our fair shake at things, and calls out the real issue that we are struggle with whether we care to admit to ourselves or not much in the same way we don’t see ourselves as rich… it’s the issue of greed.

here’s the thing: our financial issues are in fact spiritual issues. Spiritual issues become financial issues and vice versa. How many relationships have been torn apart simply because of how money was handled?

Yet we can train ourselves up, if we can discipline ourselves financially, there is spiritual work going on too - Jesus gets to that with the verse we all know so well: where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Our finances reveal our heart. Our finances reveal our priorities, our passion, and our purpose. Our finances, what we are called to steward well, to manage well, reveal our priorities, our passion, and our idea of purpose.

Our finances reveal our priorities in that we see who really comes first. In the parable, it’s the man himself… and he thinks he’s a self-made man too. Don’t most of us? We even talk this way: I earned it, I worked for it, I sacrificed for it, it’s mine to manage as I’d make out. We see this in verse 16 - he thinks to himself, what shall I do, it’s what I have, it’s what i’ll do, i’ll build, i’ll store, i’ll reflect, and i’ll eat, drink, and be merry.

we like to think that once we have ‘enough’ that we’ll then start to live better lives, even more godly lives. but what usually happens with money is just amplification. whatever we think we have, what power, what influence, what gifts we have, they get amplified by our finances. they reveal what’s really down in our hearts, what we really treasure.

What’s deep down in your heart?

Our finances reveal what we’re passionate about too. In the parable, the man is passionate about being able to live the good life. The life he wanted. to have a life of leisure.

This is a great verse to point out the importance of context, both literary and historical: You don’t see many t-shirts or memes out there quoting Jesus just the last half of Luke 12:19 - Take life easy; eat, drink, and be merry. -Jesus. We’d all say that’s a bad reading of the text. We’d say someone mis-handled the message and it’s quite obvious to be the case. How many times are we quick to pull a message from the words of God we’re given, and might be pulling the wrong message? Because this man in the parable was blessed. The man did not make the harvest happen. The ground did. The ground yielded the abundant harvest. There’s nothing of the work the rich man ever put in. He was rich already, and then giving more to see how that amplify who he was, who he served, and where his treasure really was…

Even if he saw this great abundance that he harvested as a thumbs up from God, he missed the message. He didn’t see it as the overflow it was meant to be - the overflow is not about him, but about the others around him.

(grain as grace)

But the rich man is only doing what we tell ourselves is good financial planning. He’s just putting his wealth in the bank he’s building for himself. For us it’s just another number in the account. We don’t have to build bigger barns, we get bank statements to build our budget and buy what we want.

Jeremiah 9:23–24 NIV

23 This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, 24 but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.

Our finances reveal what we’re about too. Whether it’s about trying safeguard or secure our idea of what the future is like… trying to get more, store more, house more, keep more in our… keep. Where is the treasure in the castle? in the keep. it’s where we keep what’s most important. the purpose of the keep is to be the most guarded, protected place. when all the other walls come down, it’s what’s left. What’s inside the keep is the purpose for all the other walls we build. The question then becomes: do your possessions possess you? Or, instead, are they something you manage, you steward, you guide as you move through life? Or does all the stuff start to solidify, calcify, and stagnate you from growing or going?

A family was putting up a hummingbird feeder with four feeding stations (similar to one that hangs outside our kitchen window). Almost immediately it became popular with the hummingbirds that lived in the area. Two, three, or even four birds would feed at one time. The feeder would be refilled at least once a day.Suddenly the usage decreased to almost nothing. The feeder needed filling only about once a week. The reason for the decreased usage soon became apparent. A male bird had taken over the feeder as his property. He was now the only hummingbird who used it. He would feed and then sit in a nearby tree, rising to attack any bird that approached his feeder. Guard duty occupied his every waking hour. He was an effective guard. The only time another bird got to use the feeder was when the self-appointed owner was momentarily gone to chase away an intruder.That hummingbird was teaching a valuable lesson. By choosing to assume ownership of the feeder, he forfeited his freedom. He was no longer free to come and go as he wished. He was tied to the work of guarding his feeder, his STUFF. He was possessed by his possessions.

we put our names on stuff to claim it as ‘mine’ but none of it ultimately is. we take none of it with us, and we’re reminded early on in Psalm 24:1

Psalm 24:1 NIV

1 The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;

so how much is really ours? that doesn’t sit well in American culture now does it?

what do we tell one another… build bigger barns, build up your keeps, guard them even more, get bigger locks, better guns, faster dogs, and stronger security systems… because we fear the future. We know God blessed us… and now we’ve got something… so we suddenly think we have the excuse to not be gracious or generous with the grain God’s given us.

But when we keep building our own towers higher… when we cease to be fruitful and multiply, when we stack all our stuff in one place… what is it that we’re really doing? we’re building our own tower of babel… because we think we can make our own way to God… and God will scatter it.

When we distrust the future, we become greedy for what we think we have… we hoard… we gather everything we can unto ourselves… and while we think we want more, it really only amounts to more to maintain, more to be stressed about, and we think we need to protect what we’ve ‘earned’, yet it was all gift to begin with.

we keep going to buy newer, bigger houses… but then it’s more work, more to maintain, more to clean, and more to fix when lifespans inevitably reach their limit.

how many times do we buy into the lie that we need more? How often does getting that next shipment from Amazon actually bring satisfaction or fulfillment?

Or we have bought into the lie that we have to continue on the trend of moving up the ladder of financial success, or a bigger house, or more stuff, or the next model, and yet with Jesus we see a very specific trend going the other way, of downward mobility…

I loved that someone once pointed out to me that when we think about when we were the least stressed, the least fearful of the future, and probably had more joy, more downtime, more restfulness even… it was in those seasons when we had a lot less… like a smaller house, less money in the bank, and all the things we are now responsible for… all that stuff starts to weigh on us. and the reality of this parable is that when we think we’ve finally got the most, when we think we’ve finally got enough in our minds to make it for a long season ahead, the retirement nest egg is complete, more often than not something we didn’t plan for or anticipate happens…

I love the contrast here too: you might have all the riches around, the rich guy in this parable has the opportunity to be generous, to chose to do so… but instead treats it as if it’s all about him… and once he’s gone, and he hasn’t even enjoyed the riches he’s accumulated.

Ironically, once he’s gone, then he’s generous… then everything he amassed goes to others… then, who will get what you prepared for yourself? at some point we’re all going to be generous, and it might be to strangers… so why not be generous now?

What are we really passionate about? What we are really concerned by?... which is where Jesus goes next in His teaching, about a distrust of the future, that we fear the unknown of the ticking clock of what’s to come… so what are we really trusting? we like to trust our treasure… we think it gives us security, that our anxieties, our worries, our fear will be satiated by enough stuff. but getting it all isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.

3. THE FIRST BILLIONAIRE

The very first person to reach the status of billionaire was a man who knew how to set goals and follow through. At the age of 23, he had become a millionaire, by the age of 50 a billionaire. Every decision, attitude, and relationship was tailored to create his personal power and wealth. But three years later at the age of 53 he became ill. His entire body became racked with pain and he lost all the hair on his head. In complete agony, the world's only billionaire could buy anything he wanted, but he could only digest milk and crackers. An associate wrote, "He could not sleep, would not smile and nothing in life meant anything to him." His personal, highly skilled physicians predicted he would die within a year. That year passed agonizingly slow. As he approached death he awoke one morning with the vague remembrances of a dream. He could barely recall the dream but knew it had something to do with not being able to take any of his successes with him into the next world. The man who could control the business world suddenly realized he was not in in control of his own life. He was left with a choice. He called his attorneys, accountants, and managers and announced that he wanted to channel his assets to hospitals, research, and mission work. On that day John D. Rockefeller established his foundation. This new direction eventually led to the discovery of penicillin, cures for current strains of malaria, tuberculosis and diphtheria. The list of discoveries resulting from his choice is enormous. But perhaps the most amazing part of Rockefeller's story is that the moment he began to give back a portion of all that he had earned, his body's chemistry was altered so significantly that he got better. It looked as if he would die at 53 but he lived to be 98. It is one thing to be healed it is another to be made whole.

Rockefeller learned gratitude, and generosity and gave back from his wealth. Doing so made him whole, giving up his fear of the future, of having more than enough financially, giving up what the world tells us we need to keep, that’s what brought life. It wasn’t the “financially responsible” thing to do… it’s not what the worlds’ advisors would have suggested either.

1 Corinthians 1:18–31 NIV

18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” 20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. 26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

Mother Theresa talked about how we have so much material wealth, we are the rich fool in this parable, and like him as well, are spiritually living in an impoverished land. So many of us have traded material security at the cost of spiritual maturity. When we get those out of order, when we jump to the end, when we bypass the work, the time, the foundation, it’s like building our house on the sand or putting new wine in old wineskins as we’ve talked about these past couple weeks. and if we’re caught up on the idea of what we think we’re getting, then we might pay a little less attention to what we’re actually getting. because we think that once we have enough, get enough, are rich enough, then we’ll be generous in word and deed.

One of my professors would often say to pay attention to those who are generous in their words, their encouragement, and most likely you’ll find someone who is generous with their finances. The reverse is also true: find someone who is not generous with their words and they are unlikely generous with their treasure. if you’re generous with your words, you are recognizing that your words are not just to build yourself up… they are to bless others. what would you say of someone who only speaks well of themselves? prideful, arrogant, self-absorbed, and selfish… not generous.

Are we trying to build bigger barns and not realize what we’ve been given in abundance is for a purpose, for a different kind of passion, and declare priorities that come from our Heavenly Father and His wisdom:

Proverbs 24:3 ESV

3 By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established;

It’s by God’s wisdom, the wisdom that says the path of downward mobility is one that glorifies God and trusts Him for whatever blessing we may experience - and on that path, we raise up, we build up others around us. Because it’s not about building ourselves up, but letting the overflow of grace, of grain, be a reflection of our treasure in heaven.

“The greatest thing you do may not be something you do, but someone you raise." – Andy Stanley

Where your treasure is, your heart will be also… and isn’t the real substance of our treasure the very people around us who are made in the image of God?

I want to close with this question: does our fear of the future set us up for a failure of faith?

we think we need enough money, enough treasure, a secure enough keep, so that we’ll keep ourselves safe from the future fears… but we’re only managing what we’ve been given here for a finite amount of time… and when God says to the man, “you fool” - that should catch our attention. Because he’s only doing what we’d call being ‘good with his money’ - he’s still just living within his means… but the blessing and the calling is to generosity, not greed. Greed says it’s all mine and it’s all about me. Generosity says it’s all gift and it’s all going to be given.

The application is this: don’t sacrifice what money can’t buy, like the brothers fighting over money and losing their relationship - they’ve made a public spectacle of themselves airing their dirty laundry… money can’t buy life… but giving it can bring it.

we can be thankful that abundant life doesn’t come from a full barn of earthly accomplishments but the way that leads to the cross, to sacrifice, and an empty tomb.

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Future Fear: Finding the Fault-lines in our Finances, Foolishness, & Faith

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