Your Father Has Given You the Kingdom

Jesus has an unbelievable command to his disciples: “Sell your possessions and give to the poor.”

Do you think Jesus is serious?

Does he really expect his followers to sell their possessions and give to the poor?

I won’t ask you to raise your hand, but does the thought of obeying this command make you anxious?

Why does Jesus talk like this?

Jesus is challenging our tendency to be greedy. He prods our sinful tendency to make possessions #1 in our life. We’re tempted to make wealth an idol, as if money and possessions can guard your life and protect you better than God can.

Earlier in Lk 12, as Jesus was speaking, someone in the crowd called out:

“Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Luke 12:13 (NIV)

That’s what started this whole discussion in Luke’s gospel: sibling rivalry over inheritance. It’s not new.

How did Jesus respond?

With a sharp warning: “Watch out! Be on your guard!”

Watch out for what?

Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions. Luke 12:15 (NIV)

Parable of bigger barns

· This is not a parable against building grain storage.

· Thankfully, it’s not a parable against tearing down a building to replace it with another one, bigger and better.

Jesus doesn’t want anyone to miss the point of this parable:

This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God. Luke 12:21 (NIV)

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Store up things for self OR be rich toward God?

That’s the dividing line. Where do your motives and goals fall?

It’s an enormous challenge for each of us. We try to straddle the line: gather riches for ourselves AND be rich toward God.

Most of us want to be rich toward God. Q: but do we want to serve God so faithfully that we would sell possessions and give to the poor? That’s hard. Not all of us want to do that. Most of us want to be generous. Could you actually put something up for sale and give the money to the poor?

Once it’s sold, you don’t have it anymore. Our culture, even among church-goers, our culture places value on having stuff, being rich, having good equipment, a good vehicle, and a good place to live.

Giving up stuff – even stuff we don’t use – is hard. It goes against our nature. Even when you’ve been a Christian for a long time, it’s a struggle to have a healthy perspective on your possessions. Thankfully God hasn’t stopped transforming us by his Word and Spirit yet! He doesn’t leave us to struggle to obey Jesus simply by trying harder. We aren’t left to slay the greed lingering in our hearts by our own willpower.

Along with the invitation to sell and give, Jesus refers to God’s generosity. He introduces his command to sell your possessions and give to the poor with these comforting words:

Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Luke 12:32 (NIV)

Don’t be afraid to be generous. Don’t be afraid to value serving God over hoarding God’s good gifts.

Don’t kid yourself, being generous can be frightening. Letting go of something valuable feels risky. Once you give it away, you have no control of what happens next.

Often when kids are young, they like to give stuff away. If you let them, some kids would give away all their candies or all their stuffed toys. I’ve caught myself discouraging my children from being generous. “Don’t you realize that if you give it away you won’t have it anymore?” Oops, my own insecurity, my own messed up priorities are showing.

Don’t be afraid of being generous, says Jesus. “Your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.” Generosity is a characteristic of God’s. God is always giving.

When Adam & Eve were created, God entrusted his whole creation to them. You can read it in the 1st chapter of the Bible:

God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” Genesis 1:26 (NIV)

Our first parents put that into jeopardy by disobeying God. So God entered his own creation. He became human, namely Jesus.

Jesus’ message throughout the gospels was to proclaim that the kingdom of God was coming. The “kingdom of God” is mentioned 42X in Luke’s gospel. It’s one of Jesus’ messages to his disciples on the night he was betrayed:

I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Luke 22:29–30 (NIV)

It’s a huge gift; an enormous privilege. Jesus’ whole mission is to restore humankind to their original position of trust, ruling over God’s creation under God.

I often mention God the Father’s generosity, using a quote from John’s gospel:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:16–17 (NIV)

But Jesus, fully demonstrated God’s generosity as a human. The Apostle Paul writes to his apprentice Titus about how Jesus rescued us from selfishness and greed by giving up his own life:

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. Titus 2:11–14 (NIV)

In his grace and generosity, Jesus rescued us from greed and idolatry. He freed us to become as open-handed, selfless, and generous as God created us to be from the beginning. As citizens of the kingdom of God, we are becoming more like God in our generosity. Grace is the currency of the kingdom of God.

Once you have been rescued from sin and death by God’s grace in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, once you have been raised to a new life with Jesus by his resurrection from the grave, you take your place as an ambassador of the kingdom of God. God’s Word and Spirit help you to become generous, compassionate. You learn the secret of contentment is that God provides everything you need – and often provides even more than you need precisely so that you can be generous.

There was a time when Robin & I received financial assistance from deacons in another congregation while I was a university student. After sitting down with the deacons and showing how much money we needed, we received a cheque from them. The cheque was 10% higher than we needed. They said they wanted to give us enough money that we could be generous with what we received.

The antidote to greed is giving stuff away.

Storing up things for yourself is a hindrance to being rich toward God.

So Jesus’ command to his disciples was for them to sell their possessions and give to the poor. Do you think anybody ever did that?

Yes. You can read accounts of Jesus’ disciples doing it. Christ-like generosity was a characteristic of the early church:

They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Acts 2:45 (NIV)

With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. Acts 4:33–35 (NIV)

Barnabas, who went church-planting with Paul

But it’s not just in the Bible-times that people were that generous. Have you taken a look at Crosspoint’s financial statement from 2023? Many of you have been very generous.

Paid off the mortgage and short-term loan on construction

$50 000 surplus in the budget

$$$ to other causes

Generous donations to support the mission trip to Kentucky

AND all the hours invested in ministry, prayer, maintenance

For some of you this is a growth area; for others it’s a real strength. You and God know best if this is an area of obedience you need to work on. But Jesus’ challenge is there:

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Luke 12:32–34 (NIV)