Your Father Has Given You Kingdom

Jesus commands 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?

Does the thought of selling possessions and giving to the poor 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 started the whole discussion in Luke’s gospel: sibling rivalry over inheritance.

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

The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. he thought to himself, “What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.”

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. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink, and be merry.’”

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?” Luke 12: 16-20 (NIV)

This is not a parable against building grain storage. 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. On which side are your motives and goals? It’s a big Q for each of us.

Some days we try to straddle the line: gather riches for ourselves AND be rich toward God. But you can’t serve 2 masters.

Most days we do want to be rich toward God. At least, we want to want to.

But are you so determined to serve God faithfully that you would sell your possessions and give to the poor? Could you actually list some possessions on Kijiji and give $ to the poor?

Once it’s sold, you don’t have it anymore. That makes us anxious.

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 possessions.

Thankfully God hasn’t stopped transforming us by his Word and Spirit yet! He doesn’t leave us to try harder alone. 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 this comfort:

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.

Let’s not fool ourselves, 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 young kids like to give stuff away. If you let them, some kids would give away all their candy or distribute 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 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 first 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 earliest parents put our role in 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)

How?

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

God the Father’s generosity, is often told in a well-known 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 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 to transform humankind:

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 rescues us from greed and idolatry.

He freed us to become as open-handed, selfless, and generous as God intended us to be from the beginning. As citizens of the kingdom of God, we become 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 so you can be generous.

There was a time when Robin & I received financial assistance from deacons while I was a university student. After describing the help we needed, we received a cheque. The amount was 10% higher than we needed. The deacons wanted to give us enough money so we could be generous.

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, did too. That was right before the Ananias & Sapphira fiasco (in Acts 5).

But it’s not just in long-off Bible-times that people were generous.

The Junction does ministry. I don’t know specifics, but:

the building is maintained and staff are paid,

$78 000 for Chr. School!

if the deacons stood up and said “we need money to help someone,” I’m confident they would get every cent they needed

Redeemer University, Calvin Seminary get support

if you’re like every CRC I’ve served, World Renew is loved and supported by donations and prayer here

AND all the volunteer hours and skills invested in ministry, prayer, maintenance

Your generosity is a testimony to God’s work in you and among you.

As a congregation, you are responding to Jesus’ call.

You’re being transformed by God’s Word & Spirit.

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)