Really Sharing

Wanting more

Saving money is always an interesting exercise. Of course, it is always relative to your current set of circumstances.

When you have very little money, being able to keep $1000 aside can be a big achievement.

But if you can save that amount, then once you’ve kept your bank account at that amount for a while, it then doesn’t seem like very much. That’s because you know that one big bill can wipe it out in one go.

So the saving target increases. Perhaps you try to save $10,000. Maybe enough to buy a car.

Or perhaps the aim is for a home loan so you want even more.

Perhaps it becomes easier to get more because you’re getting paid more now.

But then we notice a pattern starting to emerge. The bigger our savings account - the more we want to save.

Maybe you’ve paid off one house - well maybe we’ll save up for another.

I remember when I was a child thinking about what life must be like when you’re grown up.

I remember when I was a child thinking about what life must be like when you’re grown up.

You go through school which feels like forever when you’re in school. But then you reach the big world.

Now as this process happens, there’s also another interesting little pattern that emerges.

I then wonder what it will be like to have a real job. Or what it will be like to get married. And then I did those things.

Or perhaps I should suggest lack of pattern.

I then wondered about buying a house and having kids. Did that too.

You see, you might logically think that as an individual increases there wealth that they would naturally become more generous. The problem is, that doesn’t tend to happen - particularly if you consider it from the perspective of percentage of wealth.

As you pass each of these milestones there is a sense in which you’ve achieved something

Unfortunately, as we increase in wealth, we can start to become proud of our hard work. Our possessions become a trophy of all that effort we put in.

We might be able to give some of it away - but I hope you realise how hard I’ve worked to get that money for you.

A poor person might think they’ll be generous when they’re rich. But if you are not generous with little - the chances are, you’re not going to be very generous with much.

Now I’m going to suggest that, in part at least, what is happening in these observations is that we misunderstand the nature of our blessings.

And to be honest, that probably not that surprising given our inclination towards selfish thinking.

You see, when our focus is on ourselves, our natural tendency is towards thinking anything good that happens is our good management.

Have you noticed in politics how the government will take credit for anything good that happens, and blame someone else for anything bad that happens?

Well, it’s not just politics. We do the same as individuals. When something positive happens - wow aren’t I clever.

When something bad happens - it must have been such and such...

Now there might be some truth to that assessment. We might have worked hard for our success or had a bad turn of luck for failure.

But what if we look at it from a different perspective.

What if, your success or failure had more to do with what God is doing in your life?

What if that clever ability of yours to make a quick buck, was actually a blessing that God has given you.

What if you success as a mechanic or a teacher, or a receptionist, or whatever you may be or have been, was actually because that is the way God wired you.

In this way, even if you can rightfully argue that your success has come from hard work, it’s also true to say that your accumulated wealth is actually a blessing from God.

This morning what I want to do is to challenge our perspective on our wealth and possessions.

I want us to think about them with fresh eyes, and in particular how we should react in light of understanding this.

Love

I’m actually in the middle of a little series about our vision to love share and serve.

And when we’re talking about a fresh perspective on our wealth and possessions, love is a good place to start.

You see, it all starts with God’s love for us.

I’m going to draw out two aspects to this love.

Firstly, God’s generalised love for all of humanity, and the way he has created everything so perfectly for us to thrive.

But I’ll then consider his special love that he has shown to us, to save us from our greatest oppression - sin.

General love

But let’s first consider this general love. You see, God love for us can be seen right back in creation.

If you look at , what you see the precision that God puts into his creation. Actually, this is something that still baffles secular scientist who consider the beginning of the world. How everything is so finely tuned for human life.

But that’s what God did. He created a world where the sun shines and the rains fall. Where the seasons go in cycles and the temperature and atmosphere is just right for human habitation.

But it doesn’t just stop with creation. God remains in control of his creation, and he sets things in place for us to thrive. He gives each of us talents and abilities. And provides opportunities to use them.

This is a love that he shows to all people.

Special love

But it’s actually also a love that we don’t deserve, which brings me to the special love that he shows us.

You see, despite God’s good creation, humanity has made a big mess of it - and I’m not just talking about the environmental aspect of that. I’m actually more talking about the sin that binds us. The thing that means, though God has given us everything we need to thrive... people lie, cheat, steal, and distort... and the result is we get chaos. We gap is put between us and God.

But despite this being our own fault - God didn’t give up on us.

He provided a way - a very special way. That way was in the form of Jesus Christ. God himself, come down to Earth to be with us. And this enabled us to restore that problem of sin that so easily entangles.

Jesus died, but defeated death by raising to new life.

This is his special love for us. A love that fixes our errors and allows us more than just to enjoy the good things of this earth - but to enjoy fellowship with God himself - something that we will know fully in the age to come.

So it starts with love - and it is so very important that we understand this as we continue to think about our wealth and possessions, because what you have is a reflection of God’s love for you.

Clarification

Now just a quick clarification. In saying that your wealth and possession is a reflection of God’s love for you, what I am not saying is that the more you have the more blessed you must be. In fact, sometimes it is true that God can bless us in our very little.

So whether you have a lot or very little, what you do have should be seen as a blessing from God.

The Rich Fool

And so, with this starting point, I now want to turn to the parable that we had read for us today.

As with any parable, it is always very important to pay attention to the context in which Jesus says a parable. You see, it is very easy to take the wrong point from a parable if we’re not paying attention, and today’s parable is no exception.

The context

Well, we’re at a point in the ministry of Jesus, where he is starting to get quite a name for himself. People would have heard about some of the big miracles and they would be talking about these new ideas of his.

And so as the crowds gather they start throwing questions at him. Some of the questions prior to the point we are in today were about theological matters and trying to figure out who Jesus is.

But the question we find in is actually of a far more practical nature.

A certain individual is having a bit of a family dispute .

Family disputes are of course nothing new. In fact they go back as far as Cain and Abel in . And I dare say in every family since there has probably been a dispute on some level.

But this particular dispute is about the division of an inheritance.

This individual obviously sees Jesus as someone who is very wise and so will surely be able to talk some sense into his brother who is clearly going to be in the wrong.

I don’t know about you, but occasionally you find yourself getting drawn into somebody else’s fight and you know that there is no joy to be found in taking sides.

Well - in part, that’s kind of what Jesus seems to be thinking, replying “man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?”

The irony is, Jesus actually is our judge, but what he is saying is that the dispute fails to recognise the nature of the blessings that we receive. And for this reason, Jesus’ concern is not for figuring out this sort of dispute - his big concern is to get people to see the bigger picture. To see what is really happening. Because it is only when we open our eyes to this much bigger picture that we will begin to see how we should be living in light of the blessings we have received.

So Jesus gives a warning - “watch out! Be on your guard against all kings of greed”.

You see, he’s saying - if you’re big concern is your inheritance, there should be some big warning lights going off.

And so it is with this idea that Jesus then teaches the parable.

The parable

The parable itself is quite simple.

A rich man has an abundant harvest. And with an abundant harvest, he realises the need to store the surplus grain.

Now I want to just briefly pause here because I mentioned before about how important it is to look at the context that a parable is given, before we try to figure out what it means.

You see, it could be very easy to dive into this parable and think that it teaches against storage or savings. That is actually not the case. This parable does not teach that you should not save up, or store things away.

You see, the key is the greed of the man, and we can understand this is the key because in the prelude to the parable Jesus tells them to be on guard against all kinds of greed.

And we get a picture of his attitude particularly in verse 19.

Verse 18 could be read with the idea that he is wisely dealing with what he has. But verse 19 he says: “take life easy: eat, drink and be merry”.

Now again, I want to stress that the parable isn’t trying to say we can’t have some fun. The attitude that is in error is actually that greed and selfishness that is evident.

When life just becomes about yourself, you’ve misunderstood what God’s blessings are.

But let’s just see how the parable ends.

In verse 20, this man who has stored up everything so he can eat, drink and be merry - well… he gets a word from God - “You fool!”

“This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”

You see, when eternity is brought into perspective, the idea to store things so we can eat, drink and be merry is shown to be foolish.

You might have had fun (of a sort), for a while. But then what?

If life, and our possessions, are all about eating, drinking and being merry, then I can tell you now, that things are not going to end well.

Understanding Eternity

I’m going to suggest that understanding eternity, is actually the key to the perspective that we need to have for our wealth and possessions.

In fact, if we were to keep reading Luke’s gospel, it is eternity which takes a centre stage in the conversation that follows.

Verses 22 through to 34 keeps the immediate theme of not being worried about our possessions, but then from verse 35 through to the end of the chapter, the clear focus in on the end times - when Christ comes again and everything will be different.

You see, here’s the thing about eternity.

In Australia, the current life expectancy is about 82 years. Now if you’re lucky, you might be able to add another decade or so, but that’s about it.

I turn 40 this year. That’s getting me pretty close to half way to the average life expectancy.

I’m almost half way, but I feel like my life’s only just begun.

But for those of you who are double my age - guess what? In the scheme of things, you’re actually young too.

You see in the perspective of eternity, our life is just a blip.

From this perspective you can see how foolish it is to live with this age in mind.

Sure there is to be enjoyment and fun in this age - but there is something much bigger that we are working towards.

Understanding wealth and possession

And so, let’s bring this back to trying to get a better perspective on wealth and possessions.

I started by saying that it starts with God’s love for us. Both his general love that every person on this earth enjoys, and his special love which those who have accepted the free gift of salvation enjoy.

But when we understand that in God’s love he has provided for us, and that we have eternity to think about - well, we can deduce a much better use for our wealth and possessions.

Rather than storing them up for our own selfish desires - we can actually use them for the glory of God!

Let me just say that again because this is really the main point I want to get across this morning. Rather than storing up our wealth and possessions for our own selfish desires. We can use them to glorify God!

But how do we do that?

Well, this is where the second part of our vision statement comes in.

We share.

We can love others by sharing our wealth and possessions.

Paying it forward

I remember years ago there was a moving called Pay it Forward. The central idea was that when someone does some nice to you, instead of paying them back, you pay it forward, in other words to someone else. If the concept catches on, then the world becomes a better place.

Well, from a Christian perspective, we can pay God’s love forward.

God blesses us with stuff. We pay that blessing forward to others.

In this way we become God’s hands and feet in this world - and what better way to glorify God then that.

How are you blessing others?

So I want you to think for a moment… in what ways are you using the blessings God has given you, to bless others?

And this does not just have to be about material blessings.

Perhaps God’s given you a spirit of encouragement.

Are you blessing others by being encouraging.

Or perhaps God’s blessed you with the ability to solve problems. Are you blessing others by solving problems?

The blessing of salvation

But there is one blessing that every person who has called on the name of the Lord has - the blessing of salvation.

This is that special love I was speaking about before. A special love that is available to every person but only received by those who accept it.

If you have this blessing then you have an amazing opportunity of sharing this blessing with others. Letting others know of the beautiful thing that happens when you accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour.

You know, we sometime use a word here which can possibly make us feel uncomfortable. Evangelism.

But it’s only uncomfortable because we’ve made it into something quite artificial. But when you think of evangelism not as some strategy to get people into church, but rather as a means of sharing the blessing we’ve received, then hopefully you’ll have come some way to realise it isn’t the dirty word we’ve made it.

Now, understanding this as the ultimate blessing that we can share also helps us to see this picture of eternity that is present in this parable.

You see, we can do all sorts of things with our material possessions and our wealth. But the only real thing that matters is that treasure we are storing up for ourselves in heaven.

Investing in the love of God. Building a relationship with Him. This is what is going to make a difference.

Once we start to get this aspect right - we’ll be better situated to improve our perspective on wealth and possessions.

When we view eternity, our possessions are hardly important anymore.

What about saving

Now, before I wrap things up, I do want to clarify a few things.

This fresh perspective I’m asking for with our wealth and possessions does not mean that we need to be reckless. In fact, I believe there is a strong need for us to be good stewards of the materials blessings that God gives us.

In the same way as I mentioned last week that there are times when we need to limit our actions towards others when we might enable bad behaviours, so too when we are being generous, we need to be careful not to give in such a way that is unhelpful.

In certain circumstances, giving can be wasted. Or if you give too much, you might not have sufficient to care for your own families needs.

Saving money, when the right motives are in place, can also be a very wise way to steward the blessing God has given us.

But the point is, we need to be seeking God’s wisdom to ensure this doesn’t turn into selfishness - because believe me, it is very easy to make it all about ourselves.

Conclusion

Each of us here have our own set of circumstances. In term of material possessions, some have much, others have less.

But in terms of spiritual blessings, many here have been greatly blessed.

Whatever you blessing, it is so important that you don’t end up like the rich fool in the parable - thinking that somehow the blessings are just to be enjoyed in this life. Because there is a far bigger perspective. One which shows this life to be quite insignificant.

We need to be people that want to share this blessing.

Because a day will come when your earthly possessions will be gone. All you will have left are the treasures you have stored in heaven.

To do this, it is so important that we think less of ourselves, and more of God and others.

It is with this attitude that we as a church will become a church that really shares.

Let me pray...