The danger of covetousness

Luke 12:13–21 “Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.””

What’s something someone else has that you wish you had?

Just have this in the back of your mind as we go through today.

Context of the man in the crowd

Luke 12:13 “Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

What is happening here? In the beginining of the chapter, there are many people gathered around him and he starts teaching to all of them to

Beware of the Hypocritical Pharisees

Don’t fear things of the world

Acknowledge Christ before men

All 3 of things which funnily sum up and (was not on purpose) last weeks sermon about you being the light in the darkness where:

Now we know what darkness is because of the light in us we are to beware, be careful of it, not associate ourselves with it

Don’t fear darkness but know that the light overcomes it (as we saw in John 1:5 “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” )

Be confident that you are the light and acknowledge to the darkness around you that you ARE the light

And so while Jesus is teaching this to the crowd, someone in the crowd said to him “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me”. What is this guy talking about ?

Now according to the law of Deuteronomy in the OT, if there was a dispute over the division of an inheritance, a judgement on this matter could be made by a rabbi who in that case who serve as what they were commonly known which was a teacher and also a lawyer.

And so Jesus is currently being asked not as a teacher (which we so commonly ascribe to be a teacher back in Jesus’ days) but as a lawyer by someone to be on his side of an argument. What is this argument?

And so again by law in Deuteronomy in the OT, the older brother receieved a double portion of the inheritance where even the father (who the assets and money belonged to) couldn’t change this apportionment.

And so what is happening here is that the one who is shouting at Jesus is the younger brother asking Jesus to get around the law and force his older brother to split the inheritance differently where he gets more instead of him getting 2/3 and the younger getting 1/3.

Lets pause here for a second - what is the guy trying to do, what is the guy thinking? He’s trying to get Jesus to be on his side for the things that he thinks are good for him and not good for him, he’s trying to get Jesus to find the battles he thinks are right and wrong in his eyes.

Whats good/right in his eyes is that he gets the inheritance 50 / 50 or even more than that like 70 / 30 or even 90 / 10.

Whats bad/wrong in his eyes is that he doesn’t get more of the inheritance that he already has.

What is wrong with this?

Exactly the same sentence - He’s trying to get Jesus to be on his side for the things that he thinks are good for him and not good for him, he’s trying to get Jesus to find the battles he thinks are right and wrong in his eyes. He’s trying to get Jesus to get what HE wants

So often we want Jesus to be on our side, and so we pray and ask him to give it to us because we want it so bad. OH I want a high mark in exam, God please give it to me, OH I want more money, please give it to me, OH I want this, that, whatever, please give it to me.

And then what happens is that when we don’t get what we prayed for / asked for we get angry and start to say “yeh alright, he doesn’t care about me”, or Jesus hates me - in fact I thank the Lord he doesn’t because that will lead me down a horrible path.

But thats not how it works, its not that Jesus is against what we think is wrong but its that we are supposed to be against what Jesus thinks is wrong. It’s NOT trying to get Jesus to be on our side for what we think is good/right in our eyes:

Thinking that if I get a high mark in my exam it’s good for me and getting a low mark is bad for me

Thinking that if I get money it’s good for me and being poor is bad for me

Thinking that whatever it is that I want it’s good for me and not having it is bad for me

But its us being with Jesus against what is bad/wrong in his eyes.

And this is but one umbrella definition, sin.

Its not Jesus with you for what you think is right for you, its you with Jesus for what he knows to be right for you.

I’m not here to fight the battles that is on your own agenda and what you think is right and not right, but I’m here to fight the battles that is on my agenda and what I think is right and not right

The warning of Jesus

And so what is Jesus’ response to the man, what will be his response to you? Is he pleased with this request, does he grant this to the person?

Luke 12:14–15 “But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.””

Jesus responds with a warning. He says be careful, watch out, beware, of what? Of covetousness which means not just the desire to have more but the excessive, greedy desire to have more and more.

Jesus knew exactly why the man was asking him to be on his side. The man was using Jesus for his own agenda, for his own desire, to fulfill what he wanted.

And so Jesus responds with discipline, with correction to this sin/desire of covetousness where if we were to continue on with our theme of what is good/right and bad/wrong:

The good is getting the thing that I want

The bad is not having the thing that I want.

And this Jesus warns us against this through a parable where the specific “want” is money but can be replaced with anything that YOU want that someone else has.

The Parable

Now before we go into the parable of Jesus I think it’s important to understand the 2 foundations NEEDED when interpreting his parables and I pray and hope that this foundation is embedded in our minds whenever we encounter Jesus’ parables again either in sermon, when you’re reading your bible or in TGIF where we actually went through it in the first week and also during our weekly quiz:

Authority / Exousia: (Split it in 2)

“Ex” means out of OR from.

When you are leaving a place, or a theatre and see the green light with white letters above a door that says exit where the greek word is exodos where the”ex” means “out” and “odos” means “a way or path”. And so this first part means out of OR from.

“Ousia” means “being”, “essence”, “substance”

And so the word Exousia means “out of being”, “out of essence”, “out of substance”.

In short, this means that when Jesus speaks with authority, he is speaking out of his being/essence/substance, where because he is God, whatever he speaks is the highest, is the truest, is the most powerful above anyone elses’ words. And so with this authority, one of the ways he speaks in parables.

Parable / Parabole: (Split in 2)

“Para” is the pre-fix and you’re familiar with it from words like a paralegal, or paramedic and the pre-fix “Para” means something that is “alongside something else”

Para-legal means a person who is alongside a lawyer and helps them out by filing some stuff, drafting up some contracts, helping out on the administration side of things

Para-medic is a person who supports a medic (doctor) to provide emergency care when the doctor is not there and support them until they get to the hospital.

The second part or what we call the “root” of the word is “bolo” which means to throw

And so to clarify his teaching that he is giving, he “throws” this parable alongside of the point he is trying to make to illustrate and support the truth that he is wanting to teach and this is in the form of explaining a story that didn’t actually happen but to show a point.

And so the main point of the parable that Jesus’ is giving to us today is pointing out is an example of what it looks like IF the man in the crowd got what he wanted, got the money he desired !

Jesus is revealing and teaching to the crowd and also to us, the characteristics of someone who we ought NOT to be. What are these characteristics?

Refusal to recognise God as the provider of everything

The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’

The first thing that this man got wrong was that he thought the crops were his and his alone

The man thought that everything that was happening in his farm was because of how well he sowed the crops, how well he watered the crops, how well he harvested the crops, how well he managed the farm.

The only person in his mind he could identify and associate as the provider of these crops was himself because in his eyes he did everything himself with no help from anyone or anything.

But is that true? By no means - Romans 11:36 “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

God is the creator of the world, everything in it, on it and around it, this means that God controls everything where some theologians use this phrase “If God is sovereign he must be in control of every single atom in every single object and being in what he has created”.

But the man failed to recognise this truth and ended up glorifying himself.

The correct response of the man should have been:

“The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, “What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store the crops God has blessed me?’

Refusal to recognise the purpose of the things that we are given

And so without the understanding that God is the provider of ALL things, what did the man do with these crops that in REALITY were given by God, but he thought was his?

“And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods

With this thinking that these crops are his, he begins to question himself, “What do I do now?, What do I do with all these crops that I have?, I’ve got so much ! Oh I know what to do break my barns and build bigger ones so I can store more and more and more and more.

Why is Jesus pointing this out as wrong? Is there anything wrong with saving?

What did we just figure out? That the crop is not the rich man’s but it is Gods BECAUSE God is the creator and provider of everything.

Now if God is the creator and provider of everything, this means that he determines the purpose of everything that he has created. And because he has created everything, this means that he determines the purpose of everything.

I like to think that there are 2 purposes in everything in the world which I classify into 2 separate classes. The primary purpose is the purpose that God’s purpose in all things which if I was to summarise it would be for righteous purposes - in other words it is everything that is not sin. The secondary purpose is the purpose of the actual thing. And so lets take the crop for example

The primary purpose of crop is to be used for God’s purposes whether that be giving it to those that need it, or eating it for yourself to sustain you in your missionary journey, or to sustain you to read the bible, sustain you to spread the gospel

The secondary purpose of the crop is to be eaten or to be traded for other things using the barter system

This is why what the rich man is doing with his crops is WRONG, he’s not using it for the primary purpose which is for God’s purpose because he is being selfish and so it doesn’t matter if he uses it for the secondary purpose or not.

Now what I want to caution here is that SAVING is not a sin, but what is a sin is using it in a sinful way just like how the rich man is - selfishness.

The correct response of the man should have been:

“And he said “I will do this; I will give to those that are in need, I will share with my neighbours and there I will share the love that Jesus has shown me to my fellow brothers and sisters”.

Acceptance of false security

And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”

And so with this purpose he ends up with the conclusion that he will feel relaxed, have lots to eat and drink and above all be happy.

The rich man thinks with all his heart and mind that by storing up these crops, it will give him security and paradise in the future. But will it really give him that? Is this what really happens if we think and act in the same way that the rich man is acting?

Jesus gives us the answer to that question as he nears the end of the parable.

Jesus’ response of “fool”

You see we have 2 parties in this parable. We have the man thinking, acting and speaking on what he wants to do, but God is the other party with exousious with authoirty says this answer:

“But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.””

Its also called the parable of the rich man but it’s also called the parable of the rich fool where it equates man and fool.

To be a fool does not mean you are unintelligent or uneducated, it doesn’t have anything to do with intelligence or how smart you are.

But a fool in biblical terms means someone who rejects God entirely, who doesn’t care about God, who willingly lives in rebellion against God.

Foolishness is the complete opposite of wisdom where wisdom in the bible is the fear of God, this MAN had no fear of God had no desire for God and so what does God say is the result?

He says “tonight”, not next year, not next month, not next week, not tomorrow, but tonight, your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?

We can imagine the man who now realises what he has done face to face with God saying, please take everything in my barns, I give everything to you, I have so much in my million barns that I have. But God says that’s already mine and now your soul is not with me but away from me in hell.

Conclusion

And Jesus concludes the parable with a message to the crowd, and to us So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.””

And so Jesus is showing him and showing us is - look at what will happen when you ask for more than what I have already given to you in your life. Jesus is pointing out what would of happened IF you had gotten what you so dearly wanted, even in your head you CANNOT SEE these things happening Jesus is saying that these things will happen

And he is calling us to not be satisified with what we have but to go a step above. To be thankful for all that God has given us and to be thankful for knowing everything about us and not letting us go towards evil and end up like the rich man in the parable.

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